diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 11251-0.txt | 18748 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/11251-8.txt | 19166 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/11251-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 450315 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/11251.txt | 19166 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/11251.zip | bin | 0 -> 450167 bytes |
8 files changed, 57096 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/11251-0.txt b/11251-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..155b256 --- /dev/null +++ b/11251-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,18748 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11251 *** + +FAMOUS REVIEWS + + +_FROM THE SAME PUBLISHERS_ + + +FAMOUS SPEECHES. First Series. From Cromwell to Gladstone. Selected and +Edited with Introductory Notes by HERBERT PAUL. In demy 8vo, cloth, 470 +pp. 7s. 6d. net. + +FAMOUS SPEECHES. Second Series. From Lord Macaulay to Lord Rosebery. +Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes by HERBERT PAUL. In demy +8vo, cloth, 398 pp. 7s. 6d. net. + +FAMOUS SERMONS BY ENGLISH PREACHERS. From the VENERABLE BEDE to H.P. +LIDDON. Edited with Historical and Biographical Notes by Canon DOUGLAS +MACLEANE, M.A. In demy 8vo, cloth gilt. 6s. net. + + + + +FAMOUS REVIEWS + +SELECTED AND EDITED + +WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES + +BY + +R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON + + + + Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, + But are not critics to their judgment too? + _Pope_. + + +LONDON + +1914 + + + +CONTENTS + +PREFACE + +OF CRITICISM AND THE CRITIC + +THE EDINBURGH REVIEW: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Edinburgh Review_ +(founded 1802) + +LORD JEFFREY ON-- [SOUTHEY'S "THALABA" + [SOUTHEY'S LAUREATE LAYS + [THOMAS MOORE + [WORDSWORTH'S "EXCURSION" + ["ENDYMION" + +LORD BROUGHAM ON BYRON + +SYDNEY SMITH ON HANNAH MORE + +MACAULAY ON-- [SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES + [CROKER'S "BOSWELL" + [W. E. GLADSTONE + [MADAME D'ARBLAY + +ANONYMOUS ON-- [WORDSWORTH + [MATURIN'S "MELMOTH" + +THE QUARTERLY REVIEW: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Quarterly Review_ +(founded 1809) + +GIFFORD ON-- [WEBER'S "FORD" + [KEATS + +CROKER ON-- [SYDNEY SMITH + [MACAULAY + +LOCKHART ON-- [THE AUTHOR OF "VATHEK" + [S. T. COLERIDGE + +SIR WALTER SCOTT ON JANE AUSTEN + +ARCHBISHOP WHATELY ON JANE AUSTEN + +W. E. GLADSTONE ON TENNYSON'S POEMS + +CANON WILBERFORCE ON--[DARWIN + [CARDINAL NEWMAN + +ANONYMOUS ON SCOTT'S--["WAVERLEY" + ["TALES OF MY LANDLORD" + +ANONYMOUS ON-- [LEIGH HUNT'S "RIMINI" + ["SHAKESPEARE HIMSELF AGAIN" + [MOXON'S SONNETS + ["VANITY FAIR" AND "JANE EYRE" + [GEORGE ELIOT + +BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _Blackwood's Magazine_ +(founded 1817) + +PROFESSOR WILSON ON--[POPE AND WORDSWORTH +(_Christopher North_) [LORD BYRON + [DR. JOHNSON + [CRUMBS FROM THE "NOCTES" + +ANONYMOUS ON-- [S. T. COLERIDGE + [THE COCKNEY SCHOOL I + [" " " III + [" " " IV + [SHELLEY'S "PROMETHEUS" + +THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Westminster Review_ +(founded 1824) + +J. S. MILL ON-- [TENNYSON'S POEMS + [MACAULAY'S "LAYS" + +JOHN STERLING ON CARLYLE + +FRASER'S MAGAZINE: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _Fraser's Magazine_ + +THACKERAY ON DICKENS'S CHRISTMAS STORIES + +CHARLES KINGSLEY ON THE LAKE POETS + +ANONYMOUS ON CHRISTMAS BOOKS, 1837 + +W. F. FOX: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Monthly Repository_ +W. F. FOX ON BROWNING'S "PAULINE" + +DE QUINCEY: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From Tail's _Edinburgh Magazine_ + +DE QUINCEY ON POPE + + + + +PREFACE + +Although regular literary organs, and the critical columns of the press, +are both of comparatively recent origin, we find that almost from the +beginning our journalists aspired to be critics as well as newsmongers. +Under Charles II, Sir Roger L'Estrange issued his _Observator_ (1681), +which was a weekly review, not a chronicle; and John Dunton's _The +Athenian Mercury_ (1690), is best described as a sort of early "Notes +and Queries." Here, as elsewhere, Defoe developed this branch of +journalism, particularly in his _Review_ (1704), and in _Mist's Journal_ +(1714). And, again, as in all other departments, his methods were not +materially improved upon until Leigh Hunt, and his brother John, started +_The Examiner_ in 1808, soon after the rise of the Reviews. Addison and +Steele, of course, had treated literary topics in _The Spectator_ or +_The Tatler_; but the serious discussion of contemporary writers began +with the Whig _Edinburgh_ of 1802 and the Tory _Quarterly_ of 1809. + +By the end of George III's reign every daily paper had its column of +book-notices; while 1817 marks an epoch in the weekly press; when +William Jerdan started _The Observator_ (parent of our _Athenaeum_) in +order to furnish (for one shilling weekly) "a clear and instructive +picture of the moral and literary improvement of the time, and a +complete and authentic chronological literary record for reference." + +Though probably there is no form of literature more widely practised, +and less organised, than the review, it would be safe to say that every +example stands somewhere between a critical essay and a publisher's +advertisement. We need not, however, consider here the many influences +which may corrupt newspaper criticism to-day, nor concern ourselves with +those legitimate "notices of books" which only aim at "telling the +story" or otherwise offering guidance for an "order from the library." + +The question remains, on which we do not propose to dogmatise, whether +the ideal of a reviewer should be critical or explanatory: whether, in +other words, he should attempt final judgment or offer comment and +analysis from which we may each form our own opinion. Probably no hard +and fast line can be drawn between the review and the essay; yet a good +volume of criticism can seldom be gleaned from periodicals. For one +thing all journalism, whether consciously or unconsciously, must contain +an appeal to the moment. The reviewer is introducing new work to his +reader, the essayist, or critic proper, may nearly always assume some +familiarity with his subject. The one hazards prophecy; the other +discusses, and illumines, a judgment already formed, if not established. +It is obvious that such reviews as Macaulay's in the _Edinburgh_ were +often permanent contributions to critical history; while, on the other +hand, many ponderous effusions of the _Quarterly_ are only interesting +as a sign of the times. + +The fame of a review, however, does not always depend on merit. The +scandalous attacks on the Cockney school, for example, were neither good +literature nor honest criticism. We still pause in wonder before the +streams of virulent personal abuse and unbridled licence in temper which +disgrace the early pages of volumes we now associate with sound and +dignified, if somewhat conventional, utterances on the art of Literature +as viewed from the table-land of authority. And, as inevitably the most +famous reviews are those which attend the birth of genius, we must +include more respectable errors of judgment, if we find also several +remarkable appreciations which prove singular insight. + +Following the "early" reviews, whether distinguished for culpable +blindness, private hostility, or rare sympathy, we must depend for our +second main source of material upon that fortunate combination of +circumstances when one of the mighty has been invited to pass judgment +upon his peers. When Scott notices Jane Austen, Macaulay James Boswell, +Gladstone and John Stuart Mill Lord Tennyson, the article acquires a +double value from author and subject. Curiously enough, as it would seem +to us in these days of advertisement, many such treasures of criticism +were published anonymously; and accident has often aided research in the +discovery of their authorship. It is only too probable that more were +written than we have yet on record. + +In reviewing, as elsewhere, the growth of professionalism has tended to +level the quality of work. The mass of thoroughly competent criticism +issued to-day has raised enormously the general tone of the press; but +genuine men of letters are seldom employed to welcome, or stifle, a +newcomer; though Meredith, and more frequently Swinburne, have on +occasion elected to pronounce judgment upon the passing generation; as +Mrs. Meynell or Mr. G.K. Chesterton have sometimes said the right thing +about their contemporaries. The days when postcard notices from +Gladstone secured a record in sales are over; and, from whatever +combination of causes, we hear no more of famous reviews. + +R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON. + + +It is with regret that I have found it impossible to print more than a +few of the following reviews complete. The writing of those days was, in +almost every case, extremely prolix, and often irrelevant. It nearly +always makes heavy reading in the originals. The _principle_ of +selection adopted is to retain the most pithy, and attractive, portion +of each article: omitting quotations and the discussion of particular +passages. It therefore becomes necessary to remark--in justice to the +writers--that most of the criticisms here quoted were accompanied by +references to what was regarded by the reviewer as evidence supporting +them. Most of the authors, or books, noticed however, are sufficiently +well known for the reader to have no difficulty in judging for himself. + +R. B. J. + + + + +OF CRITICISM AND CRITIC + + +DR. JOHNSON + +There is a certain race of men, that either imagine it their duty, or +make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of +learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and +value themselves upon giving ignorance and envy the first notice of a +prey. + +To these men, who distinguish themselves by the appellation of Critics, +it is necessary for a new author to find some means of recommendation. +It is probable, that the most malignant of these persecutors might be +somewhat softened, and prevailed on, for a short time, to remit their +fury. Having for this purpose considered many expedients, I find in the +records of ancient times, that Argus was lulled by music, and Cerberus +quieted with a sop; and am, therefore, inclined to believe that modern +critics, who, if they have not the eyes, have the watchfulness of Argus, +and can bark as loud as Cerberus, though, perhaps, they cannot bite with +equal force, might be subdued by methods of the same kind. I have heard +that some have been pacified with claret and a supper, and others laid +asleep with the soft notes of flattery.--_The Rambler_. + + +CHRISTOPHER NORTH + +I care not one single curse for all the criticism that ever was canted +or decanted, or recanted. Neither does the world. The world takes a poet +as it finds him, and seats him above or below the salt. The world is as +obstinate as a million mules, and will not turn its head on one side or +another for all the shouting of the critical population that ever was +shouted. It is very possible that the world is a bad judge. Well, then-- +appeal to posterity, and be hanged to you--and posterity will affirm the +judgment, with costs.--_Noctes Ambrosianae, Sept_., 1825. + +Our current literature teems with thought and feeling,--with passion and +imagination. There was Gifford, and there are Jeffrey, and Southey ... +and twenty--forty--fifty--other crack contributors to the Reviews, +Magazines and Gazettes, who have said more tender, and true, and fine, +and deep things in the way of criticism, than ever was said before since +the reign of Cadmus, ten thousand times over,--not in long, dull, heavy, +formal, prosy theories--but flung off-hand, out of the glowing mint--a +coinage of the purest ore--and stamped with the ineffaceable impress of +genius.--_Noctes Ambrosianae_, April, 1829. + + +The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. +EDMUND BURKE. + + +We must not underrate him who uses wit for subsistence, and flies from +the ingratitude of the age even to a bookseller for redress. +OLIVER GOLDSMITH. + + +The critical faculty is a _rara avis_; almost as rare, indeed, as the +phoenix, which appears only once in five hundred years. ARTHUR +SCHOPENHAUER. + + +The Supreme Critic ... is ... that Unity, that Oversoul, within which +every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other. +R. W. EMERSON. + + +Criticism's best spiritual work which is to keep man from a +self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarising, to lead him +towards perfection, by making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in +itself, and the absolute beauty and fitness of things. +MATTHEW ARNOLD. + + +The whole history of criticism has been a triumph of authors over +critics. +R. G. MOULTON. + + +Our criticism is disabled by the unwillingness of the critic to learn +from an author, and his readiness to mistrust him. +D. H. HOWELLS. + + +We have too many small schoolmasters; yet not only do I not question in +literature the high utility of criticism, but I should be tempted to say +that the part it plays may be the supremely beneficent one when it +proceeds from deep sources, from the efficient combination of experience +and perception. In this light one sees the critic as the real helper of +mankind, a torch-bearing outrider, the interpreter _par excellence_. +HENRY JAMES. + + + + +FAMOUS REVIEWS + + * * * * * + +THE EDINBURGH REVIEW + +"A confederacy (the word _conspiracy_ may be libellous) to defend the +worst atrocities of the French, and to cry down every author to whom +England was dear and venerable. A better spirit now prevails in the +_Edinburgh Review_ from the generosity and genius of Macaulay. But in +the days when Brougham and his confederates were writers in it, more +falsehood and more malignity marked its pages than any other journal in +the language." + + +W.S. LANDOR. + +Landor is speaking, of course, with his usual impetuosity, particularly +moved by antipathy to Lord Brougham. A fairer estimate of the "bluff and +blue" exponent of Whig principles may be obtained from our brief +estimate of Jeffrey below. His was the informing spirit, at least in its +earliest days, and that spirit would brook no divided sway. + + +FRANCIS LORD JEFFREY +(1773-1850) + +Jeffrey was editor of the _Edinburgh Review_ from its foundation in +October 10th, 1802, till June, 1829; and continued to write for it until +June, 1848. He was more patronising in his abuse than either _Blackwood_ +or the _Quarterly_, and on the whole fairer and more dignified; though +he was considerably influenced by political bias. In fact, his +judgments--though versatile--were narrow, his most marked limitations +arising from blindness to the imaginative. + +The short, vivacious figure (so low that he might pass under your chin +without ever catching the eye even for a moment, says Lockhart), was far +more impressive when familiar than at first sight. Lord Cockburn praises +his legal abilities (whether as judge or advocate) almost without +qualification; but Wilson derides his appearance in the House:--"A cold +thin voice, doling out little, quaint, metaphysical sentences with the +air of a provincial lecturer on logic and _belles-lettres_. A few good +Whigs of the old school adjourned upstairs, the Tories began to converse +_de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_, the Radicals were either snoring +or grinning, and the great gun of the north ceased firing amidst such a +hubbub of inattention, that even I was not aware of the fact for several +minutes." + +He has been called "almost a lecturer in society," and it is clear that +his difficulty always was to cease talking. Men as different as Macaulay +and Charles Dickens have spoken with deep personal affection of his +memory. + +In one of Carlyle's inimitable "pen-portraits" he is described as "a +delicate, attractive, dainty little figure, as he merely walked about, +much more if he were speaking: uncommonly bright, black eyes, instinct +with vivacity, intelligence and kindly fire; roundish brow, delicate +oval face, full, rapid expression; figure light, nimble, pretty, though +so small, perhaps hardly five feet four in height.... His voice clear, +harmonious, and sonorous, had something of metallic in it, something +almost plangent ... a strange, swift, sharp-sounding, fitful modulation, +part of it pungent, _quasi latrant_, other parts of it cooing, bantery, +lovingly quizzical, which no charm of his fine ringing voice (_metallic_ +tenor, of sweet tone), and of his vivacious rapid looks and pretty +little attitudes and gestures, could altogether reconcile you to, but in +which he persisted through good report and bad." + + * * * * * + +Perhaps Jeffrey's most famous criticism was the "This will never do" on +Wordsworth; of which Southey wrote to Scott, "Jeffrey, I hear, has +written what his friends call a _crushing_ review of the Excursion. He +might as well seat himself on Skiddaw, and fancy that he crushed the +mountain." + +It is obvious, indeed, that the Lake poets had little respect for their +"superior" reviewers; whose opinions, on the other hand, were not +subject to influences from high places. It will be noticed that Jefferey +is even more severe on Southey's Laureate "Lays" than on his "Thalaba." + +The review on Moore, quoted below, was followed by formal arrangements +for a duel at Chalk Farm on 11th August, 1806; but the police had orders +to interrupt, and pistols were loaded with paper. Even the semblance of +animosity was not maintained, as we find Moore contributing to the +_Edinburgh_ before the end of the same year. + +We fear that the appreciation of Keats was partly influenced by +political considerations; since Leigh Hunt had so emphatically welcomed +him into the camp. It remains, however, a pleasing contrast to the +ferocious onslaught on _Endymion_ of Gifford printed below. + + +HENRY LORD BROUGHAM +(1779-1868) + +Brougham was intimately associated with Jeffrey in the foundation of the +_Edinburgh Review_: he is said to have written eighty articles in the +first twenty numbers, though like all his work, the criticism was spoilt +by egotism and vanity. The fact is that an over-brilliant versatility +injured his work. Combining "in his own person the characters of Solon, +Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Chesterfield, +and a great many more," his restless genius accomplished nothing +substantial or sound. His writing was far less careful than his oratory. +A man from whom almost everything was expected, and who was always +before the eye of the public; he has been described as "the God of +Whiggish idolatry," and as "impossible" in society. Harriet Martineau is +unsparing in her criticism of his manners and language; and evidently he +was an inveterate swearer. His enthusiasm for noble causes was +infectious; only, as Coleridge happily expressed it, "because his heart +was placed in what should have been his head, you were never sure of +him--you always doubted his sincerity." + +In the Opposition and at the Bar this eloquent energy had full scope, +"but as Lord Chancellor his selfish disloyalty offended his colleagues +while," as O'Connell remarked, "If Brougham knew a little of Law, he +would know a little of everything." Unquestionably his obvious failings +obscured his real eminence, and even hinder us, to-day, from doing full +justice to his memory. + + * * * * * + +It was the following, somewhat heavy-handed, review which inspired the +_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, with all its "extraordinary powers +of malicious statement"--truly a Roland for his Oliver. + + +SYDNEY SMITH +(1771-1845) + +The third founder of the _Edinburgh_ and one of its most aggressive +reviewers, until March, 1827, Sydney Smith has been described as "most +provokingly and audaciously personal in his strictures.... He was too +complacent, too aboundingly self-satisfied, too buoyantly full of +spirits, to hate anybody; but he burlesques them, derides them, and +abuses them with the most exasperating effrontery--in a way that is +great fun to the reader, but exquisite torture to the victim." At the +same time, his wit was always governed by commonsense (its most +prevailing distinction); and, though almost unique among humorists for +his personal gaiety, "his best work was done in promoting practical +ends, and his wit in its airiest gambols never escaped his control." +There was, in fact, considerable independence--and even courage--in his +seriously inspired attacks on various abuses, and on every form of +affectation and cant. Though his manners and conversation were not +precisely those we generally associate with the Cloth, Sydney Smith +published several volumes of sermons, and always accepted the +responsibilities of his position as a clergyman with becoming industry. +Croker's veiled sarcasm in the _Quarterly_ (printed below) was no more +bitter, or truthful, than similar utterances on any Whig. + + * * * * * + +We know little to-day of-- + + The sacred dramas of Miss Hannah More + Where Moses and the little muses snore, + +but, in her own day, she was flattered in society and a real influence +among the serious-minded. She understood the poor and gave them +practical advice. Sydney Smith, of course, would be in sympathy with her +"good works," but could not resist his joke. + + +THOMAS BABINGTON LORD MACAULAY +(1800-1859) + +To quote one of his own favourite expressions, "every schoolboy knows" +the outlines of Macaulay's life and work. We have recited the Lays, +probably read some of the History, possibly even heard of his eloquent +and unmeasured attacks on those whose literary work incurred his +displeasure. We know that his memory was phenomenal, if his statements +were not always accurate. The biographers tell us further that no one +could be more simple in private life, or more devoted to his own family: +his nephews and nieces having no idea that their favourite "Uncle Tom" +was a great man. Criticism, of course, is by no means so unanimous. Mr. +Augustine Birrell has wittily remarked that his "style is ineffectual +for the purpose of telling the truth about anything"; and James Thomson +epitomised his political bias in a biting paragraph:--"Macaulay, +historiographer in chief to the Whigs, and the great prophet of Whiggery +which never had or will have a prophet, vehemently judged that a man who +could pass over from the celestial Whigs to the infernal Tories must be +a traitor false as Judas, an apostate black as the Devil." Always a boy +at heart, and singularly careless of his appearance, Macaulay was so +phenomenally successful in every direction that envy may account for +most personal criticism not inspired by recognised opponents. Those who +called him a bore were most probably over-sensitive about their own +inability to hold up against arguments, or opinions, they longed to +combat. + +He was a student at Lincoln's Inn when the brilliant article on the +translation of a newly-found treatise by Milton on _Christian Doctrine_ +appeared in the _Edinburgh_ (1825), and inaugurated a new power in +English prose. Macaulay himself declared that it was "overloaded with +gaudy and ungraceful argument"; but it secured his literary reputation +and determined much of his career. He became an influence on the +_Edinburgh_, probably somewhat modifying its whole tone, and generally +identified with its reputation. "The son of a Saint," says Christopher +North, "who seems himself to be something of a reviewer, is insidious as +the serpent, but fangless, as the glow worm"; and the Tory press were, +naturally, up in arms against the champion critic of their pet +prodigies. + + * * * * * + +_Southey_ received, as we must now admit, more than his fair share of +abuse from the Liberal press, for the comfortable conservatism of his +maturity; and Macaulay did not love the Laureate. We note that +_Blackwood's_ defended him with spirit, and Wilson's protracted, and +furious, attack on Macaulay for this particular review may be found in +the _Nodes Ambrosianae_, April, 1830. + +_Croker_, in all probability, deserved much of the scorn here poured +upon his editorial labour (though it _had_ merits which his critic +deliberately ignores); Wilson, again _(Noctes Ambrosianae,_ November, +1831), examines, and professes to confute, almost every criticism in the +review. Croker himself found a convenient occasion for revenge in his +review of Macaulay's History printed below. + +The interesting recognition of _Gladstone_ awakes pleasanter sentiments; +especially when we notice the return compliment (in the same +_Quarterly_, but twenty-seven years later than Croker's attack) of the +statesman's generous tribute. "Macaulay," says Gladstone, "was +singularly free of vices ... one point only we reserve, a certain tinge +of occasional vindictiveness. Was he envious? Never. Was he servile? No. +Was he insolent? No.... Was he idle? The question is ridiculous. Was he +false? No; but true as steel and transparent as crystal. Was he vain? We +hold that he was not. At every point in the ugly list he stands the +trial." + + * * * * * + +ANONYMOUS + +This earlier notice of Wordsworth is certainly in exact sympathy with +Jeffrey on the Excursion, and may very well have come from the same pen. +At any rate, it introduces the Edinburgh attitude towards the Lakers. + +The criticism of Maturin has all the tone of moral authority which +provoked many readers of the Review, and was, probably, in part +responsible for the less "measured" attitude adopted by the _Quarterly_. + + + + +LORD JEFFREY ON SOUTHEY'S "THALABA" + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, October, 1802] + +_Thalaba, the Destroyer: A Metrical Romance_. By ROBERT SOUTHEY. 2 vols. +12 mo. London. + +Poetry has this much, at least, in common with religion, that its +standards were fixed long ago, by certain inspired writers, whose +authority it is no longer lawful to call in question; and that many +profess to be entirely devoted to it, who have no _good works_ to +produce in support of their pretensions. The catholic poetical church, +too, has worked but few miracles since the first ages of its +establishment; and has been more prolific, for a long time, of Doctors, +than of Saints: it has had its corruptions and reformation also, and has +given birth to an infinite variety of heresies and errors, the followers +of which have hated and persecuted each other as cordially as other +bigots. + +The author who is now before us, belongs to a _sect_ of poets, that has +established itself in this country within these ten or twelve years, and +is looked upon, we believe, as one of its chief champions and apostles. +The peculiar doctrines of this sect, it would not, perhaps, be very easy +to explain; but, that they are _dissenters_ from the established systems +in poetry and criticism, is admitted, and proved indeed, by the whole +tenor of their compositions. Though they lay claim, we believe, to a +creed and a revelation of their own, there can be little doubt, that +their doctrines are of _German_ origin, and have been derived from some +of the great modern reformers in that country. Some of their leading +principles, indeed, are probably of an earlier date, and seem to have +been borrowed from the great apostle of Geneva. As Mr. Southey is the +first author, of this persuasion, that has yet been brought before us +for judgment, we cannot discharge our inquisitorial office +conscientiously, without premising a few words upon the nature and +tendency of the tenets he has helped to promulgate. + +The disciples of this school boast much of its originality, and seem to +value themselves very highly, for having broken loose from the bondage +of ancient authority, and re-asserted the independence of genius. +Originality, however, we are persuaded, is rarer than mere alteration; +and a man may change a good master for a bad one, without finding +himself at all nearer to independence. That our new poets have abandoned +the old models, may certainly be admitted; but we have not been able to +discover that they have yet created any models of their own; and are +very much inclined to call in question the worthiness of those to which +they have transferred their admiration. The productions of this school, +we conceive, are so far from being entitled to the praise of +originality, that they cannot be better characterised, than by an +enumeration of the sources from which their materials have been derived. +The greater part of them, we apprehend, will be found to be composed of +the following elements: (1) The antisocial principles, and distempered +sensibility of Rousseau--his discontent with the present constitution of +society--his paradoxical morality, and his perpetual hankerings after +some unattainable state of voluptuous virtue and perfection. (2) The +simplicity and energy (_horresco referens_) of Kotzebue and Schiller. +(3) The homeliness and harshness of some of Cowper's language and +versification, interchanged occasionally with the _innocence_ of Ambrose +Philips, or the quaintness of Quarles and Dr. Donne. From the diligent +study of these few originals, we have no doubt that an entire art of +poetry may be collected, by the assistance of which, the very _gentlest_ +of our readers may soon be qualified to compose a poem as correctly +versified as Thalaba, and to deal out sentiment and description, with +all the sweetness of Lamb, and all the magnificence of Coleridge. + +The authors, of whom we are now speaking, have, among them, +unquestionably, a very considerable portion of poetical talent, and +have, consequently, been enabled to seduce many into an admiration of +the false taste (as it appears to us) in which most of their productions +are composed. They constitute, at present, the most formidable +conspiracy that has lately been formed against sound judgment in matters +poetical; and are entitled to a larger share of our censorial notice, +than could be spared for an individual delinquent. We shall hope for the +indulgence of our readers, therefore, in taking this opportunity to +inquire a little more particularly into their merits, and to make a few +remarks upon those peculiarities which seem to be regarded by their +admirers as the surest proofs of their excellence. + +Their most distinguishing symbol, is undoubtedly an affectation of great +simplicity and familiarity of language. They disdain to make use of the +common poetical phraseology, or to ennoble their diction by a selection +of fine or dignified expressions. There would be too much _art_ in this, +for that great love of nature with which they are all of them inspired; +and their sentiments, they are determined shall be indebted, for their +effect, to nothing but their intrinsic tenderness or elevation. There is +something very noble and conscientious, we will confess, in this plan of +composition; but the misfortune is, that there are passages in all +poems, that can neither be pathetic nor sublime; and that, on these +occasions, a neglect of the embellishments of language is very apt to +produce absolute meanness and insipidity. The language of passion, +indeed, can scarcely be deficient in elevation; and when an author is +wanting in that particular, he may commonly be presumed to have failed +in the truth, as well as in the dignity of his expression. The case, +however, is extremely different with the subordinate parts of a +composition; with the narrative and description, that are necessary to +preserve its connection; and the explanation, that must frequently +prepare us for the great scenes and splendid passages. In these, all the +requisite ideas may be conveyed, with sufficient clearness, by the +meanest and most negligent expressions; and if magnificence or beauty is +ever to be observed in them, it must have been introduced from some +other motive than that of adapting the style to the subject. It is in +such passages, accordingly, that we are most frequently offended with +low and inelegant expressions; and that the language, which was intended +to be simple and natural, is found oftenest to degenerate into mere +slovenliness and vulgarity. It is in vain, too, to expect that the +meanness of those parts may be redeemed by the excellence of others. A +poet, who aims at all at sublimity or pathos, is like an actor in a high +tragic character, and must sustain his dignity throughout, or become +altogether ridiculous. We are apt enough to laugh at the mock-majesty of +those whom we know to be but common mortals in private; and cannot +permit Hamlet to make use of a single provincial intonation, although it +should only be in his conversation with the grave-diggers. + +The followers of simplicity are, therefore, at all times in danger of +occasional degradation; but the simplicity of this new school seems +intended to ensure it. _Their_ simplicity does not consist, by any +means, in the rejection of glaring or superfluous ornament--in the +substitution of elegance to splendour, or in that refinement of art +which seeks concealment in its own perfection. It consists, on the +contrary, in a very great degree, in the positive and _bonĂ¢ fide_ +rejection of art altogether, and in the bold use of those rude and +negligent expressions, which would be banished by a little +discrimination. One of their own authors, indeed, has very ingeniously +set forth (in a kind of manifesto that preceded one of their most +flagrant acts of hostility), that it was their capital object "to adapt +to the uses of poetry, the ordinary language of conversation among the +middling and lower orders of the people." What advantages are to be +gained by the success of this project, we confess ourselves unable to +conjecture. The language of the higher and more cultivated orders may +fairly be presumed to be better than that of their inferiors: at any +rate, it has all those associations in its favour, by means of which, a +style can ever appear beautiful or exalted, and is adapted to the +purposes of poetry, by having been long consecrated to its use. The +language of the vulgar, on the other hand, has all the opposite +associations to contend with; and must seem unfit for poetry (if there +were no other reason), merely because it has scarcely ever been employed +in it. A great genius may indeed overcome these disadvantages; but we +can scarcely conceive that he should court them. We may excuse a certain +homeliness of language in the productions of a ploughman or a milkwoman; +but we cannot bring ourselves to admire it in an author, who has had +occasion to indite odes to his college bell, and inscribe hymns to the +Penates. + +But the mischief of this new system is not confined to the depravation +of language only; it extends to the sentiments and emotions, and leads +to the debasement of all those feelings which poetry is designed to +communicate. It is absurd to suppose, that an author should make use of +the language of the vulgar, to express the sentiments of the refined. +His professed object, in employing that language, is to bring his +compositions nearer to the true standard of nature; and his intention to +copy the sentiments of the lower orders, is implied in his resolution to +make use of their style. Now, the different classes of society have each +of them a distinct character, as well as a separate idiom; and the names +of the various passions to which they are subject respectively, have a +signification that varies essentially according to the condition of the +persons to whom they are applied. The love, or grief, or indignation of +an enlightened and refined character, is not only expressed in a +different language, but is in itself a different emotion from the love, +or grief, or anger, of a clown, a tradesman, or a market-wench. The +things themselves are radically and obviously distinct; and the +representation of them is calculated to convey a very different train of +sympathies and sensations to the mind. The question, therefore, comes +simply to be--which of them is the most proper object for poetical +imitation? It is needless for us to answer a question, which the +practice of all the world has long ago decided irrevocably. The poor and +vulgar may interest us, in poetry, by their _situation_; but never, we +apprehend, by any sentiments that are peculiar to their condition, and +still less by any language that is characteristic of it. The truth is, +that it is impossible to copy their diction or their sentiments +correctly, in a serious composition; and this, not merely because +poverty makes men ridiculous, but because just taste and refined +sentiment are rarely to be met with among the uncultivated part of +mankind; and a language, fitted for their expression, can still more +rarely form any part of their "ordinary conversation." + +The low-bred heroes, and interesting rustics of poetry, have no sort of +affinity to the real vulgar of this world; they are imaginary beings, +whose characters and language are in contrast with their situation; and +please those who can be pleased with them, by the marvellous, and not by +the nature of such a combination. In serious poetry, a man of the +middling or lower order _must necessarily_ lay aside a great deal of his +ordinary language; he must avoid errors in grammar and orthography; and +steer clear of the cant of particular professions, and of every +impropriety that is ludicrous or disgusting: nay, he must speak in good +verse, and observe all the graces in prosody and collocation. After all +this, it may not be very easy to say how we are to find him out to be a +low man, or what marks can remain of the ordinary language of +conversation in the inferior orders of society. If there be any phrases +that are not used in good society, they will appear as blemishes in the +composition, no less palpably, than errors in syntax or quality; and, if +there be no such phrases, the style cannot be characteristic of that +condition of life, the language of which it professes to have adopted. +All approximation to that language, in the same manner, implies a +deviation from that purity and precision, which no one, we believe, ever +violated spontaneously. + +It has been argued, indeed (for men will argue in support of what they +do not venture to practise), that as the middling and lower orders of +society constitute by far the greater part of mankind, so, their +feelings and expressions should interest more extensively, and may be +taken, more fairly than any other, for the standards of what is natural +and true. To this it seems obvious to answer, that the arts that aim at +exciting admiration and delight, do not take their models from what is +ordinary, but from what is excellent; and that our interest in the +representation of any event, does not depend upon our familiarity with +the original, but on its intrinsic importance, and the celebrity of the +parties it concerns. The sculptor employs his art in delineating the +graces of Antinous or Apollo, and not in the representation of those +ordinary forms that belong to the crowd of his admirers. When a +chieftain perishes in battle, his followers mourn more for him, than for +thousands of their equals that may have fallen around him. + +After all, it must be admitted, that there is a class of persons (we are +afraid they cannot be called _readers_), to whom the representation of +vulgar manners, in vulgar language, will afford much entertainment. We +are afraid, however, that the ingenious writers who supply the hawkers +and ballad-singers, have very nearly monopolised that department, and +are probably better qualified to hit the taste of their customers, than +Mr. Southey, or any of his brethren, can yet pretend to be. To fit them +for the higher task of original composition, it would not be amiss if +they were to undertake a translation of Pope or Milton into the vulgar +tongue, for the benefit of those children of nature. + +There is another disagreeable effect of this affected simplicity, which, +though of less importance than those which have been already noticed, it +may yet be worth while to mention: This is, the extreme difficulty of +supporting the same low tone of expression throughout, and the +inequality that is consequently introduced into the texture of the +composition. To an author of reading and education, it is a style that +must always be assumed and unnatural, and one from which he will be +perpetually tempted to deviate. He will rise, therefore, every now and +then, above the level to which he has professedly degraded himself; and +make amends for that transgression, by a fresh effort of descension. His +composition, in short, will be like that of a person who is attempting +to speak in an obsolete or provincial dialect; he will betray himself by +expressions of occasional purity and elegance, and exert himself to +efface that impression, by passages of unnatural meanness or absurdity. + +In making these strictures on the perverted taste for simplicity, that +seems to distinguish our modern school of poetry, we have no particular +allusion to Mr. Southey, or the production now before us: On the +contrary, he appears to us, to be less addicted to this fault than most +of his fraternity; and if we were in want of examples to illustrate the +preceding observations, we should certainly look for them in the +effusions of that poet who commemorates, with so much effect, the +chattering of Harry Gill's teeth, tells the tale of the one-eyed +huntsman "who had a cheek like a cherry," and beautifully warns his +studious friend of the risk he ran of "growing double." + + * * * * * + +The _style_ of our modern poets, is that, no doubt, by which they are +most easily distinguished: but their genius has also an internal +character; and the peculiarities of their taste may be discovered, +without the assistance of their diction. Next after great familiarity of +language, there is nothing that appears to them so meritorious as +perpetual exaggeration of thought. There must be nothing moderate, +natural, or easy, about their sentiments. There must be a "qu'il +mourut," and a "let there be light," in every line; and all their +characters must be in agonies and ecstasies, from their entrance to +their exit. To those who are acquainted with their productions, it is +needless to speak of the fatigue that is produced by this unceasing +summons to admiration, or of the compassion which is excited by the +spectacle of these eternal strainings and distortions. Those authors +appear to forget, that a whole poem cannot be made up of striking +passages; and that the sensations produced by sublimity, are never so +powerful and entire, as when they are allowed to subside and revive, in +a slow and spontaneous succession. It is delightful, now and then, to +meet with a rugged mountain, or a roaring stream; but where there is no +funny slope, nor shaded plain, to relieve them--where all is beetling +cliff and yawning abyss, and the landscape presents nothing on every +side but prodigies and terrors--the head is apt to gow giddy, and the +heart to languish for the repose and security of a less elevated region. + +The effect even of genuine sublimity, therefore, is impaired by the +injudicious frequency of its exhibition, and the omission of those +intervals and breathing-places, at which the mind should be permitted to +recover from its perturbation or astonishment: but, where it has been +summoned upon a false alarm, and disturbed in the orderly course of its +attention, by an impotent attempt at elevation, the consequences are +still more disastrous. There is nothing so ridiculous (at least for a +poet) as to fail in great attempts. If the reader foresaw the failure, +he may receive some degree of mischievous satisfaction from its punctual +occurrence; if he did not, he will be vexed and disappointed; and, in +both cases, he will very speedily be disgusted and fatigued. It would be +going too far, certainly, to maintain, that our modern poets have never +succeeded in their persevering endeavours at elevation and emphasis; but +it is a melancholy fact, that their successes bear but a small +proportion to their miscarriages; and that the reader who has been +promised an energetic sentiment, or sublime allusion, must often be +contented with a very miserable substitute. Of the many contrivances +they employ to give the appearance of uncommon force and animation to a +very ordinary conception, the most usual is, to wrap it up in a veil of +mysterious and unintelligible language, which flows past with so much +solemnity, that it is difficult to believe it conveys nothing of any +value. Another device for improving the effect of a cold idea, is, to +embody it in a verse of unusual harshness and asperity. Compound words, +too, of a portentous sound and conformation, are very useful in giving +an air of energy and originality; and a few lines of scripture, written +out into verse from the original prose, have been found to have a very +happy effect upon those readers to whom they have the recommendation of +novelty. + +The qualities of style and imagery, however, form but a small part of +the characteristics by which a literary faction is to be distinguished. +The subject and object of their compositions, and the principles and +opinions they are calculated to support, constitute a far more important +criterion, and one to which it is usually altogether as easy to refer. +Some poets are sufficiently described as the flatterers of greatness and +power, and others as the champions of independence. One set of writers +is known by its antipathy to decency and religion; another, by its +methodistical cant and intolerance. Our new school of poetry has a moral +character also; though it may not be possible, perhaps, to delineate it +quite so concisely. + +A splenetic and idle discontent with the existing institutions of +society, seems to be at the bottom of all their serious and peculiar +sentiments. Instead of contemplating the wonders and the pleasures which +civilization has created for mankind, they are perpetually brooding over +the disorders by which its progress has been attended. They are filled +with horror and compassion at the sight of poor men spending their blood +in the quarrels of princes, and brutifying their sublime capabilities in +the drudgery of unremitting labour. For all sorts of vice and profligacy +in the lower orders of society, they have the same virtuous horror, and +the same tender compassion. While the existence of these offences +overpowers them with grief and confusion, they never permit themselves +to feel the smallest indignation or dislike towards the offenders. The +present vicious constitution of society alone is responsible for all +these enormities: the poor sinners are but the helpless victims or +instruments of its disorders, and could not possibly have avoided the +errors into which they have been betrayed. Though they can bear with +crimes, therefore, they cannot reconcile themselves to punishments; and +have an unconquerable antipathy to prisons, gibbets, and houses of +correction, as engines of oppression, and instruments of atrocious +injustice. While the plea of moral necessity is thus artfully brought +forward to convert all the excesses of the poor into innocent +misfortunes, no sort of indulgence is shown to the offences of the +powerful and rich. Their oppressions, and seductions, and debaucheries, +are the theme of many an angry verse; and the indignation and abhorrence +of the reader is relentlessly conjured up against those perturbators of +society, and scourges of mankind. + +It is not easy to say, whether the fundamental absurdity of this +doctrine, or the partiality of its application, be entitled to the +severest reprehension. If men are driven to commit crimes, through a +certain moral necessity; other men are compelled, by a similar +necessity, to hate and despise them for their commission. The +indignation of the sufferer is at least as natural as the guilt of him +who makes him suffer; and the good order of society would probably be as +well preserved, if our sympathies were sometimes called forth in behalf +of the former. At all events, the same apology ought certainly to be +admitted for the wealthy, as for the needy offender. They are subject +alike to the overruling influence of necessity, and equally affected by +the miserable condition of society. If it be natural for a poor man to +murder and rob, in order to make himself comfortable, it is no less +natural for a rich man to gormandise and domineer, in order to have the +full use of his riches. Wealth is just as valid an excuse for the one +class of vices, as indigence is for the other. There are many other +peculiarities of false sentiment in the productions of this class of +writers, that are sufficiently deserving of commemoration; but we have +already exceeded our limits in giving these general indications of their +character, and must now hasten back to the consideration of the singular +performance which has given occasion to all this discussion. + +The first thing that strikes the reader of Thalaba, is the singular +structure of the versification, which is a jumble of all the measures +that are known in English poetry (and a few more), without rhyme, and +without any sort of regularity in their arrangement. Blank odes have +been known in this country about as long as English sapphics and +dactylics; and both have been considered, we believe, as a species of +monsters, or exotics, that were not very likely to propagate, or thrive, +in so unpropitious a climate. Mr. Southey, however, has made a vigorous +effort for their naturalisation, and generously endangered his own +reputation in their behalf. The melancholy fate of his English sapphics, +we believe, is but too generally known; and we can scarcely predict a +more favourable issue to the present experiment. Every combination of +different measures is apt to perplex and disturb the reader who is not +familiar with it; and we are never reconciled to a stanza of a new +structure, till we have accustomed our ear to it by two or three +repetitions. This is the case, even where we have the assistance of +rhyme to direct us in our search after regularity, and where the +definite form and appearance of a stanza assures us that regularity is +to be found. Where both of these are wanting, it may be imagined that +our condition will be still more deplorable; and a compassionate author +might even excuse us, if we were unable to distinguish this kind of +verse from prose. In reading verse, in general, we are guided to the +discovery of its melody, by a sort of preconception of its cadence and +compass; without which, it might often fail to be suggested by the mere +articulation of the syllables. If there be any one, whose recollection +does not furnish him with evidence of this fact, he may put it to the +test of experiment, by desiring any of his illiterate acquaintances to +read off some of Mr. Southey's dactylics, or Sir Philip Sidney's +hexameters. It is the same thing with the more unusual measures of the +ancient authors. We have never known any one who fell in, at the first +trial, with the proper rhyme and cadence of the _pervigilium Veneris_, +or the choral lyrics of the Greek dramatists. The difficulty, however, +is virtually the same, as to every new combination; and it is an +unsurmountable difficulty, where such new combinations are not repeated +with any degree of uniformity, but are multiplied, through the whole +composition, with an unbounded licence of variation. Such, however, is +confessedly the case with the work before us; and it really seems +unnecessary to make any other remark on its versification. + +The author, however, entertains a different opinion of it. So far from +apprehending that it may cost his readers some trouble to convince +themselves that the greater part of the book is not mere prose, written +out into the form of verse, he is persuaded that its melody is more +obvious and perceptible than that of our vulgar measures. "One +advantage," says Mr. Southey, "this metre _assuredly_ possesses; the +dullest reader cannot distort it into discord: he may read it with a +_prose mouth_, but its flow and fall will still be perceptible." We are +afraid, there are duller readers in the world than Mr. Southey is aware +of. + + * * * * * + +The subject of this poem is almost as ill chosen as the diction; and the +conduct of the fable as disorderly as the versification. The corporation +of magicians, that inhabit "the Domdaniel caverns, under the roots of +the ocean," had discovered, that a terrible _destroyer_ was likely to +rise up against them from the seed of Hodeirah, a worthy Arab, with +eight fine children. Immediately the murder of all those innocents is +resolved on; and a sturdy assassin sent with instructions to destroy the +whole family (as Mr. Southey has it) "root and branch." The good man, +accordingly, and seven of his children, are dispatched; but a cloud +comes over the mother and the remaining child; and the poem opens with +the picture of the widow and her orphan wandering, by night, over the +desarts of Arabia. The old lady, indeed, might as well have fallen under +the dagger of the Domdanielite; for she dies, without doing anything for +her child, in the end of the first book; and little Thalaba is left +crying in the wilderness. Here he is picked up by a good old Arab, who +takes him home, and educates him like a pious mussulman; and he and the +old man's daughter fall in love with each other, according to the +invariable custom in all such cases. The magicians, in the meantime, are +hunting him over the face of the whole earth; and one of them gets near +enough to draw his dagger to stab him, when a providential _simoom_ lays +him dead on the sand. From the dead sorcerer's finger, Thalaba takes a +ring, inscribed with some unintelligible characters, which he is enabled +to interpret by the help of some other unintelligible characters that he +finds on the forehead of a locust; and soon after takes advantage of an +eclipse of the sun, to set out on his expedition against his father's +murderers, whom he understands (we do not very well know how) he has +been commissioned to exterminate. Though they are thus seeking him, and +he seeking them, it is amazing what difficulty they find in meeting: +they do meet, however, every now and then, and many sore evils does the +Destroyer suffer at their hands. By faith and fortitude, however, and +the occasional assistance of the magic implements he strips them of, he +is enabled to baffle and elude their malice, till he is conducted, at +last, to the Domdaniel cavern, where he finds them assembled, and pulls +down the roof of it upon their heads and his own; perishing, like +Samson, in the final destruction of his enemies. + +From this little sketch of the story, our readers will easily perceive, +that it consists altogether of the most wild and extravagant fictions, +and openly sets nature and probability at defiance. In its action, it is +not an imitation of anything; and excludes all rational criticism, as to +the choice and succession of its incidents. Tales of this sort may amuse +children, and interest, for a moment, by the prodigies they exhibit, and +the multitude of events they bring together: but the interest expires +with the novelty; and attention is frequently exhausted, even before +curiosity has been gratified. The pleasure afforded by performances of +this sort, is very much akin to that which may be derived from the +exhibition of a harlequin farce; where, instead of just imitations of +nature and human character, we are entertained with the transformation +of cauliflowers and beer-barrels, the apparition of ghosts and devils, +and all the other magic of the wooden sword. Those who can prefer this +eternal sorcery, to the just and modest representation of human actions +and passions, will probably take more delight in walking among the holly +griffins, and yew sphinxes of the city gardener, than in ranging among +the groves and lawns which have been laid out by a hand that feared to +violate nature, as much as it aspired to embellish her; and disdained +the easy art of startling by novelties, and surprising by impropriety. + +Supernatural beings, though easily enough raised, are known to be very +troublesome in the management, and have frequently occasioned much +perplexity to poets and other persons who have been rash enough to call +for their assistance. It is no very easy matter to preserve consistency +in the disposal of powers, with the limits of which we are so far from +being familiar; and when it is necessary to represent our spiritual +persons as ignorant, or suffering, we are very apt to forget the +knowledge and the powers with which we had formerly invested them. The +ancient poets had several unlucky rencounters of this sort with Destiny +and the other deities; and Milton himself is not a little hampered with +the material and immaterial qualities of his angels. Enchanters and +witches may, at first sight, appear more manageable; but Mr. Southey has +had difficulty enough with them; and cannot be said, after all, to have +kept his fable quite clear and intelligible. The stars had said, that +the Destroyer might be cut off in that hour when his father and brethren +were assassinated; yet he is saved by a special interposition of heaven. +Heaven itself, however, had destined him to extirpate the votaries of +Eblis; and yet, long before this work is done, a special message is sent +to him, declaring, that, if he chooses, the death-angel is ready to take +him away instead of the sorcerer's daughter. In the beginning of the +story, too, the magicians are quite at a loss where to look for him; and +Abdaldar only discovers him by accident, after a long search; yet, no +sooner does he leave the old Arab's tent, than Lobaba comes up to him, +disguised and prepared for his destruction. The witches have also a +decoy ready for him in the desart; yet he sups with Okba's daughter, +without any of the sorcerers being aware of it; and afterwards proceeds +to consult the simorg, without meeting with any obstacle or molestation. +The simoom kills Abdaldar, too, in spite of that ring which afterwards +protects Thalaba from lightning, and violence, and magic. The +Destroyer's arrow then falls blunted from Lobaba's breast, who is +knocked down, however, by a shower of sand of his own raising; and this +same arrow, which could make no impression on the sorcerer, kills the +magic bird of Aloadin, and pierces the rebellious _spirit_ that guarded +the Domdaniel door. The whole infernal band, indeed, is very feebly and +heavily pourtrayed. They are a set of stupid, undignified, miserable +wretches, quarrelling with each other, and trembling in the prospect of +inevitable destruction. None of them even appears to have obtained the +price of their self-sacrifice in worldly honours and advancement, except +Mohareb; and he, though assured by destiny that there was one death-blow +appointed for him and Thalaba, is yet represented, in the concluding +scene, as engaged with him in furious combat, and aiming many a deadly +blow at that life on which his own was dependent. If the innocent +characters in this poem were not delineated with more truth and feeling, +the notoriety of the author would scarcely have induced us to bestow so +much time on its examination. + +Though the tissue of adventures through which Thalaba is conducted in +the course of this production, be sufficiently various and +extraordinary, we must not set down any part of the incidents to the +credit of the author's invention. He has taken great pains, indeed, to +guard against such a supposition; and has been as scrupulously correct +in the citation of his authorities, as if he were the compiler of a true +history, and thought his reputation would be ruined by the imputation of +a single fiction. There is not a prodigy, accordingly, or a description, +for which he does not fairly produce his vouchers, and generally lays +before his readers the whole original passage from which his imitation +has been taken. In this way, it turns out, that the book is entirely +composed of scraps, borrowed from the oriental tale books, and travels +into the Mahometan countries, seasoned up for the English reader with +some fragments of our own ballads, and shreds of our older sermons. The +composition and harmony of the work, accordingly, is much like the +pattern of that patch-work drapery that is sometimes to be met with in +the mansions of the industrious, where a blue tree overshadows a +shell-fish, and a gigantic butterfly seems ready to swallow up Palemon +and Lavinia. The author has the merit merely of cutting out each of his +figures from the piece where its inventor had placed it, and stitching +them down together in these judicious combinations. + +It is impossible to peruse this poem, with the notes, without feeling +that it is the fruit of much reading, undertaken for the express purpose +of fabricating some such performance. The author has set out with a +resolution to make an oriental story, and a determination to find the +materials of it in the books to which he had access. Every incident, +therefore, and description--every superstitious usage, or singular +tradition, that appeared to him susceptible of poetical embellishment, +or capable of picturesque representation, he has set down for this +purpose, and adopted such a fable and plan of composition, as might +enable him to work up all his materials, and interweave every one of his +quotations, without any _extraordinary_ violation of unity or order. +When he had filled his common-place book, he began to write; and his +poem is little else than his common-place book versified. + +It may easily be imagined, that a poem constructed upon such a plan, +must be full of cumbrous and misplaced description, and overloaded with +a crowd of incidents equally unmeaning and ill assorted. The tedious +account of the palace of Shedad, in the first book--the description of +the Summer and Winter occupations of the Arabs, in the third--the +ill-told story of Haruth and Maruth--the greater part of the occurrences +in the island of Mohareb--the paradise of Aloadin, etc., etc.--are all +instances of disproportioned and injudicious ornaments, which never +could have presented themselves to an author who wrote from the +suggestions of his own fancy; and have evidently been introduced, from +the author's unwillingness to relinquish the corresponding passages in +D'Herbelot, Sale, Volney, etc., which appeared to him to have great +capabilities for poetry. + +This imitation, or admiration of Oriental imagery, however, does not +bring so much suspicion on his taste, as the affection he betrays for +some of his domestic models. The former has, for the most part, the +recommendation of novelty; and there is always a certain pleasure in +contemplating the _costume_ of a distant nation, and the luxuriant +landscape of an Asiatic climate. We cannot find the same apology, +however, for Mr. Southey's partiality to the drawling vulgarity of some +of our old English ditties. + + * * * * * + +From the extracts and observations which we have hitherto presented to +our readers, it will be natural for them to conclude, that our opinion +of this poem is very decidedly unfavourable; and that we are not +disposed to allow it any sort of merit. This, however, is by no means +the case. We think it written, indeed, in a very vicious taste, and +liable, upon the whole, to very formidable objections: But it would not +be doing justice to the genius of the author, if we were not to add, +that, it contains passages of very singular beauty and force, and +displays a richness of poetical conception, that would do honour to more +faultless compositions. There is little of human character in the poem, +indeed; because Thalaba is a solitary wanderer from the solitary tent of +his protector: But the home group, in which his infancy was spent, is +pleasingly delineated; and there is something irresistibly interesting +in the innocent love, and misfortunes, and fate of his Oneiza. The +catastrophe of her story is given, it appears to us, with great spirit +and effect, though the beauties are of that questionable kind, that +trespass on the border of impropriety, and partake more of the character +of dramatic, than of narrative poetry. After delivering her from the +polluted paradise of Aloadin, he prevails on her to marry him before his +mission is accomplished. She consents with great reluctance; and the +marriage feast, with its processions, songs, and ceremonies, is +described in some joyous stanzas. The book ends with these verses-- + + And now the marriage feast is spread, + And from the finished banquet now + The wedding guests are gone. + * * * * * + Who comes from the bridal chamber? + It is Azrael, the Angel of Death. + +The next book opens with Thalaba lying distracted upon her grave, in the +neighbourhood of which he had wandered, till "the sun, and the wind, +and the rain, had rusted his raven locks"; and there he is found by the +father of his bride, and visited by her ghost, and soothed and +encouraged to proceed upon his holy enterprise. He sets out on his +lonely way, and is entertained the first night by a venerable dervise: +As they are sitting at meal, a _bridal procession_ passes by, with +dance, and song, and merriment. The old dervise blessed them as they +passed; but Thalaba looked on, "and breathed a low deep groan, and hid +his face." These incidents are skilfully imagined, and are narrated in a +very impressive manner. + +Though the _witchery_ scenes are in general but poorly executed, and +possess little novelty to those who have read the Arabian Nights +Entertainments, there is, occasionally, some fine description, and +striking combination. We do not remember any poem, indeed, that +presents, throughout, a greater number of lively images, or could afford +so many subjects for the pencil. + + * * * * * + +All the productions of this author, it appears to us, bear very +distinctly the impression of an amiable mind, a cultivated fancy, and a +perverted taste. His genius seems naturally to delight in the +representation of domestic virtues and pleasures, and the brilliant +delineation of external nature. In both these departments, he is +frequently very successful; but he seems to want vigour for the loftier +flights of poetry. He is often puerile, diffuse, and artificial, and +seems to have but little acquaintance with those chaster and severer +graces, by whom the epic muse would be most suitably attended. His +faults are always aggravated, and often created, by his partiality for +the peculiar manner of that new school of poetry, of which he is a +faithful disciple, and to the glory of which he has sacrificed greater +talents and acquisitions, than can be boasted of by any of his +associates. + + + +ON SOUTHEY'S LAUREATE LAYS + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, June, 1816] + +_The Lay of the Laureate. Carmen Nuptiale_. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq., +Poet Laureate, &c., &c. 12mo. pp. 78. London, 1816. + + +A poet laureate, we take it, is naturally a ridiculous person: and has +scarcely any safe course to follow, in times like the present, but to +bear his faculties with exceeding meekness, and to keep as much as +possible in the shade. A stipendiary officer of the Royal household, +bound to produce two lyrical compositions ever year, in praise of his +Majesty's person and government, is undoubtedly an object which it is +difficult to contemplate with gravity; and which can only have been +retained in existence, from that love of antique pomp and establishment +which has embellished our Court with so many gold-sticks and white rods, +and such trains of beef-eaters and grooms of the stole--though it has +submitted to the suppression of the more sprightly appendages of a +king's fool, or a court jester. That the household poet should have +survived the other wits of the establishment, can only be explained by +the circumstance of his office being more easily converted into one of +mere pomp and ceremony, and coming thus to afford an antient and +well-sounding name for a moderate sinecure. For more than a century, +accordingly, it has existed on this footing; and its duties, like those +of the other personages to whom we have just alluded, have been +discharged with a decorous gravity and unobtrusive quietness, which has +provoked no derision, merely because it has attracted no notice. + +The present possessor, however, appears to have other notions on the +subject; and has very distinctly manifested his resolution not to rest +satisfied with the salary, sherry, and safe obscurity of his +predecessors, but to claim a real power and prerogative in the world of +letters, in virtue of his title and appointment. Now, in this, we +conceive, with all due humility, that there is a little mistake of fact, +and a little error of judgment. The laurel which the King gives, we are +credibly informed, has nothing at all in common with that which is +bestowed by the Muses; and the Prince Regent's warrant is absolutely of +no authority in the court of Apollo. If this be the case, however, it +follows, that a poet laureate has no sort of precedency among poets,-- +whatever may be his place among pages and clerks of the kitchen;--and +that he has no more pretensions as an author, than if his appointment +had been to the mastership of the stag-hounds. When he takes state upon +him with the public, therefore, in consequence of his office, he really +is guilty of as ludicrous a blunder as the worthy American _Consul_, in +one of the Hanse towns, who painted the Roman _fasces_ on the pannel of +his buggy, and insisted upon calling his foot-boy and clerk his +_lictors_. Except when he is in his official duty, therefore, the King's +house-poet would do well to keep the nature of his office out of sight; +and, when he is compelled to appear in it in public, should try to get +through with the business as quickly and quietly as possible. The brawny +drayman who enacts the Champion of England in the Lord Mayor's show, is +in some danger of being sneered at by the spectators, even when he paces +along with the timidity and sobriety that becomes his condition; but if +he were to take it into his head to make serious boast of his prowess, +and to call upon the city bards to celebrate his heroic acts, the very +apprentices could not restrain their laughter,--and "the humorous man" +would have but small chance of finishing his part in peace. + +Mr. Southey could not be ignorant of all this; and yet it appears that +he could not have known it all. He must have been conscious, we think, +of the ridicule attached to his office, and might have known that there +were only two ways of counteracting it,--either by sinking the office +altogether in his public appearances, or by writing such very good +verses in the discharge of it, as might defy ridicule, and render +neglect impossible. Instead of this, however, he has allowed himself to +write rather worse than any Laureate before him, and has betaken himself +to the luckless and vulgar expedient of endeavouring to face out the +thing by an air of prodigious confidence and assumption:--and has had +the usual fortune of such undertakers, by becoming only more +conspicuously ridiculous. The badness of his official productions indeed +is something really wonderful,--though not more so than the amazing +self-complacency and self-praise with which they are given to the world. +With the finest themes in the world for that sort of writing, they are +the dullest, tamest, and most tedious things ever poor critic was +condemned, or other people vainly invited, to read. They are a great +deal more wearisome, and rather more unmeaning and unnatural, than the +effusions of his predecessors, Messrs. Pye and Whitehead; and are +moreover disfigured with the most abominable egotism, conceit and +dogmatism, than we ever met with in any thing intended for the public +eye. They are filled, indeed, with praises of the author himself, and +his works, and his laurel, and his dispositions; notices of his various +virtues and studies; puffs of the productions he is preparing for the +press, and anticipations of the fame which he is to reap by their means, +from a less ungrateful age; and all this delivered with such an oracular +seriousness and assurance, that it is easy to see the worthy Laureate +thinks himself entitled to share in the prerogatives of that royalty +which he is bound to extol, and has resolved to make it + + --his great example as it is his theme. + +For, as sovereign Princes are permitted, in their manifestoes and +proclamations, to speak of their own gracious pleasure and royal wisdom, +without imputation of arrogance, so, our Laureate has persuaded himself +that he may address the subject world in the same lofty strains, and +that they will listen with as dutiful an awe to the authoritative +exposition of his own genius and glory. What might have been the success +of the experiment, if the execution had been as masterly as the design +is bold, we shall not trouble ourselves to conjecture; but the contrast +between the greatness of the praise and the badness of the poetry in +which it is conveyed, and to which it is partly applied, is abundantly +decisive of its result in the present instance, as well as in all the +others in which the ingenious author has adopted the same style. We took +some notice of the _Carmen Triumphale_, which stood at the head of the +series. But of the Odes which afterwards followed to the Prince Regent, +and the Sovereigns and Generals who came to visit him, we had the +charity to say nothing; and were willing indeed to hope, that the +lamentable failure of that attempt might admonish the author, at least +as effectually as any intimations of ours. Here, however, we have him +again, with a _Lay of the Laureate_, and a _Carmen Nuptiale_, if +possible still more boastful and more dull than any of his other +celebrations. It is necessary, therefore, to bring the case once more +before the Public, for the sake both of correction and example; and as +the work is not likely to find many readers, and is of a tenor which +would not be readily believed upon any general representation, we must +now beg leave to give a faithful analysis of its different parts, with a +few specimens of the taste and manner of its execution. + +Its object is to commemorate the late auspicious marriage of the +presumptive Heiress of the English crown with the young Prince of +Saxe-Cobourg; and consists of a Proem, a Dream, and an Epilogue--with a +L'envoy, and various annotations. The Proem, as was most fitting, is +entirely devoted to the praise of the Laureate himself; and contains an +account, which cannot fail to be very interesting, both to his Royal +auditors and to the world at large, of his early studies and +attainments--the excellence of his genius--the nobleness of his views-- +and the happiness that has been the result of these precious gifts. Then +there is mention made of his pleasure in being appointed Poet Laureate, +and of the rage and envy which that event excited in all the habitations +of the malignant. This is naturally followed up by a full account of all +his official productions, and some modest doubts whether his genius is +not too heroic and pathetic for the composition of an _Epithalamium,_-- +which doubts, however, are speedily and pleasingly resolved by the +recollection, that as Spenser made a hymn on his own marriage, so, there +can be nothing improper in Mr. Southey doing as much on that of the +Princess Charlotte. This is the general argument of the Proem. But the +reader must know a little more of the details. In his early youth, the +ingenious author says he aspired to the fame of a poet; and then Fancy +came to him, and showed him the glories of his future career, addressing +him in these encouraging words-- + + Thou whom rich Nature at thy happy birth + Blest in her bounty with the largest dower + That Heaven indulges to a child of earth! + +Being fully persuaded of the truth of her statements, we have then the +satisfaction of learning that he has lived a very happy life; and that, +though time has made his hair a little grey, it has only matured his +understanding; and that he is still as habitually cheerful as when he +was a boy. He then proceeds to inform us, that he sometimes does a +little in poetry still; but that, of late years, he spends most of his +time in writing histories--from which he has no doubt that he will one +day or another acquire great reputation. + + Thus in the ages which are past I live, + And those which are to come my sure reward will give.... + +We come next, of course, to the Dream; and nothing more stupid or heavy, +we will venture to say, ever arose out of sleep, or tended to sleep +again. The unhappy Laureate, it seems, just saw, upon shutting his eyes, +what he might have seen as well if he had been able to keep them open--a +great crowd of people and coaches in the street, with marriage favours +in their bosoms; church bells ringing merrily, and _feux-de-joie_ firing +in all directions. Eftsoons, says the dreaming poet, I came to a great +door, where there were guards placed to keep off the mob; but when they +saw my Laurel crown, they made way for me, and let me in!-- + + But I had entrance through that guarded door, + In honour to the Laureate crown I wore. + +When he gets in, he finds himself in a large hall, decorated with +trophies, and pictures, and statues, commemorating the triumphs of +British valour, from Aboukir to Waterloo. The room, moreover, was filled +with a great number of ladies and gentlemen very finely dressed; and in +two chairs, near the top, were seated the Princess Charlotte and Prince +Leopold. Hitherto, certainly, all is sufficiently plain and probable;-- +nor can the Muse who dictated this to the slumbering Laureate be accused +of any very extravagant or profuse invention. We come, now, however, to +allegory and learning in abundance. In the first place, we are told, +with infinite regard to the probability as well as the novelty of the +fiction, that in this drawing-room there were two great lions couching +at the feet of the Royal Pair;--the Prince's being very lean and in poor +condition, with the hair rubbed off his neck as if from a heavy collar-- +and the Princess's in full vigour, with a bushy mane, and littered with +torn French flags. Then there were two heavenly figures stationed on +each side of the throne, one called Honour, and the other Faith;--so +very like each other, that it was impossible not to suppose them brother +and sister. It turns out, however, that they were only second cousins; +or so at least we interpret the following precious piece of theogony. + + Akin they were,--yet not as thus it seemed, + For he of VALOUR was the eldest son, + From AretĂ© in happy union sprung. + But her to Phronis Eusebeia bore, + She whom her mother DicĂ© sent to earth; + What marvel then if thus their features wore + Resemblant lineaments of kindred birth? + DicĂ© being child of Him who rules above, + VALOUR his earth-born son; so both derived from Jove. + p. 29. + +This, we think, is delicious; but there is still more goodly stuff +toward. The two heavenly cousins stand still without doing any thing; +but then there is a sound of sweet music, and a whole "heavenly company" +appear, led on by a majestic female, whom we discover, by the emblems on +our halfpence, to be no less a person than Britannia, who advances and +addresses a long discourse of flattery and admonition to the Royal +bride; which, for the most part, is as dull and commonplace as might be +expected from the occasion; though there are some passages in which the +author has reconciled his gratitude to his Patron, and his monitory duty +to his Daughter, with singular spirit and delicacy. After enjoining to +her the observance of all public duties, and the cultivation of all +domestic virtues, Britannia is made to sum up the whole sermon in this +emphatic precept-- + + Look to thy Sire, and in his steady way + --learn thou to tread. + +Now, considering that Mr. Southey was at all events incapable of +sacrificing truth to Court favour, it cannot but be regarded as a rare +felicity in his subject, that he could thus select a pattern of private +purity and public honour in the person of the actual Sovereign, without +incurring the least suspicion either of base adulation or lax +morality.... + +It is impossible to feel any serious or general contempt for a person of +Mr. Southey's genius;--and, in reviewing his other works, we hope we +have shown a proper sense of his many merits and accomplishments. But +his Laureate odes are utterly and intolerably bad; and, if he had never +written any thing else, must have ranked him below Colley Cibber in +genius, and above him in conceit and presumption. We have no toleration +for this sort of perversity, or prostitution of great gifts; and do not +think it necessary to qualify the expression of opinions which we have +formed with as much positiveness as deliberation.--We earnestly wish he +would resign his livery laurel to Lord Thurlow, and write no more odes +on Court galas. We can assure him too, most sincerely, that this wish is +not dictated in any degree by envy, or any other hostile or selfish +feeling. We are ourselves, it is but too well known, altogether without +pretensions to that high office--and really see no great charms either +in the salary or the connexion--and, for the glory of writing such +verses as we have now been reviewing, we do not believe that there is a +scribbler in the kingdom so vile as to think it a thing to be coveted. + + + + +ON THOMAS MOORE + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, July, 1806] + +_Epistles, Odes, and other Poems_. By THOMAS MOORE, Esq. 4to. pp. 350. +London, 1806. + + +A singular sweetness and melody of versification,--smooth, copious, and +familiar diction,--with some brilliancy of fancy, and some show of +classical erudition, might have raised Mr. Moore to an innocent +distinction among the song-writers and occasional poets of his day: But +he is indebted, we fear, for the celebrity he actually enjoys to +accomplishments of a different description; and may boast, if the boast +can please him, of being the most licentious of modern versifiers, and +the most poetical of those who, in our times, have devoted their talents +to the propagation of immorality. We regard his book, indeed, as a +public nuisance; and would willingly trample it down by one short +movement of contempt and indignation, had we not reason to apprehend, +that it was abetted by patrons who are entitled to a more respectful +remonstrance, and by admirers who may require a more extended exposition +of their dangers. + +There is nothing, it will be allowed, more indefensible than a +cold-blooded attempt to corrupt the purity of an innocent heart; and we +can scarcely conceive any being more truly despicable, than he who, +without the apology of unruly passion or tumultuous desires, sits down +to ransack the impure places of his memory for inflammatory images and +expressions, and commits them laboriously to writing, for the purpose of +insinuating pollution into the minds of unknown and unsuspecting +readers. + +This is almost a new crime among us. While France has to blush for so +many tomes of "Poesies Erotiques," we have little to answer for, but the +coarse indecencies of Rochester and Dryden; and these, though +sufficiently offensive to delicacy and good taste, can scarcely be +regarded as dangerous. There is an antidote to the poison they contain, +in the open and undisguised profligacy with which it is presented. If +they are wicked, they have the honesty at least to profess wickedness. +The mark of the beast is set visibly on their foreheads; and though they +have the boldness to recommend vice, they want the effrontery to make +her pass for virtue. In their grossest immoralities, too, they scarcely +ever seem to be perfectly in earnest; and appear neither to wish nor to +hope to make proselytes. They indulge their own vein of gross riot and +debauchery; but they do not seek to corrupt the principles of their +readers; and are contented to be reprobated as profligate, if they are +admired at the same time for wit and originality. + +The immorality of Mr. Moore is infinitely more insidious and malignant. +It seems to be his aim to impose corruption upon his readers, by +concealing it under the mask of refinement; to reconcile them +imperceptibly to the most vile and vulgar sensuality, by blending its +language with that of exalted feeling and tender emotion; and to steal +impurity into their hearts, by gently perverting the most simple and +generous of their affections. In the execution of this unworthy task, he +labours with a perseverance at once ludicrous and detestable. He may be +seen in every page running round the paltry circle of his seductions +with incredible zeal and anxiety, and stimulating his jaded fancy for +new images of impurity, with as much melancholy industry as ever outcast +of the muses hunted for epithets or metre. + +It is needless, we hope, to go deep into the inquiry, why certain +compositions have been reprobated as licentious, and their authors +ranked among the worst enemies of morality. The criterion by which their +delinquency may be determined, is fortunately very obvious: no scene can +be tolerated in description, which could not be contemplated in reality, +without a gross violation of propriety: no expression can be pardoned in +poetry to which delicacy could not listen in the prose of real life. + +No writer can transgress those limits, and be held guiltless; but there +are degrees of guiltiness, and circumstances of aggravation or apology, +which ought not to be disregarded. A poet of a luxuriant imagination may +give too warm a colouring to the representation of innocent endearments, +or be betrayed into indelicacies in delineating the allurements of some +fair seducer, while it is obviously his general intention to give +attraction to the picture of virtue, and to put the reader on his guard +against the assault of temptation. Mr. Moore has no such apology;--he +takes care to intimate to us, in every page that the raptures which he +celebrates do not spring from the excesses of an innocent love, or the +extravagance of a romantic attachment; but are the unhallowed fruits of +cheap and vulgar prostitution, the inspiration of casual amours, and the +chorus of habitual debauchery. He is at pains to let the world know that +he is still fonder of roving, than of loving; and that all the Caras and +the Fannys, with whom he holds dalliance in these pages, have had each a +long series of preceding lovers, as highly favoured as their present +poetical paramour: that they meet without any purpose of constancy, and +do not think it necessary to grace their connexion with any professions +of esteem or permanent attachment. The greater part of the book is +filled with serious and elaborate description of the ecstasies of such +an intercourse, and with passionate exhortations to snatch the joys, +which are thus abundantly poured forth from "the fertile fount of +sense." + +To us, indeed, the perpetual kissing, and twining, and panting of these +amorous persons, is rather ludicrous than seductive; and their eternal +sobbing and whining, raises no emotion in our bosoms, but those of +disgust and contempt. Even to younger men, we believe, the book will not +be very dangerous: nor is it upon their account that we feel the +indignation and alarm which we have already endeavoured to express. The +life and conversation of our sex, we are afraid is seldom so pure as to +leave them much to learn from publications of this description; and they +commonly know enough of the reality, to be aware of the absurd illusions +and exaggerations of such poetical voluptuaries. In them, therefore, +such a composition can work neither corruption nor deception; and it +will, in general, be despised and thrown aside, as a tissue of sickly +and fantastical conceits, equally remote from truth and respectability. +It is upon the other sex, that we conceive its effects may be most +pernicious; and it is chiefly as an insult upon their delicacy, and an +attack upon their purity, that we are disposed to resent its +publication. + +The reserve in which women are educated; the natural vivacity of their +imaginations; and the warmth of their sensibility, renders them +peculiarly liable to be captivated by the appearance of violent +emotions, and to be misled by the affectation of tenderness or +generosity. They easily receive any impression that is made under the +apparent sanction of these feelings; and allow themselves to be seduced +into any thing, which they can be persuaded is dictated by disinterested +attachment, and sincere and excessive love. It is easy to perceive how +dangerous it must be for such beings to hang over the pages of a book, +in which supernatural raptures, and transcendent passion, are +counterfeited in every page; in which, images of voluptuousness are +artfully blended with expressions of refined sentiment, and delicate +emotion; and the grossest sensuality is exhibited in conjunction with +the most gentle and generous affections. They who have not learned from +experience, the impossibility of such an union, are apt to be captivated +by its alluring exterior. They are seduced by their own ignorance and +sensibility; and become familiar with the demon, for the sake of the +radiant angel to whom he has been linked by the malignant artifice of +the poet. + +We have been induced to enter this strong protest, and to express +ourselves thus warmly against this and the former publications of this +author, both from what we hear of the circulation which they have +already obtained, and from our conviction that they are calculated, if +not strongly denounced to the public, to produce, at this moment, +peculiar and irremediable mischief. The style of composition, as we have +already hinted, is almost new in this country: it is less offensive than +the old fashion of obscenity; and for these reasons, perhaps, is less +likely to excite the suspicion of the moralist, or to become the object +of precaution to those who watch over the morals of the young and +inexperienced. We certainly have known it a permitted study, where +performances, infinitely less pernicious, were rigidly interdicted. + +There can be no time in which the purity of the female character can +fail to be of the first importance to every community; but it appears to +us, that it requires at this moment to be more carefully watched over +than at any other; and that the constitution of society has arrived +among us to a sort of crisis, the issue of which may be powerfully +influenced by our present neglect or solicitude. From the increasing +diffusion of opulence, enlightened or polite society is greatly +enlarged, and necessarily becomes more promiscuous and corruptible; and +women are now beginning to receive a more extended education, to venture +more freely and largely into the fields of literature, and to become +more of intellectual and independent creatures, than they have yet been +in these islands. In these circumstances, it seems to be of incalculable +importance, that no attaint should be given to the delicacy and purity +of their expanding minds; that their increasing knowledge should be of +good chiefly, and not of evil; that they should not consider modesty as +one of the prejudices from which they are now to be emancipated; nor +found any part of their new influence upon the licentiousness of which +Mr. Moore invites them to be partakers. The character and the morality +of women exercises already a mighty influence upon the happiness and the +respectability of the nation; and it is destined, we believe, to +exercise a still higher one: But if they should ever cease to be the +pure, the delicate, and timid creatures that they now are--if they +should cease to overawe profligacy, and to win and to shame men into +decency, fidelity, and love of unsullied virtue--it is easy to see that +this influence, which has hitherto been exerted to strengthen and refine +our society, will operate entirely to its corruption and debasement; +that domestic happiness and private honour will be extinguished, and +public spirit and national industry most probably annihilated along with +them. + +There is one other consideration which has helped to excite our +apprehension on occasion of this particular performance. Many of the +pieces are dedicated to persons of the first consideration in the +country, both for rank and accomplishments; and the author appears to +consider the greater part of them as his intimate friends, and undoubted +patrons and admirers. Now, this we will confess is to us a very alarming +consideration. By these channels, the book will easily pass into +circulation in those classes of society, which it is of most consequence +to keep free of contamination; and from which its reputation and its +influence will descend with the greatest effect to the great body of the +community. In this reading and opulent country, there are no fashions +which diffuse themselves so fast, as those of literature and immorality: +there is no palpable boundary between the _noblesse_ and the +_bourgeoisie_, as in old France, by which the corruption and +intelligence of the former can be prevented from spreading to the +latter. All the parts of the mass, act and react upon each other with a +powerful and unintermitted agency; and if the head be once infected, the +corruption will spread irresistibly through the whole body. It is doubly +necessary, therefore, to put the law in force against this delinquent, +since he has not only indicated a disposition to do mischief, but seems +unfortunately to have found an opportunity. + + + + +ON WORDSWORTH'S "THE +EXCURSION" + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, November, 1814] + +_The Excursion, being a portion of the Recluse, a Poem_. By WILLIAM +WORDSWORTH. 4to. pp. 447. London, 1814. + + +This will never do. It bears no doubt the stamp of the author's heart +and fancy; but unfortunately not half so visibly as that of his peculiar +system. His former poems were intended to recommend that system, and to +bespeak favour for it by their individual merit;--but this, we suspect, +must be recommended by the system--and can only expect to succeed where +it has been previously established. It is longer, weaker, and tamer, +than any of Mr. Wordsworth's other productions; with less boldness of +originality, and less even of that extreme simplicity and lowliness of +tone which wavered so prettily, in the Lyrical Ballads, between +silliness and pathos. We have imitations of Cowper, and even of Milton +here, engrafted on the natural drawl of the Lakers--and all diluted into +harmony by that profuse and irrepressible wordiness which deluges all +the blank verse of this school of poetry, and lubricates and weakens the +whole structure of their style. + +Though it fairly fills four hundred and twenty good quarto pages, +without note, vignette, or any sort of extraneous assistance, it is +stated in the title--with something of an imprudent candour--to be but +"a portion" of a larger work; and in the preface, where an attempt is +rather unsuccessfully made to explain the whole design, it is still more +rashly disclosed, that it is but "a part of the second part of a _long_ +and laborious work"--which is to consist of three parts. + +What Mr. Wordsworth's ideas of length are, we have no means of +accurately judging; but we cannot help suspecting that they are liberal, +to a degree that will alarm the weakness of most modern readers. As far +as we can gather from the preface, the entire poem--or one of them, for +we really are not sure whether there is to be one or two--is of a +biographical nature; and is to contain the history of the author's mind, +and of the origin and progress of his poetical powers, up to the period +when they were sufficiently matured to qualify him for the great work on +which he has been so long employed. Now, the quarto before us contains +an account of one of his youthful rambles in the vales of Cumberland, +and occupies precisely the period of three days; so that, by the use of +a very powerful _calculus_, some estimate may be formed of the probable +extent of the entire biography. + +This small specimen, however, and the statements with which it is +prefaced, have been sufficient to set our minds at rest in one +particular. The case of Mr. Wordsworth, we perceive, is now manifestly +hopeless; and we give him up as altogether incurable, and beyond the +power of criticism. We cannot indeed altogether omit taking precautions +now and then against the spreading of the malady;--but for himself, +though we shall watch the progress of his symptoms as a matter of +professional curiosity and instruction, we really think it right not to +harass him any longer with nauseous remedies,--but rather to throw in +cordials and lenitives, and wait in patience for the natural termination +of the disorder. In order to justify this desertion of our patient, +however, it is proper to state why we despair of the success of a more +active practice. + +A man who has been for twenty years at work on such matter as is now +before us, and who comes complacently forward with a whole quarto of it +after all the admonitions he has received, cannot reasonably be expected +to "change his hand, or check his pride," upon the suggestion of far +weightier monitors than we can pretend to be. Inveterate habit must now +have given a kind of sanctity to the errors of early taste; and the very +powers of which we lament the perversion, have probably become incapable +of any other application. The very quantity, too, that he has written, +and is at this moment working up for publication upon the old pattern, +makes it almost hopeless to look for any change of it. All this is so +much capital already sunk in the concern; which must be sacrificed if it +be abandoned: and no man likes to give up for lost the time and talent +and labour which he has embodied in any permanent production. We were +not previously aware of these obstacles to Mr. Wordsworth's conversion; +and, considering the peculiarities of his former writings merely as the +result of certain wanton and capricious experiments on public taste and +indulgence, conceived it to be our duty to discourage their repetition +by all the means in our power. We now see clearly, however, how the case +stands;--and, making up our minds, though with the most sincere pain and +reluctance, to consider him as finally lost to the good cause of poetry, +shall endeavour to be thankful for the occasional gleams of tenderness +and beauty which the natural force of his imagination and affections +must still shed over all his productions,--and to which we shall ever +turn with delight, in spite of the affectation and mysticism and +prolixity, with which they are so abundantly contrasted. + +Long habits of seclusion, and an excessive ambition of originality, can +alone account for the disproportion which seems to exist between this +author's taste and his genius; or for the devotion with which he has +sacrificed so many precious gifts at the shrine of those paltry idols +which he has set up for himself among his lakes and his mountains. +Solitary musings, amidst such scenes, might no doubt be expected to +nurse up the mind to the majesty of poetical conception,--(though it is +remarkable, that all the greater poets lived or had lived, in the full +current of society):--But the collision of equal minds,--the admonition +of prevailing impressions--seems necessary to reduce its redundancies, +and repress that tendency to extravagance or puerility, into which the +self-indulgence and self-admiration of genius is so apt to be betrayed, +when it is allowed to wanton, without awe or restraint, in the triumph +and delight of its own intoxication. That its flights should be graceful +and glorious in the eyes of men, it seems almost to be necessary that +they should be made in the consciousness that men's eyes are to behold +them,--and that the inward transport and vigour by which they are +inspired, should be tempered by an occasional reference to what will be +thought of them by those-ultimate dispensers of glory. An habitual and +general knowledge of the few settled and permanent maxims, which form +the canon of general taste in all large and polished societies--a +certain tact, which informs us at once that many things, which we still +love and are moved by in secret, must necessarily be despised as +childish, or derided as absurd, in all such societies--though it will +not stand in the place of genius, seems necessary to the success of its +exertions; and though it will never enable any one to produce the higher +beauties of art, can alone secure the talent which does produce them, +from errors that must render it useless. Those who have most of the +talent, however, commonly acquire this knowledge with the greatest +facility;--and if Mr. Wordsworth, instead of confining himself almost +entirely to the society of the dalesmen and cottagers, and little +children, who form the subjects of his book, had condescended to mingle +a little more with the people that were to read and judge of it, we +cannot help thinking, that its texture would have been considerably +improved: At least it appears to us to be absolutely impossible, that +any one who had lived or mixed familiarly with men of literature and +ordinary judgment in poetry (of course we exclude the coadjutors and +disciples of his own school), could ever have fallen into such gross +faults, or so long mistaken them for beauties. His first essays we +looked upon in a good degree as poetical paradoxes,--maintained +experimentally, in order to display talent, and court notoriety;--and so +maintained, with no more serious belief in their truth, than is usually +generated by an ingenious and animated defence of other paradoxes. But +when we find, that he has been for twenty years exclusively employed +upon articles of this very fabric, and that he has still enough of raw +material on hand to keep him so employed for twenty years to come, we +cannot refuse him the justice of believing that he is a sincere convert +to his own system, and must ascribe the peculiarities of his +composition, not to any transient affectation, or accidental caprice of +imagination, but to a settled perversity of taste or understanding, +which has been fostered, if not altogether created, by the circumstances +to which we have already alluded. + +The volume before us, if we were to describe it very shortly, we should +characterize as a tissue of moral and devotional ravings, in which +innumerable changes are rung upon a few very simple and familiar ideas: +--but with such an accompaniment of long words, long sentences, and +unwieldy phrases--such a hubbub of strained raptures and fantastical +sublimities, that it is often extremely difficult for the most skilful +and attentive student to obtain a glimpse of the author's meaning--and +altogether impossible for an ordinary reader to conjecture what he is +about. Moral and religious enthusiasm, though undoubtedly poetical +emotions, are at the same time but dangerous inspirers of poetry; +nothing being so apt to run into interminable dulness or mellifluous +extravagance, without giving the unfortunate author the slightest +intimation of his danger. His laudable zeal for the efficacy of his +preachments, he very naturally mistakes for the ardour of poetical +inspiration;--and, while dealing out the high words and glowing phrases +which are so readily supplied by themes of this description, can +scarcely avoid believing that he is eminently original and impressive:-- +All sorts of commonplace notions and expressions are sanctified in his +eyes, by the sublime ends for which they are employed; and the mystical +verbiage of the methodist pulpit is repeated, till the speaker +entertains no doubt that he is the elected organ of divine truth and +persuasion. But if such be the common hazards of seeking inspiration +from those potent fountains, it may easily be conceived what chance Mr. +Wordsworth had of escaping their enchantment,--with his natural +propensities to wordiness, and his unlucky habit of debasing pathos with +vulgarity. The fact accordingly is, that in this production he is more +obscure than a Pindaric poet of the seventeenth century; and more +verbose "than even himself of yore"; while the wilfulness with which he +persists in choosing his examples of intellectual dignity and tenderness +exclusively from the lowest ranks of society, will be sufficiently +apparent, from the circumstance of his having thought fit to make his +chief prolocutor in this poetical dialogue, and chief advocate of +Providence and Virtue, _an old Scotch Pedlar_--retired indeed from +business--but still rambling about in his former haunts, and gossiping +among his old customers, without his pack on his shoulders. The other +persons of the drama are, a retired military chaplain, who has grown +half an atheist and half a misanthrope--the wife of an unprosperous +weaver--a servant girl with her infant--a parish pauper, and one or two +other personages of equal rank and dignity. + +The character of the work is decidedly didactic; and more than nine-tenths +of it are occupied with a species of dialogue, or rather a series +of long sermons or harangues which pass between the pedlar, the author, +the old chaplain, and a worthy vicar, who entertains the whole party at +dinner on the last day of their excursion. The incidents which occur in +the course of it are as few and trifling as can be imagined;--and those +which the different speakers narrate in the course of their discourses, +are introduced rather to illustrate their arguments or opinions, than +for any interest they are supposed to possess of their own.--The +doctrine which the work is intended to enforce, we are by no means +certain that we have discovered. In so far as we can collect, however, +it seems to be neither more nor less than the old familiar one, that a +firm belief in the providence of a wise and beneficent Being must be our +great stay and support under all afflictions and perplexities upon +earth--and that there are indications of his power and goodness in all +the aspects of the visible universe, whether living or inanimate--every +part of which should therefore be regarded with love and reverence, as +exponents of those great attributes. We can testify, at least, that +these salutary and important truths are inculcated at far greater +length, and with more repetitions, than in any ten volumes of sermons +that we ever perused. It is also maintained, with equal conciseness and +originality, that there is frequently much good sense, as well as much +enjoyment, in the humbler conditions of life; and that, in spite of +great vices and abuses, there is a reasonable allowance both of +happiness and goodness in society at large. If there be any deeper or +more recondite doctrines in Mr. Wordsworth's book, we must confess that +they have escaped us;--and, convinced as we are of the truth and +soundness of those to which we have alluded, we cannot help thinking +that they might have been better enforced with less parade and +prolixity. His effusions on what may be called the physiognomy of +external nature, or its moral and theological expression, are eminently +fantastic, obscure, and affected.--It is quite time, however, that we +should give the reader a more particular account of this singular +performance. + +It opens with a picture of the author toiling across a bare common in a +hot summer day, and reaching at last a ruined hut surrounded with tall +trees, where he meets by appointment with a hale old man, with an +iron-pointed staff lying beside him. Then follows a retrospective account +of their first acquaintance--formed, it seems, when the author was at a +village school; and his aged friend occupied "one room,--the fifth part +of a house" in the neighbourhood. After this, we have the history of +this reverend person at no small length. He was born, we are happy to +find, in Scotland--among the hills of Athol; and his mother, after his +father's death, married the parish schoolmaster--so that he was taught +his letters betimes: But then, as it is here set forth with much +solemnity, + + + From his sixth year, the boy, of whom I speak, + In summer, tended cattle on the hills. + +And again, a few pages after, that there may be no risk of mistake as to +a point of such essential importance-- + + From early childhood, even, as hath been said, + From his _sixth year_, he had been sent abroad, + _In summer_, to tend herds: Such was his task! + +In the course of this occupation, it is next recorded, that he acquired +such a taste for rural scenery and open air, that when he was sent to +teach a school in a neighbouring village, he found it "a misery to him," +and determined to embrace the more romantic occupation of a Pedlar--or, +as Mr. Wordsworth more musically expresses it, + + A vagrant merchant bent beneath his load; + +--and in the course of his peregrinations had acquired a very large +acquaintance, which, after he had given up dealing, he frequently took a +summer ramble to visit. The author, on coming up to this interesting +personage, finds him sitting with his eyes half shut;--and, not being +quite sure whether he's asleep or awake, stands "some minutes space" in +silence beside him. "At length," says he, with his own delightful +simplicity-- + + At length I hailed him--_seeing that his hat + Was moist_ with water-drops, as if the brim + Had newly scooped a running stream!-- + --"'Tis," said I, "a burning day; + My lips are parched with thirst;--but you, I guess, + Have somewhere found relief." + +Upon this, the benevolent old man points him out a well in a corner, to +which the author repairs; and, after minutely describing its situation, +beyond a broken wall, and between two alders that "grew in a cold damp +nook," he thus faithfully chronicles the process of his return-- + + My thirst I slaked--and from the cheerless spot + Withdrawing, straightway to the shade returned, + Where sate the old man on the cottage bench. + +The Pedlar then gives an account of the last inhabitants of the deserted +cottage beside them. These were, a good industrious weaver and his wife +and children. They were very happy for a while; till sickness and want +of work came upon them; and then the father enlisted as a soldier, and +the wife pined in the lonely cottage--growing every year more careless +and desponding, as her anxiety and fears for her absent husband, of whom +no tidings ever reached her, accumulated. Her children died, and left +her cheerless and alone; and at last she died also; and the cottage fell +to decay. We must say, that there is very considerable pathos in the +telling of this simple story; and that they who can get over the +repugnance excited by the triteness of its incidents, and the lowness of +its objects, will not fail to be struck with the author's knowledge of +the human heart, and the power he possesses of stirring up its deepest +and gentlest sympathies. His prolixity, indeed, it is not so easy to get +over. This little story fills about twenty-five quarto pages; and +abounds, of course, with mawkish sentiment, and details of preposterous +minuteness. When the tale is told, the travellers take their staffs, and +end their first day's journey, without further adventure, at a little +inn. + +The Second book sets them forward betimes in the morning. They pass by a +Village Wake; and as they approach a more solitary part of the +mountains, the old man tells the author that he is taking him to see an +old friend of his, who had formerly been chaplain to a Highland +regiment--had lost a beloved wife--been roused from his dejection by the +first euthusiasm [Transcriber's note: sic] of the French Revolution--had +emigrated on its miscarriage to America--and returned disgusted to hide +himself in the retreat to which they were now ascending. That retreat is +then most tediously described--a smooth green valley in the heart of the +mountain, without trees, and with only one dwelling. Just as they get +sight of it from the ridge above, they see a funeral train proceeding +from the solitary abode, and hurry on with some apprehension for the +fate of the misanthrope--whom they find, however, in very tolerable +condition at the door, and learn that the funeral was that of an aged +pauper who had been boarded out by the parish in that cheap farm-house, +and had died in consequence of long exposure to heavy rain. The old +chaplain, or, as Mr. Wordsworth is pleased to call him, the Solitary, +tells this dull story at prodigious length; and after giving an inflated +description of an effect of mountain-mists in the evening sun, treats +his visitors with a rustic dinner--and they walk out to the fields at +the close of the second book. + +The Third makes no progress in the excursion. It is entirely filled with +moral and religious conversation and debate, and with a more ample +detail of the Solitary's past life, than had been given in the sketch of +his friend. The conversation is exceedingly dull and mystical; and the +Solitary's confessions insufferably diffuse. Yet there is very +considerable force of writing and tenderness of sentiment in this part +of the work. + +The Fourth book is also filled with dialogues ethical and theological; +and, with the exception of some brilliant and forcible expressions here +and there, consists of an exposition of truisms, more cloudy, wordy, and +inconceivably prolix, than any thing we ever met with. + +In the beginning of the Fifth book, they leave the solitary valley, +taking its pensive inhabitant along with them, and stray on to where the +landscape sinks down into milder features, till they arrive at a church, +which stands on a moderate elevation in the centre of a wide and fertile +vale. Here they meditate for a while among the monuments, till the vicar +comes out and joins them;--and recognizing the pedlar for an old +acquaintance, mixes graciously in the conversation, which proceeds in a +very edifying manner till the close of the book. + +The Sixth contains a choice obituary, or characteristic account of +several of the persons who lie buried before this groupe of moralizers; +--an unsuccessful lover, who finds consolation in natural history--a +miner, who worked on for twenty years, in despite of universal ridicule, +and at last found the vein he had expected--two political enemies +reconciled in old age to each other--an old female miser--a seduced +damsel--and two widowers, one who devoted himself to the education of +his daughters, and one who married a prudent middle-aged woman to take +care of them. + +In the beginning of the Eighth Book, the worthy vicar expresses, in the +words of Mr. Wordsworth's own epitome, "his apprehensions that he had +detained his auditors too long--invites them to his house--Solitary, +disinclined to comply, rallies the Wanderer, and somewhat playfully +draws a comparison between his itinerant profession and that of a +knight-errant--which leads to the Wanderer giving an account of changes +in the country, from the manufacturing spirit--Its favourable effects-- +The other side of the picture," etc., etc. After these very poetical +themes are exhausted, they all go into the house, where they are +introduced to the Vicar's wife and daughter; and while they sit chatting +in the parlour over a family dinner, his son and one of his companions +come in with a fine dish of trouts piled on a blue slate; and, after +being caressed by the company, are sent to dinner in the nursery.--This +ends the eighth book. + +The Ninth and last is chiefly occupied with the mystical discourses of +the Pedlar; who maintains, that the whole universe is animated by an +active principle, the noblest seat of which is in the human soul; and +moreover, that the final end of old age is to train and enable us + + To hear the mighty stream of _Tendency_ + Uttering, for elevation of our thought, + A clear sonorous voice, inaudible + To the vast multitude whose doom it is + To run the giddy round of vain delight-- + +with other matters as luminous and emphatic. The hostess at length +breaks off the harangue, by proposing that they should all make a little +excursion on the lake,--and they embark accordingly; and, after +navigating for some time along its shores, and drinking tea on a little +island, land at last on a remote promontory, from which they see the sun +go down,--and listen to a solemn and pious, but rather long prayer from +the Vicar. They then walk back to the parsonage door, where the author +and his friend propose to spend the evening;--but the Solitary prefers +walking back in the moonshine to his own valley, after promising to take +another ramble with them-- + + If time, with free consent, be yours to give, + And season favours. + +--And here the publication somewhat abruptly closes. + +Our abstract of the story has been so extremely concise, that it is more +than usually necessary for us to lay some specimens of the work itself +before our readers. Its grand staple, as we have already said, consists +of a kind of mystical morality: and the chief characteristics of the +style are, that it is prolix and very frequently unintelligible: and +though we are very sensible that no great gratification is to be +expected from the exhibition of those qualities, yet it is necessary to +give our readers a taste of them, both to justify the sentence we have +passed, and to satisfy them that it was really beyond our power to +present them with any abstract or intelligible account of those long +conversations which we have had so much occasion to notice in our brief +sketch of its contents. + + * * * * * + +There is no beauty, we think, it must be admitted, in such passages; and +so little either of interest or curiosity in the incidents they +disclose, that we can scarcely conceive that any man to whom they had +actually occurred, should take the trouble to recount them to his wife +and children by his idle fireside--but, that man or child should think +them worth writing down in blank verse, and printing in magnificent +quarto, we should certainly have supposed altogether impossible, had it +not been for the ample proofs which Mr. Wordsworth has afforded to the +contrary. + +Sometimes their silliness is enhanced by a paltry attempt at effect and +emphasis:--as in the following account of that very touching and +extraordinary occurrence of a lamb bleating among the mountains. The +poet would actually persuade us that he thought the mountains themselves +were bleating;--and that nothing could be so grand or impressive. +"List!" cries the old Pedlar, suddenly breaking off in the middle of one +of his daintiest ravings-- + + --"List!--I heard, + From yon huge breast of rock, a solemn bleat; + Sent forth as if it were the Mountain's voice! + As if the visible Mountain made the cry! + Again!"--The effect upon the soul was such + As he expressed; for, from the Mountain's heart + The solemn bleat appeared to come; there was + No other--and the region all around + Stood silent, empty of all shape of life. + --It was a lamb--left somewhere to itself! + +What we have now quoted will give the reader a notion of the taste and +spirit in which this volume is composed; and yet, if it had not +contained something a good deal better, we do not know how we should +have been justified in troubling him with any account of it. But the +truth is, that Mr. Wordsworth, with all his perversities, is a person of +great powers; and has frequently a force in his moral declamations, and +a tenderness in his pathetic narratives, which neither his prolixity nor +his affectation can altogether deprive of their effect. + + * * * * * + +Besides those more extended passages of interest or beauty, which we +have quoted, and omitted to quote, there are scattered up and down the +book, and in the midst of its most repulsive portions, a very great +number of single lines and images, that sparkle like gems in the desart, +and startle us with an intimation of the great poetic powers that lie +buried in the rubbish that has been heaped around them. It is difficult +to pick up these, after we have once passed them by; but we shall +endeavour to light upon one or two. The beneficial effect of intervals +of relaxation and pastime on youthful minds, is finely expressed, we +think, in a single line, when it is said to be-- + + Like vernal ground to Sabbath sunshine left. + +The following image of the bursting forth of a mountain-spring, seems to +us also to be conceived with great elegance and beauty. + + And a few steps may bring us to the spot, + Where haply crown'd with flowrets and green herbs; + The Mountain Infant to the Sun comes forth + Like human life from darkness.-- + +The ameliorating effects of song and music on the minds which most +delight in them, are likewise very poetically expressed. + + --And when the stream + Which overflowed the soul was passed away, + A consciousness remained that it had left, + Deposited upon the silent shore + Of Memory, images and precious thoughts, + That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed. + +Nor is any thing more elegant than the representation of the graceful +tranquillity occasionally put on by one of the author's favourites; who, +though gay and airy, in general-- + + Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still + As the mute Swan that floats adown the stream, + Or on the waters of th' unruffled lake + Anchored her placid beauty. Not a leaf + That flutters on the bough more light than he, + And not a flower that droops in the green shade, + More winningly reserved.-- + +Nor are there wanting morsels of a sterner and more majestic beauty; as +when, assuming the weightier diction of Cowper, he says, in language +which the hearts of all readers of modern history must have responded-- + + --Earth is sick, + And Heaven is weary of the hollow words + Which States and Kingdoms utter when they speak + Of Truth and Justice. + +These examples, we perceive, are not very well chosen--but we have not +leisure to improve the selection; and, such as they are, they may serve +to give the reader a notion of the sort of merit which we meant to +illustrate by their citation.--When we look back to them, indeed, and to +the other passages which we have now extracted, we feel half inclined to +rescind the severe sentence which we passed on the work at the +beginning:--But when we look into the work itself, we perceive that it +cannot be rescinded. Nobody can be more disposed to do justice to the +great powers of Mr. Wordsworth than we are; and, from the first time +that he came before us, down to the present moment, we have uniformly +testified in their favour, and assigned indeed our high sense of their +value as the chief ground of the bitterness with which we resented their +perversion. That perversion, however, is now far more visible than their +original dignity; and while we collect the fragments, it is impossible +not to lament the ruins from which we are condemned to pick them. If any +one should doubt of the existence of such a perversion, or be disposed +to dispute about the instances we have hastily brought forward, we would +just beg leave to refer him to the general plan and the characters of +the poem now before us.--Why should Mr. Wordsworth have made his hero a +superannuated Pedlar? What but the most wretched and provoking +perversity of taste and judgment, could induce any one to place his +chosen advocate of wisdom and virtue in so absurd and fantastic a +condition? Did Mr. Wordsworth really imagine, that he favourite +doctrines were likely to gain any thing in point of effect or authority +by being put into the mouth of a person accustomed to higgle about tape, +or brass sleeve-buttons? Or is it not plain that, independent of the +ridicule and disgust which such a personification must give to many of +his readers, its adoption exposes his work throughout to the charge of +revolting incongruity, and utter disregard of probability or nature? +For, after he has thus wilfully debased his moral teacher by a low +occupation, is there one word that he puts into his mouth, or one +sentiment of which he makes him the organ, that has the most remote +reference to that occupation? Is there any thing in his learned, +abstracted, and logical harangues, that savours of the calling that is +ascribed to him? Are any of their materials such as a pedlar could +possibly have dealt in? Are the manners, the diction, the sentiments, in +any, the very smallest degree, accommodated to a person in that +condition? or are they not eminently and conspicuously such as could not +by possibility belong to it? A man who went about selling flannel and +pocket-handkerchiefs in this lofty diction, would soon frighten away all +his customers; and would infallibly pass either for a madman, or for +some learned and affected gentleman, who, in a frolic, had taken up a +character which he was peculiarly ill qualified for supporting. + +The absurdity in this case, we think, is palpable and glaring; but it is +exactly of the same nature with that which infects the whole substance +of the work--a puerile ambition of singularity engrafted on an unlucky +predilection for truisms; and an affected passion for simplicity and +humble life, most awkwardly combined with a taste for mystical +refinements, and all the gorgeousness of obscure phraseology. His taste +for simplicity is evinced, by sprinkling up and down his interminable +declamations, a few descriptions of baby-houses, and of old hats with +wet brims; and his amiable partiality for humble life, by assuring us, +that a wordy rhetorician, who talks about Thebes, and allegorizes all +the heathen mythology, was once a pedlar--and making him break in upon +his magnificent orations with two or three awkward notices of something +that he had seen when selling winter raiment about the country--or of +the changes in the state of society, which had almost annihilated his +former calling. + + + + +ON KEATS + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, August, 1820] + +1. _Endymion: A Poetic Romance_. By JOHN KEATS. 8vo. pp. 207. London, +1818. + +2. _Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems._ By JOHN +KEATS, Author of _Endymion_. 12mo. pp. 200. London, 1820. + +We had never happened to see either of these volumes till very lately-- +and have been exceedingly struck with the genius they display, and the +spirit of poetry which breathes through all their extravagance. That +imitation of our older writers, and especially of our older dramatists, +to which we cannot help flattering ourselves that we have somewhat +contributed, has brought on, as it were, a second spring in our poetry; +--and few of its blossoms are either more profuse of sweetness or richer +in promise, than this which is now before us. Mr. Keats, we understand, +is still a very young man; and his whole works, indeed, bear evidence +enough of the fact. They are full of extravagance and irregularity, rash +attempts at originality, interminable wanderings, and excessive +obscurity. They manifestly require, therefore, all the indulgence that +can be claimed for a first attempt:--but we think it no less plain that +they deserve it; for they are flushed all over with the rich lights of +fancy, and so coloured and bestrewn with the flowers of poetry, that +even while perplexed and bewildered in their labyrinths, it is +impossible to resist the intoxication of their sweetness, or to shut our +hearts to the enchantments they so lavishly present. The models upon +which he has formed himself, in the Endymion, the earliest and by much +the most considerable of his poems, are obviously the Faithful +Shepherdess of Fletcher, and the Sad Shepherd of Ben Jonson;--the +exquisite metres and inspired diction of which he has copied with great +boldness and fidelity--and, like his great originals, has also contrived +to impart to the whole piece that true rural and poetical air which +breathes only in them and in Theocritus--which is at once homely and +majestic, luxurious and rude, and sets before us the genuine sights and +sounds and smells of the country, with all the magic and grace of +Elysium. His subject has the disadvantage of being mythological; and in +this respect, as well as on account of the raised and rapturous tone it +consequently assumes, his poetry may be better compared perhaps to the +Comus and the Arcades of Milton, of which, also, there are many traces +of imitation. The great distinction, however, between him and these +divine authors, is, that imagination in them is subordinate to reason +and judgment, while, with him, it is paramount and supreme--that their +ornaments and images are employed to embellish and recommend just +sentiments, engaging incidents, and natural characters, while his are +poured out without measure or restraint, and with no apparent design but +to unburden the breast of the author, and give vent to the overflowing +vein of his fancy. The thin and scanty tissue of his story is merely the +light framework on which his florid wreaths are suspended; and while his +imaginations go rambling and entangling themselves everywhere, like wild +honeysuckles, all idea of sober reason, and plan, and consistency, is +utterly forgotten, and is "strangled in their waste fertility." A great +part of the work, indeed, is written in the strangest and most +fantastical manner that can be imagined. It seems as if the author had +ventured everything that occurred to him in the shape of a glittering +image or striking expression--taken the first word that presented itself +to make up a rhyme, and then made that word the germ of a new cluster of +images--a hint for a new excursion of the fancy--and so wandered on, +equally forgetful whence he came, and heedless whither he was going, +till he had covered his pages with an interminable arabesque of +connected and incongruous figures, that multiplied as they extended, and +were only harmonized by the brightness of their tints, and the graces of +their forms. In this rash and headlong career he has of course many +lapses and failures. There is no work, accordingly, from which a +malicious critic could cull more matter for ridicule, or select more +obscure, unnatural, or absurd passages. But we do not take _that_ to be +our office;--and just beg leave, on the contrary, to say, that any one +who, on this account, would represent the whole poem as despicable, must +either have no notion of poetry, or no regard to truth. + +It is, in truth, at least as full of genius as of absurdity; and he who +does not find a great deal in it to admire and to give delight, cannot +in his heart see much beauty in the two exquisite dramas to which we +have already alluded, or find any great pleasure in some of the finest +creations of Milton and Shakespeare. There are very many such persons, +we verily believe, even among the reading and judicious part of the +community--correct scholars we have no doubt many of them, and, it may +be, very classical composers in prose and in verse--but utterly ignorant +of the true genius of English poetry, and incapable of estimating its +appropriate and most exquisite beauties. With that spirit we have no +hesitation in saying that Mr. K. is deeply imbued--and of those beauties +he has presented us with many striking examples. We are very much +inclined indeed to add, that we do not know any book which we would +sooner employ as a test to ascertain whether any one had in him a native +relish for poetry, and a genuine sensibility to its intrinsic charm. The +greater and more distinguished poets of our country have so much else in +them to gratify other tastes and propensities, that they are pretty sure +to captivate and amuse those to whom their poetry is but an hindrance +and obstruction, as well as those to whom it constitutes their chief +attraction. The interest of the stories they tell--the vivacity of the +characters they delineate--the weight and force of the maxims and +sentiments in which they abound--the very pathos and wit and humour they +display, which may all and each of them exist apart from their poetry +and independent of it, are quite sufficient to account for their +popularity, without referring much to that still higher gift, by which +they subdue to their enchantments those whose souls are attuned to the +finer impulses of poetry. It is only where those other recommendations +are wanting, or exist in a weaker degree, that the true force of the +attraction, exercised by the pure poetry with which they are so often +combined, can be fairly appreciated--where, without much incident or +many characters, and with little wit, wisdom, or arrangement, a number +of bright pictures are presented to the imagination, and a fine feeling +expressed of those mysterious relations by which visible external things +are assimilated with inward thoughts and emotions, and become the images +and exponents of all passions and affections. To an unpoetical reader +such passages always appear mere raving and absurdity--and to this +censure a very great part of the volume before us will certainly be +exposed, with this class of readers. Even in the judgment of a fitter +audience, however, it must, we fear, be admitted, that, besides the riot +and extravagance of his fancy, the scope and substance of Mr. K.'s +poetry is rather too dreary and abstracted to excite the strongest +interest, or to sustain the attention through a work of any great +compass or extent. He deals too much with shadowy and incomprehensible +beings, and is too constantly rapt into an extramundane Elysium, to +command a lasting interest with ordinary mortals--and must employ the +agency of more varied and coarser emotions, if he wishes to take rank +with the seducing poets of this or of former generations. There is +something very curious too, we think, in the way in which he, and Mr. +Barry Cornwall also, have dealt with the Pagan mythology, of which they +have made so much use in their poetry. Instead of presenting its +imaginary persons under the trite and vulgar traits that belong to them +in the ordinary systems, little more is borrowed from these than the +general conception of their conditions and relations; and an original +character and distinct individuality is bestowed upon them, which has +all the merit of invention, and all the grace and attraction of the +fictions on which it is engrafted. The antients, though they probably +did not stand in any great awe of their deities, have yet abstained very +much from any minute or dramatic representation of their feelings and +affections. In Hesiod and Homer, they are coarsely delineated by some of +their actions and adventures, and introduced to us merely as the agents +in those particular transactions; while in the Hymns, from those +ascribed to Orpheus and Homer, down to those of Callimachus, we have +little but pompous epithets and invocations, with a flattering +commemoration of their most famous exploits--and are never allowed to +enter into their bosoms, or follow out the train of their feelings, with +the presumption of our human sympathy. Except the love-song of the +Cyclops to his Sea Nymph in Theocritus--the Lamentation of Venus for +Adonis in Moschus--and the more recent Legend of Apuleius, we scarcely +recollect a passage in all the writings of antiquity in which the +passions of an immortal are fairly disclosed to the scrutiny and +observation of men. The author before us, however, and some of his +contemporaries, have dealt differently with the subject;--and, +sheltering the violence of the fiction under the ancient traditionary +fable, have created and imagined an entire new set of characters, and +brought closely and minutely before us the loves and sorrows and +perplexities of beings, with whose names and supernatural attributes we +had long been familiar, without any sense or feeling of their personal +character. We have more than doubts of the fitness of such personages to +maintain a permanent interest with the modern public;--but the way in +which they are here managed, certainly gives them the best chance that +now remains for them; and, at all events, it cannot be denied that the +effect is striking and graceful. + + * * * * * + +There is a fragment of a projected Epic, entitled "Hyperion," on the +expulsion of Saturn and the Titanian deities by Jupiter and his younger +adherents, of which we cannot advise the completion: For, though there +are passages of some force and grandeur, it is sufficiently obvious, +from the specimen before us, that the subject is too far removed from +all the sources of human interest, to be successfully treated by any +modern author. Mr. Keats has unquestionably a very beautiful +imagination, and a great familiarity with the finest diction of English +poetry; but he must learn not to misuse or misapply these advantages; +and neither to waste the good gifts of nature and study on intractable +themes, nor to luxuriate too recklessly on such as are more suitable. + + + + +LORD BROUGHAM ON BYRON + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1808] + +_Hours of Idleness: A series of Poems, Original and Translated._ By +GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, a minor. Newark, 1807. + +The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor +men are said to permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a +quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that +exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no +more get above or below the level, than if they were so much stagnant +water. As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly +forward in pleading minority. We have it in the title-page, and on the +very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of +his _style_. Much stress is laid upon it in the preface, and the poems +are connected with this general statement of his case, by particular +dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. Now, the law +upon the point of morality, we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea +available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a +supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought +against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court +a certain quantity of poetry; and if judgment were given against him, it +is highly probable that an exception would be taken, were he to deliver +_for poetry_, the contents of this volume. To this he might plead +_minority;_ but as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath +no right to sue, on that ground, for the price is in good current +praise, should the goods be unmarketable. This is our view of the law on +the point, and we dare to say, so will it be ruled. Perhaps, however, in +reality, all that he tells us about his youth, is rather with a view to +increase our wonder, than to soften our censures. He possibly means to +say, "See how a minor can write! This poem was actually composed by a +young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen!" But, alas, we +all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far +from hearing, with any surprise, that very poor verses were written by a +youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclusive, we +really believe this to be the most common of all occurrences; that it +happens in the life of nine men in ten who are educated in England; and +that the tenth man writes better verse than Lord Byron. + +His other plea of privilege, our author rather brings forward to wave +it. He certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family and +ancestors--sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while giving up +his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. +Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit +should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration +only, that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review, +besides our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, +and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, +which are great, to better account. + +With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere +rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by a certain number +of feet; nay, although (which does not always happen) those feet should +scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately upon the fingers-- +is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe, that a +certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to +constitute a poem; and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must +contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from +the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his +candour, whether there is anything so deserving the name of poetry in +verses like the following, written in 1806, and whether, if a youth of +eighteen could say anything so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth +of nineteen should publish it. + + Shades of heroes farewell! your descendant, departing + From the seat of his ancestors, bids you, adieu! etc., etc. + +Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets +have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to +see at his writing-master's) are odious. Gray's ode on Eton College, +should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas "on a distant view +of the village and school of Harrow." ... + +However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are +great favourites with Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from +Anacreon to Ossian; and, viewing them as school exercises, they may +pass. Only why print them after they have had their day and served their +turn?... + +It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should "use +it as not abusing it"; and particularly one who piques himself (though +indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) of being "an infant bard"--("The +artless Helicon I boast is youth";)--should either not know, or not seem +to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem on the family +seat of the Byrons, we have another on the self same subject, introduced +with an apology, "he certainly had no intention of inserting it"; but +really, "the particular request of some friends," etc., etc. It +concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a +noble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in +a poem on Lachin-y-gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, +and might have learnt that a _pibroch_ is not a bagpipe, any more than a +duet means a fiddle.... + +But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble junior, +it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are +the last we shall ever have from him. He is at best, he says, but an +intruder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like +thorough-bred poets; and "though he once roved a careless mountaineer in +the Highlands of Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. +Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and whether it +succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and +pursuits hereafter," that he should again condescend to become an +author. Therefore, let us take what we can get and be thankful. What +right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so +much from a man of this Lord's station, who does not live in a garret, +but "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again we say, let us be thankful; +and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift +horse in the mouth. + + + + +SYDNEY SMITH ON HANNAH MOORE + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, April, 1809] + +_Caelebs in Search of a Wife; comprehending Observations on Domestic +Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals._ 2 vols. London, 1809. + + +This book is written, or supposed to be written (for we would speak +timidly of the mysteries of superior beings), by the celebrated Mrs. +Hannah Moore! We shall probably give great offence by such indiscretion; +but still we must be excused for treating it as a book merely human,--an +uninspired production,--the result of mortality left to itself, and +depending on its own limited resources. In taking up the subject in this +point of view, we solemnly disclaim the slightest intention of indulging +in any indecorous levity, or of wounding the religious feelings of a +large class of very respectable persons. It is the only method in which +we can possibly make this work a proper object of criticism. We have the +strongest possible doubts of the attributes usually ascribed to this +authoress; and we think it more simple and manly to say so at once, than +to admit nominally superlunary claims, which, in the progress of our +remarks, we should virtually deny. + +Caelebs wants a wife; and, after the death of his father, quits his +estate in Northumberland to see the world, and to seek for one of its +best productions, a woman, who may add materially to the happiness of +his future life. His first journey is to London, where, in the midst of +the gay society of the metropolis, of course, he does not find a wife; +and his next journey is to the family of Mr. Stanley, the head of the +Methodists, a serious people, where, of course, he does find a wife. The +exaltation, therefore, of what the authoress deems to be the religious, +and the depretiation of what she considers to be the worldly character, +and the influence of both upon matrimonial happiness, form the subject +of this novel--rather of this _dramatic sermon_. + +The machinery upon which the discourse is suspended, is of the slightest +and most inartificial texture, bearing every mark of haste, and +possessing not the slightest claim to merit. Events there are none; and +scarcely a character of any interest. The book is intended to convey +religious advice; and no more labour appears to have been bestowed upon +the story, than was merely sufficient to throw it out of the dry, +didactic form. Lucilla is totally uninteresting; so is Mr. Stanley; Dr. +Barlow still worse; and Caelebs a mere clod or dolt. Sir John and Lady +Belfield are rather more interesting--and for a very obvious reason, +they have some faults;--they put us in mind of men and women;--they seem +to belong to one common nature with ourselves. As we read, we seem to +think we might act as such people act, and therefore we attend; whereas +imitation is hopeless in the more perfect characters which Mrs. Moore +has set before us; and therefore, they inspire us with very little +interest. + +There are books however of all kinds; and those may not be unwisely +planned which set before us very pure models. They are less probable, +and therefore less amusing than ordinary stories; but they are more +amusing than plain, unfabled precept. Sir Charles Grandison is less +agreeable than Tom Jones; but it is more agreeable than Sherlock and +Tillotson; and teaches religion and morality to many who would not seek +it in the productions of these professional writers. + +But, making every allowance for the difficulty of the task which Mrs. +Moore has prescribed to herself, the book abounds with marks of +negligence and want of skill; with representations of life and manners +which are either false or trite. + +Temples to friendship and virtue must be totally laid aside, for many +years to come, in novels. Mr. Lane, of the Minerva Press, has given them +up long since; and we were quite surprised to find such a writer as Mrs. +Moore busied in moral brick and mortar. Such an idea, at first, was +merely juvenile; the second time a little nauseous; but the ten +thousandth time, it is quite intolerable. Caelebs, upon his first +arrival in London, dines out,--meets with a bad dinner,--supposes the +cause of that bad dinner to be the erudition of the ladies of the +house,--talks to them upon learned subjects, and finds them as dull and +ignorant as if they had piqued themselves upon all the mysteries of +housewifery. We humbly submit to Mrs. Moore, that this is not humorous, +but strained and unnatural. Philippics against frugivorous children +after dinner, are too common. Lady Melbury has been introduced into +every novel for these four years last past. Peace to her ashes!... + +The great object kept in view throughout the whole of this introduction, +is the enforcement of religious principle, and the condemnation of a +life lavished in dissipation and fashionable amusement. In the pursuit +of this object, it appears to us, that Mrs. Moore is much too severe +upon the ordinary amusements of mankind, many of which she does not +object to in this, or that degree; but altogether. Caelebs and Lucilla, +her _optimus_ and _optima_, never dance, and never go to the play. They +not only stay away from the comedies of Congreve and Farquhar, for which +they may easily enough be forgiven; but they never go to see Mrs. +Siddons in the Gamester, or in Jane Shore. The finest exhibition of +talent, and the most beautiful moral lessons, are interdicted, at the +theatre. There is something in the word _Playhouse_, which seems so +closely connected, in the minds of these people, with sin, and Satan,-- +that it stands in their vocabulary for every species of abomination. And +yet why? Where is every feeling more roused in favour of virtue, than at +a good play? Where is goodness so feelingly, so enthusiastically learnt? +What so solemn as to see the excellent passions of the human heart +called forth by a great actor, animated by a great poet? To hear Siddons +repeat what Shakespeare wrote! To behold the child, and his mother--the +noble, and the poor artisan,--the monarch, and his subjects--all ages +and all ranks convulsed with one common passion--wrung with one common +anguish, and, with loud sobs and cries, doing involuntary homage to the +God that made their hearts! What wretched infatuation to interdict such +amusements as these! What a blessing that mankind can be allured from +sensual gratification, and find relaxation and pleasure in such +pursuits! But the excellent Mr. Stanley is uniformly paltry and narrow, +--always trembling at the idea of being entertained, and thinking no +Christian safe who is not dull. As to the spectacles of impropriety +which are sometimes witnessed in parts of the theatre; such reasons +apply, in much stronger degree, to not driving along the Strand, or any +of the great public streets of London, after dark; and if the virtue of +well educated young persons is made of such very frail materials, their +best resource is a nunnery at once. It is a very bad rule, however, +never to quit the house for fear of catching cold. + +Mrs. Moore practically extends the same doctrine to cards and +assemblies. No cards--because cards are employed in gaming; no +assemblies--because many dissipated persons pass their lives in +assemblies. Carry this but a little further, and we must say,--no wine, +because of drunkenness; no meat, because of gluttony; no use, that there +may be no abuse! The fact is, that Mr. Stanley wants not only to be +religious, but to be at the head of the religious. These little +abstinences are the cockades by which the party are known,--the rallying +points for the evangelical faction. So natural is the love of power, +that it sometimes becomes the influencing motive with the sincere +advocates of that blessed religion, whose very characteristic excellence +is the humility which it inculcates. + +We observe that Mrs. Moore, in one part of her work, falls into the +common error about dress. She first blames ladies for exposing their +persons in the present style of dress; and then says, if they knew their +own interest,--if they were aware how much more alluring they were to +men when their charms are less displayed, they would make the desired +alteration from motives merely selfish. + + "Oh! if women in general knew what was their real interest! if they + could guess with what a charm even the _appearance_ of modesty + invests its possessor, they would dress decorously from mere + self-love, if not from principle. The designing would assume modesty + as an artifice; the coquet would adopt it as an allurement; the pure + as her appropriate attraction; and the voluptuous as the most + infallible art of seduction." I. 189. + +If there is any truth in this passage, nudity becomes a virtue; and no +decent woman, for the future, can be seen in garments. + +We have a few more of Mrs. Moore's opinions to notice.--It is not fair +to attack the religion of the times, because, in large and +indiscriminate parties, religion does not become the subject of +conversation. Conversation must and ought to grow out of materials on +which men can agree, not upon subjects which try the passions. But this +good lady wants to see men chatting together upon the Pelagian heresy-- +to hear, in the afternoon, the theological rumours of the day--and to +glean polemical tittle-tattle at a tea-table rout. All the disciples of +this school uniformly fall into the same mistake. They are perpetually +calling upon their votaries for religious thoughts and religious +conversation in every thing; inviting them to ride, walk, row, wrestle, +and dine out religiously;--forgetting that the being to whom this +impossible purity is recommended, is a being compelled to scramble for +his existence and support for ten hours out of the sixteen he is awake; +--forgetting that he must dig, beg, read, think, move, pay, receive, +praise, scold, command and obey;--forgetting, also, that if men +conversed as often upon religious subjects as they do upon the ordinary +occurrences of the world, that they would converse upon them with the +same familiarity, and want of respect,--that religion would then produce +feelings not more solemn or exalted than any other topics which +constitute at present the common furniture of human understandings. + +We are glad to find in this work, some strong compliments to the +efficacy of works,--some distinct admissions that it is necessary to be +honest and just, before we can be considered as religious. Such sort of +concessions are very gratifying to us; but how will they be received by +the children of the Tabernacle? It is quite clear, indeed, throughout +the whole of the work, that an apologetical explanation of certain +religious opinions is intended; and there is a considerable abatement of +that tone of insolence with which the improved Christians are apt to +treat the bungling specimens of piety to be met with in the more antient +churches. + +So much for the extravagances of this lady.--With equal sincerity, and +with greater pleasure, we bear testimony to her talents, her good sense, +and her real piety. There occurs every now and then in her productions, +very original, and very profound observations. Her advice is very often +characterised by the most amiable good sense, and conveyed in the most +brilliant and inviting style. If, instead of belonging to a trumpery +gospel faction, she had only watched over those great points of religion +in which the hearts of every sect of Christians are interested, she +would have been one of the most useful and valuable writers of her day. +As it is, every man would wish his wife and his children to read +_Caelebs_;--watching himself its effects;--separating the piety from +the puerility;--and showing that it is very possible to be a good +Christian, without degrading the human understanding to the trash and +folly of Methodism. + + + +MACAULAY ON SOUTHEY + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1830] + +SOUTHEY'S "COLLOQUIES" + +_Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of +Society_. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq., LL.D., Poet Laureate. 2 vols. 8vo. +London, 1829. + + +It would be scarcely possible for a man of Mr. Southey's talents and +acquirements to write two volumes so large as those before us, which +should be wholly destitute of information and amusement. Yet we do not +remember to have read with so little satisfaction any equal quantity of +matter, written by any man of real abilities. We have, for some time +past, observed with great regret the strange infatuation which leads the +Poet Laureate to abandon those departments of literature in which he +might excel, and to lecture the public on sciences of which he has still +the very alphabet to learn. He has now, we think, done his worst. The +subject which he has at last undertaken to treat is one which demands +all the highest intellectual and moral qualities of a philosophical +statesman, an understanding at once comprehensive and acute, a heart at +once upright and charitable. Mr. Southey brings to the task two +faculties which were never, we believe, vouchsafed in measure so copious +to any human being, the faculty of believing without a reason, and the +faculty of hating without a provocation. + +It is, indeed, most extraordinary, that a mind like Mr. Southey's, a +mind richly endowed in many respects by nature, and highly cultivated by +study, a mind which has exercised considerable influence on the most +enlightened generation of the most enlightened people that ever existed, +should be utterly destitute of the power of discerning truth from +falsehood. Yet such is the fact. Government is to Mr. Southey one of the +fine arts. He judges of a theory, of a public measure, of a religion or +a political party, of a peace or a war, as men judge of a picture or a +statue, by the effect produced on his imagination. A chain of +associations is to him what a chain of reasoning is to other men; and +what he calls his opinions are in fact merely his tastes.... + +Now in the mind of Mr. Southey reason has no place at all, as either +leader or follower, as either sovereign or slave. He does not seem to +know what an argument is. He never uses arguments himself. He never +troubles himself to answer the arguments of his opponents. It has never +occurred to him, that a man ought to be able to give some better account +of the way in which he has arrived at his opinions than merely that it +is his will and pleasure to hold them. It has never occurred to him that +there is a difference between assertion and demonstration, that a rumour +does not always prove a fact, that a single fact, when proved, is hardly +foundation enough for a theory, that two contradictory propositions +cannot be undeniable truths, that to beg the question is not the way to +settle it, or that when an objection is raised, it ought to be met with +something more convincing than "scoundrel" and "blockhead." + +It would be absurd to read the works of such a writer for political +instruction. The utmost that can be expected from any system promulgated +by him is that it may be splendid and affecting, that it may suggest +sublime and pleasing images. His scheme of philosophy is a mere +day-dream, a poetical creation, like the Domdaniel cavern, the Swerga, +or Padalon; and indeed it bears no inconsiderable resemblance to those +gorgeous visions. Like them, it has something of invention, grandeur, +and brilliancy. But, like them, it is grotesque and extravagant, and +perpetually violates even that conventional probability which is +essential to the effect of works of art. + +The warmest admirers of Mr. Southey will scarcely, we think, deny that +his success has almost always borne an inverse proportion to the degree +in which his undertakings have required a logical head. His poems, taken +in the mass, stand far higher than his prose works. His official Odes, +indeed, among which the Vision of Judgement must be classed, are, for +the most part, worse than Pye's and as bad as Cibber's; nor do we think +him generally happy in short pieces. But his longer poems, though full +of faults, are nevertheless very extraordinary productions. We doubt +greatly whether they will be read fifty years hence; but that, if they +are read, they will be admired, we have no doubt whatever.... + +The extraordinary bitterness of spirit which Mr. Southey manifests +towards his opponents is, no doubt, in a great measure to be attributed +to the manner in which he forms his opinions. Differences of taste, it +has often been remarked, produce greater exasperation than differences +on points of science. But this is not all. A peculiar austerity marks +almost all Mr. Southey's judgments of men and actions. We are far from +blaming him for fixing on a high standard of morals and for applying +that standard to every case. But rigour ought to be accompanied by +discernment; and of discernment Mr. Southey seems to be utterly +destitute. His mode of judging is monkish. It is exactly what we should +expect from a stern old Benedictine, who had been preserved from many +ordinary frailties by the restraints of his situation. No man out of a +cloister ever wrote about love, for example, so coldly and at the same +time so grossly. His descriptions of it are just what we should hear +from a recluse who knew the passion only from the details of the +confessional. Almost all his heroes make love either like Seraphim or +like cattle. He seems to have no notion of any thing between the +Platonic passion of the Glendoveer who gazes with rapture on his +mistress's leprosy, and the brutal appetite of Arvalan and Roderick. In +Roderick, indeed, the two characters are united. He is first all clay, +and then all spirit. He goes forth a Tarquin, and comes back too +ethereal to be married. The only love scene, as far as we can recollect, +in Madoc, consists of the delicate attentions which a savage, who has +drunk too much of the Prince's excellent metheglin, offers to Goervyl. +It would be the labour of a week to find, in all the vast mass of Mr. +Southey's poetry, a single passage indicating any sympathy with those +feelings which have consecrated the shades of Vaucluse and the rocks of +Meillerie. + +Indeed, if we except some very pleasing images of paternal tenderness +and filial duty, there is scarcely any thing soft or humane in Mr. +Southey's poetry. What theologians call the spiritual sins are his +cardinal virtues, hatred, pride, and the insatiable thirst of vengeance. +These passions he disguises under the name of duties; he purifies them +from the alloy of vulgar interests; he ennobles them by uniting them +with energy, fortitude, and a severe sanctity of manners; and he then +holds them up to the admiration of mankind. This is the spirit of +Thalaba, of Ladurlad, of Adosinda, of Roderick after his conversion. It +is the spirit which, in all his writings, Mr. Southey appears to affect. +"I do well to be angry," seems to be the predominant feeling of his +mind. Almost the only mark of charity which he vouchsafes to his +opponents is to pray for their reformation; and this he does in terms +not unlike those in which we can imagine a Portuguese priest interceding +with Heaven for a Jew, delivered over to the secular arm after a +relapse. + +We have always heard, and fully believe, that Mr. Southey is a very +amiable and humane man; nor do we intend to apply to him personally any +of the remarks which we have made on the spirit of his writings. Such +are the caprices of human nature. Even Uncle Toby troubled himself very +little about the French grenadiers who fell on the glacis of Namur. And +Mr. Southey, when he takes up his pen, changes his nature as much as +Captain Shandy, when he girt on his sword. The only opponents to whom +the Laureate gives quarter are those in whom he finds something of his +own character reflected. He seems to have an instinctive antipathy for +calm, moderate men, for men who shun extremes, and who render reasons. +He treated Mr. Owen of Lanark, for example, with infinitely more respect +than he has shown to Mr. Hallam or to Dr. Lingard; and this for no +reason that we can discover, except that Mr. Owen is more unreasonably +and hopelessly in the wrong than any speculator of our time. + +Mr. Southey's political system is just what we might expect from a man +who regards politics, not as matter of science, but as matter of taste +and feeling. All his schemes of government have been inconsistent with +themselves. In his youth he was a republican; yet, as he tells us in his +preface to these Colloquies, he was even then opposed to the Catholic +Claims. He is now a violent Ultra-Tory. Yet, while he maintains, with +vehemence approaching to ferocity, all the sterner and harsher parts of +the Ultra-Tory theory of government, the baser and dirtier part of that +theory disgusts him. Exclusion, persecution, severe punishments for +libellers and demagogues, proscriptions, massacres, civil war, if +necessary, rather than any concession to a discontented people; these +are the measures which he seems inclined to recommend. A severe and +gloomy tyranny, crushing opposition, silencing remonstrance, drilling +the minds of the people into unreasoning obedience, has in it something +of grandeur which delights his imagination. But there is nothing fine in +the shabby tricks and jobs of office; and Mr. Southey, accordingly, has +no toleration for them. When a Jacobin, he did not perceive that his +system led logically, and would have led practically, to the removal of +religious distinctions. He now commits a similar error. He renounces the +abject and paltry part of the creed of his party, without perceiving +that it is also an essential part of that creed. He would have tyranny +and purity together; though the most superficial observation might have +shown him that there can be no tyranny without corruption. + +It is high time, however, that we should proceed to the consideration of +the work which is our more immediate subject, and which, indeed, +illustrates in almost every page our general remarks on Mr. Southey's +writings. In the preface, we are informed that the author, +notwithstanding some statements to the contrary, was always opposed to +the Catholic Claims. We fully believe this; both because we are sure +that Mr. Southey is incapable of publishing a deliberate falsehood, and +because his assertion is in itself probable. We should have expected +that, even in his wildest paroxysms of democratic enthusiasm, Mr. +Southey would have felt no wish to see a simple remedy applied to a +great practical evil. We should have expected that the only measure +which all the great statesmen of two generations have agreed with each +other in supporting would be the only measure which Mr. Southey would +have agreed with himself in opposing. He has passed from one extreme of +political opinion to another, as Satan in Milton went round the globe, +contriving constantly to "ride with darkness." Wherever the thickest +shadow of the night may at any moment chance to fall, there is Mr. +Southey. It is not every body who could have so dexterously avoided +blundering on the daylight in the course of a journey to the antipodes. + + * * * * * + +It is not by the intermeddling of Mr. Southey's idol, the omniscient and +omnipotent State, but by the prudence and energy of the people, that +England has hitherto been carried forward in civilisation; and it is to +the same prudence and the same energy that we now look with comfort and +good hope. Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by +strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving +capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, +industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their +natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by +diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every +department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will +assuredly do the rest. + + + + +ON CROKER'S "BOSWELL" + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, September, 1831] + +_The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Including a Journal of a Tour to the +Hebrides, by James Boswell, Esq. A new Edition, with numerous Additions +and Notes._ By JOHN WILSON CROKER, LL.D., F.R.S. 5 vols., 8vo. London, +1831. + +This work has greatly disappointed us. Whatever faults we may have been +prepared to find in it, we fully expected that it would be a valuable +addition to English literature; that it would contain many curious +facts, and many judicious remarks; that the style of the notes would be +neat, clear, and precise; and that the typographical execution would be, +as in new editions of classical works it ought to be, almost faultless. +We are sorry to be obliged to say that the merits of Mr. Croker's +performance are on a par with those of a certain leg of mutton on which +Dr. Johnson dined, while travelling from London to Oxford, and which he, +with characteristic energy, pronounced to be "as bad as bad could be, +ill fed, ill killed, ill kept, and ill dressed." This edition is ill +compiled, ill arranged, ill written, and ill printed. + +Nothing in the work has astonished us so much as the ignorance or +carelessness of Mr. Croker with respect to facts and dates. Many of his +blunders are such as we should be surprised to hear any well educated +gentleman commit, even in conversation. The notes absolutely swarm with +misstatements, into which the editor never would have fallen, if he had +taken the slightest pains to investigate the truth of his assertions, or +if he had even been well acquainted with the book on which he undertook +to comment. + +We will give a few instances-- + + * * * * * + +We will not multiply instances of this scandalous inaccuracy. It is +clear that a writer who, even when warned by the text on which he is +commenting, falls into such mistakes as these, is entitled to no +confidence whatever. Mr. Croker has committed an error of five years +with respect to the publication of Goldsmith's novel, an error of twelve +years with respect to the publication of part of Gibbon's History, an +error of twenty-one years with respect to an event in Johnson's life so +important as the taking of the doctoral degree. Two of these three +errors he has committed, while ostentatiously displaying his own +accuracy, and correcting what he represents as the loose assertions of +others. How can his readers take on trust his statements concerning the +births, marriages, divorces, and deaths of a crowd of people, whose +names are scarcely known to this generation? It is not likely that a +person who is ignorant of what almost everybody knows can know that of +which almost everybody is ignorant. We did not open this book with any +wish to find blemishes in it. We have made no curious researches. The +work itself, and a very common knowledge of literary and political +history, have enabled us to detect the mistakes which we have pointed +out, and many other mistakes of the same kind. We must say, and we say +it with regret, that we do not consider the authority of Mr. Croker, +unsupported by other evidence, as sufficient to justify any writer who +may follow him in relating a single anecdote or in assigning a date to a +single event. + +Mr. Croker shows almost as much ignorance and heedlessness in his +criticisms as in his statements concerning facts. Dr. Johnson said, very +reasonably as it appears to us, that some of the satires of Juvenal are +too gross for imitation. Mr. Croker, who, by the way, is angry with +Johnson for defending Prior's tales against the charge of indecency, +resents this aspersion on Juvenal, and indeed refuses to believe that +the doctor can have said anything so absurd. "He probably said--some +_passages_ of them--for there are none of Juvenal's satires to which the +same objection may be made as to one of Horace's, that it is +_altogether_ gross and licentious."[1] Surely Mr. Croker can never have +read the second and ninth satires of Juvenal. + +[1] I. 167. + +Indeed the decisions of this editor on points of classical learning, +though pronounced in a very authoritative tone, are generally such that, +if a schoolboy under our care were to utter them, our soul assuredly +should not spare for his crying. It is no disgrace to a gentleman who +has been engaged during near thirty years in political life that he has +forgotten his Greek and Latin. But he becomes justly ridiculous if, when +no longer able to construe a plain sentence, he affects to sit in +judgment on the most delicate questions of style and metre. From one +blunder, a blunder which no good scholar would have made, Mr. Croker was +saved, as he informs us, by Sir Robert Peel, who quoted a passage +exactly in point from Horace. We heartily wish that Sir Robert, whose +classical attainments are well known, had been more frequently +consulted. Unhappily he was not always at his friend's elbow; and we +have therefore a rich abundance of the strangest errors. Boswell has +preserved a poor epigram by Johnson, inscribed "Ad Lauram parituram." +Mr. Croker censures the poet for applying the word puella to a lady in +Laura's situation, and for talking of the beauty of Lucina. "Lucina," he +says, "was never famed for her beauty."[1] If Sir Robert Peel had seen +this note, he probably would have again refuted Mr. Croker's criticisms +by an Appeal to Horace. In the secular ode, Lucina is used as one of the +names of Diana, and the beauty of Diana is extolled by all the most +orthodox doctors of the ancient mythology, from Homer in his Odyssey, to +Claudian in his Rape of Proserpine. In another ode, Horace describes +Diana as the goddess who assists the "laborantes utero puellas." But we +are ashamed to detain our readers with this fourth-form learning. + + * * * * * + +A very large proportion of the two thousand five hundred notes which the +editor boasts of having added to those of Boswell and Malone consists of +the flattest and poorest reflections, reflections such as the least +intelligent reader is quite competent to make for himself, and such as +no intelligent reader would think it worth while to utter aloud. They +remind us of nothing so much as of those profound and interesting +annotations which are penciled by sempstresses and apothecaries' boys on +the dog-eared margins of novels borrowed from circulating libraries; +"How beautiful!" "Cursed Prosy!" "I don't like Sir Reginald Malcolm at +all." "I think Pelham is a sad dandy." Mr. Croker is perpetually +stopping us in our progress through the most delightful narrative in the +language, to observe that really Dr. Johnson was very rude, that he +talked more for victory than for truth, that his taste for port wine +with capillaire in it was very odd, that Boswell was impertinent, that +it was foolish in Mrs. Thrale to marry the music-master; and so forth. + +We cannot speak more favourably of the manner in which the notes are +written than of the matter of which they consist. We find in every page +words used in wrong senses, and constructions which violate the plainest +rules of grammar. We have the vulgarism of "mutual friend," for "common +friend." We have "fallacy" used as synonymous with "falsehood." We have +many such inextricable labyrinths of pronouns as that which follows: +"Lord Erskine was fond of this anecdote; he told it to the editor the +first time that he had the honour of being in his company." Lastly, we +have a plentiful supply of sentences resembling those which we subjoin. +"Markland, _who_, with Jortin and Thirlby, Johnson calls three +contemporaries of great eminence."[2] "Warburton himself did not feel, +as Mr. Boswell was disposed to think he did, kindly or gratefully _of_ +Johnson."[3] "It was _him_ that Horace Walpole called a man who never +made a bad figure but as an author."[4] One or two of these solecisms +should perhaps be attributed to the printer, who has certainly done his +best to fill both the text and the notes with all sorts of blunders. In +truth, he and the editor have between them made the book so bad, that we +do not well see how it could have been worse. + +[2] IV. 377. +[3] IV. 415. +[4] II. 461. + +When we turn from the commentary of Mr. Croker to the work of our old +friend Boswell, we find it not only worse printed than in any other +edition with which we are acquainted, but mangled in the most wanton +manner. Much that Boswell inserted in his narrative is, without the +shadow of a reason, degraded to the appendix. The editor has also taken +upon himself to alter or omit passages which he considers as indecorous. +This prudery is quite unintelligible to us. There is nothing immoral in +Boswell's book, nothing which tends to inflame the passions. He +sometimes uses plain words. But if this be a taint which requires +expurgation, it would be desirable to begin by expurgating the morning +and evening lessons. The delicate office which Mr. Croker has undertaken +he has performed in the most capricious manner. One strong, old-fashioned, +English word, familiar to all who read their Bibles, is +changed for a softer synonyme in some passages, and suffered to stand +unaltered in others. In one place a faint allusion made by Johnson to an +indelicate subject, an allusion so faint that, till Mr. Croker's note +pointed it out to us, we had never noticed it, and of which we are quite +sure that the meaning would never be discovered by any of those for +whose sake books are expurgated, is altogether omitted. In another +place, a coarse and stupid jest of Dr. Taylor on the subject, expressed +in the broadest language, almost the only passage, as far as we +remember, in all Boswell's book, which we should have been inclined to +leave out, is suffered to remain. + +We complain, however, much more of the additions than of the omissions. +We have half of Mrs. Thrale's book, scraps of Mr. Tyers, scraps of Mr. +Murphy, scraps of Mr. Cradock, long prosings of Sir John Hawkins, and +connecting observations by Mr. Croker himself, inserted into the midst +of Boswell's text. + + * * * * * + +The _Life of Johnson_ is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is +not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakspeare is not more +decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the +first of orators than Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no +second. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not +worth while to place them. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere. + +We are not sure that there is in the whole history of the human +intellect so strange a phenomenon as this book. Many of the greatest men +that ever lived have written biography. Boswell was one of the smallest +men that ever lived, and he has beaten them all. He was, if we are to +give any credit to his own account or to the united testimony of all who +knew him, a man of the meanest and feeblest intellect. Johnson described +him as a fellow who had missed his only chance of immortality by not +having been alive when the _Dunciad_ was written. Beauclerk used his +name as a proverbial expression for a bore. He was the laughing-stock of +the whole of that brilliant society which has owed to him the greater +part of its fame. He was always laying himself at the feet of some +eminent man, and begging to be spit upon and trampled upon. He was +always earning some ridiculous nickname, and then "binding it as a crown +unto him," not merely in metaphor, but literally. He exhibited himself, +at the Shakespeare Jubilee, to all the crowd which filled +Stratford-on-Avon, with a placard round his hat bearing the inscription +of +Corsica Boswell. In his Tour, he proclaimed to all the world that at +Edinburgh he was known by the appellation of Paoli Boswell. Servile and +impertinent, shallow and pedantic, a bigot and a sot, bloated with +family pride, and eternally blustering about the dignity of a born +gentleman, yet stooping to be a talebearer, an eavesdropper, a common +butt in the taverns of London, so curious to know everybody who was +talked about, that, Tory and High Churchman as he was, he manoeuvred, we +have been told, for an introduction to _Tom Paine_, so vain of the most +childish distinctions, that when he had been to court he drove to the +office where his book was printing without changing his clothes, and +summoned all the printer's devils to admire his new ruffles and sword; +such was this man, and such he was content and proud to be. Everything +which another man would have hidden, everything the publication of which +would have made another man hang himself, was matter of gay and +clamorous exultation to his weak and diseased mind. What silly things he +said, what bitter retorts he provoked, how at one place he was troubled +with evil presentiments which came to nothing, how at another place, on +waking from a drunken doze, he read the prayerbook and took a hair of +the dog that had bitten him, how he went to see men hanged and came away +maudlin, how he added five hundred pounds to the fortune of one of his +babies because she was not scared at Johnson's ugly face, how he was +frightened out of his wits at sea, and how the sailors quieted him as +they would have quieted a child, how tipsy he was at Lady Cork's one +evening and how much his merriment annoyed the ladies, how impertinent +he was to the Duchess of Argyle and with what stately contempt she put +down his impertinence, how Colonel Macleod sneered to his face at his +impudent obtrusiveness, how his father and the very wife of his bosom +laughed and fretted at his fooleries; all these things he proclaimed to +all the world, as if they had been subjects for pride and ostentatious +rejoicing. All the caprices of his temper, all the illusions of his +vanity, all his hypochondriac whimsies, all his castles in the air, he +displayed with a cool self-complacency, a perfect unconsciousness that +he was making a fool of himself, to which it is impossible to find a +parallel in the whole history of mankind. He has used many people ill; +but assuredly he has used nobody so ill as himself. + +That such a man should have written one of the best books in the world +is strange enough. But this is not all. Many persons who have conducted +themselves foolishly in active life, and whose conversation has +indicated no superior powers of mind, have left us valuable works. +Goldsmith was very justly described by one of his contemporaries as an +inspired idiot, and by another as a being + + Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll. + +La Fontaine was in society a mere simpleton. His blunders +would not come in amiss among the stories of Hierocles. But +these men attained literary eminence in spite of their weaknesses. +Boswell attained it by reason of his weaknesses. If he had not been a +great fool, he would never have been a great writer. Without all the +qualities which made him the jest and the torment of those among whom he +lived, without the officiousness, the inquisitiveness, the effrontery, +the toad-eating, the insensibility to all reproof, he never could have +produced so excellent a book. He was a slave, proud of his servitude, a +Paul Pry, convinced that his own curiosity and garrulity were virtues, +an unsafe companion who never scrupled to repay the most liberal +hospitality by the basest violation of confidence, a man without +delicacy, without shame, without sense enough to know when he was +hurting the feelings of others or when he was exposing himself to +derision; and because he was all this, he has, in an important +department of literature, immeasurably surpassed such writers as +Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, and his own idol Johnson. + +Of the talents which ordinarily raise men to eminence as writers, +Boswell had absolutely none. There is not in all his books a single +remark of his own on literature, politics, religion, or society, which +is not either common-place or absurd. His dissertations on hereditary +gentility, on the slave-trade, and on the entailing of landed estates, +may serve as examples. To say that these passages are sophistical would +be to pay them an extravagant compliment. They have no pretence to +argument, or even to meaning. He has reported innumerable observations +made by himself in the course of conversation. + +Of those observations we do not remember one which is above the +intellectual capacity of a boy of fifteen. He has printed many of his +own letters, and in these letters he is always ranting or twaddling. +Logic, eloquence, wit, taste, all those things which are generally +considered as making a book valuable, were utterly wanting to him. He +had, indeed, a quick observation and a retentive memory. These +qualities, if he had been a man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of +themselves have sufficed to make him conspicuous; but because he was a +dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb, they have made him immortal. + +Those parts of his book which, considered abstractedly, are most utterly +worthless, are delightful when we read them as illustrations of the +character of the writer. Bad in themselves, they are good dramatically, +like the nonsense of Justice Shallow, the clipped English of Dr. Caius, +or the misplaced consonants of Fluellen. Of all confessors, Boswell is +the most candid. + + * * * * * + +Johnson came among [the distinguished writers of his age] the solitary +specimen of a past age, the last survivor of the genuine race of Grub +Street hacks; the last of that generation of authors whose abject misery +and whose dissolute manners had furnished inexhaustible matter to the +satirical genius of Pope. From nature he had received an uncouth figure, +a diseased constitution, and an irritable temper. The manner in which +the earlier years of his manhood had been passed had given to his +demeanour, and even to his moral character, some peculiarities appalling +to the civilised beings who were the companions of his old age. The +perverse irregularity of his hours, the slovenliness of his person, his +fits of strenuous exertion, interrupted by long intervals of +sluggishness, his strange abstinence, and his equally strange voracity, +his active benevolence, contrasted with the constant rudeness and the +occasional ferocity of his manners in society, made him, in the opinion +of those with whom he lived during the last twenty years of his life, a +complete original. An original he was, undoubtedly, in some respects. +But if we possessed full information concerning those who shared his +early hardships, we should probably find that what we call his +singularities of manner were, for the most part, failings which he had +in common with the class to which he belonged. He ate at Streatham Park +as he had been used to eat behind the screen at St. John's Gate, when he +was ashamed to show his ragged clothes. He ate as it was natural that a +man should eat, who, during a great part of his life, had passed the +morning in doubt whether he should have food for the afternoon. The +habits of his early life had accustomed him to bear privation with +fortitude, but not to taste pleasure with moderation. He could fast; +but, when he did not fast, he tore his dinner like a famished wolf, with +the veins swelling on his forehead, and the perspiration running down +his cheeks. He scarcely ever took wine. But when he drank it, he drank +it greedily and in large tumblers. These were, in fact, mitigated +symptoms of that same moral disease which raged with such deadly +malignity in his friends Savage and Boyse. The roughness and violence +which he showed in society were to be expected from a man whose temper, +not naturally gentle, had been long tried by the bitterest calamities, +by the want of meat, of fire, and of clothes, by the importunity of +creditors, by the insolence of booksellers, by the derision of fools, by +the insincerity of patrons, by that bread which is the bitterest of all +food, by those stairs which are the most toilsome of all paths, by that +deferred hope which makes the heart sick. Through all these things the +ill-dressed, coarse, ungainly pedant had struggled manfully up to +eminence and command. It was natural that, in the exercise of his power, +he should be "eo immitior, quia toleraverat," that, though his heart was +undoubtedly generous and humane, his demeanour in society should be +harsh and despotic. For severe distress he had sympathy, and not only +sympathy, but munificent relief. But for the suffering which a harsh +word inflicts upon a delicate mind he had no pity; for it was a kind of +suffering which he could scarcely conceive. He would carry home on his +shoulders a sick and starving girl from the streets. He turned his house +into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could +find no other asylum; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude +weary out his benevolence. But the pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him +ridiculous; and he scarcely felt sufficient compassion even for the +pangs of wounded affection. He had seen and felt so much of sharp +misery, that he was not affected by paltry vexations; and he seemed to +think that everybody ought to be as much hardened to those vexations as +himself. He was angry with Boswell for complaining of a +head-ache, with Mrs. Thrale for grumbling about the dust on the road, or +the smell of the kitchen. These were, in his phrase, "foppish +lamentations," which people ought to be ashamed to utter in a world so +full of sin and sorrow. Goldsmith crying because the Good-natured Man +had failed, inspired him with no pity. Though his own health was not +good, he detested and despised valetudinarians. Pecuniary losses, unless +they reduced the loser absolutely to beggary, moved him very little. +People whose hearts had been softened by prosperity might weep, he said, +for such events; but all that could be expected of a plain man was not +to laugh. He was not much moved even by the spectacle of Lady Tavistock +dying of a broken heart for the loss of her lord. Such grief he +considered as a luxury reserved for the idle and the wealthy. A +washer-woman, left a widow with nine small children, would not have +sobbed herself to death. + +A person who troubled himself so little about small or sentimental +grievances was not likely to be very attentive to the feelings of others +in the ordinary intercourse of society. He could not understand how a +sarcasm or a reprimand could make any man really unhappy. "My dear +doctor," said he to Goldsmith, "what harm does it do to a man to call +him Holofernes?" "Pooh, ma'am," he exclaimed to Mrs. Carter, "who is the +worse for being talked of uncharitably?" Politeness has been well +defined as benevolence in small things. Johnson was impolite, not +because he wanted benevolence, but because small things appeared smaller +to him than to people who had never known what it was to live for +fourpence halfpenny a day. + +The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the union of great +powers with low prejudices. If we judged of him by the best parts of his +mind, we should place him almost as high as he was placed by the +idolatry of Boswell; if by the worst parts of his mind, we should place +him even below Boswell himself. Where he was not under the influence of +some strange scruple, or some domineering passion, which prevented him +from boldly and fairly investigating a subject, he was a wary and acute +reasoner, a little too much inclined to scepticism, and a little too +fond of paradox. No man was less likely to be imposed upon by fallacies +in argument, or by exaggerated statements of facts. But, if while he was +beating down sophisms and exposing false testimony, some childish +prejudices, such as would excite laughter in a well managed nursery, +came across him, he was smitten as if by enchantment. His mind dwindled +away under the spell from gigantic elevation to dwarfish littleness. +Those who had lately been admiring its amplitude and its force were now +as much astonished at its strange narrowness and feebleness as the +fisherman in the Arabian tale, when he saw the Genie, whose stature had +overshadowed the whole sea-coast, and whose might seemed equal to a +contest with armies, contract himself to the dimensions of his small +prison, and lie there the helpless slave of the charm of Solomon. + + * * * * * + +The characteristic faults of his style are so familiar to all our +readers, and have been so often burlesqued, that it is almost +superfluous to point them out. It is well-known that he made less use +than any other eminent writer of those strong plain words, Anglo-Saxon +or Norman-French, of which the roots lie in the inmost depths of our +language; and that he felt a vicious partiality for terms which, long +after our own speech had been fixed, were borrowed from the Greek and +Latin, and which, therefore, even when lawfully naturalised must be +considered as born aliens, not entitled to rank with the king's English. +His constant practice of padding out a sentence with useless epithets, +till it became as stiff as the best of an exquisite, his antithetical +forms of expression, constantly employed even where there is no +opposition in the ideas expressed, his big words wasted on little +things, his harsh inversions, so widely different from those graceful +and easy inversions which give variety, spirit, and sweetness to the +expression of our great old writers, all these peculiarities have been +imitated by his admirers and parodied by his assailants, till the public +has become sick of the subject. + +Goldsmith said to him, very wittily, and very justly, "If you were to +write a fable about little fishes, doctor, you would make the little +fishes talk like whales." No man surely ever had so little talent for +personation as Johnson. Whether he wrote in the character of a +disappointed legacy-hunter or an empty town fop, of a crazy virtuoso or +a flippant coquette, he wrote in the same pompous and unbending style. +His speech, like Sir Piercy Shafton's Euphuistic eloquence, bewrayed him +under every disguise. Euphelia and Rhodoclea talk as finely as Imlac the +poet, or Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia. The gay Cornelia describes her +reception at the country-house of her relations, in such terms as these: +"I was surprised, after the civilities of my first reception, to find, +instead of the leisure and tranquillity which a rural life always +promises, and, if well conducted, might always afford, a confused +wildness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every +face was clouded, and every motion agitated." The gentle Tranquilla +informs us, that she "had not passed the earlier part of life without +the flattery of courtship, and the joys of triumph; but had danced the +round of gaiety amidst the murmurs of envy and the gratulations of +applause, had been attended from pleasure to pleasure by the great, the +sprightly, and the vain, and had seen her regard solicited by the +obsequiousness of gallantry, the gaiety of wit, and the timidity of +love." Surely Sir John Falstaff himself did not wear his petticoats with +a worse grace. The reader may well cry out, with honest Sir Hugh Evans, +"I like not when a 'oman has a great peard: I spy a great peard under +her muffler."[5] + +[5] It is proper to observe that this passage bears a very close + resemblance to a passage in the _Rambler_ (No. 20). The resemblance + may possibly be the effect of unconscious plagiarism. + +We had something more to say. But our article is already too long; and +we must close it. We would fain part in good humour from the hero, from +the biographer, and even from the editor, who, ill as he has performed +his task, has at least this claim to our gratitude, that he has induced +us to read Boswell's book again. As we close it, the club-room is before +us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons +for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the +canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall thin +form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and the beaming smile of +Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in +his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar +to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up, the +gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease, +the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the +scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and paired to the +quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see +the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, +sir!" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, Sir!" and the "You don't +see your way through the question, sir!" + +What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man! To be +regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion. To +receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius +have in general received from posterity! To be more intimately known to +posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries! That kind of +fame which is commonly the most transient is, in his case, the most +durable. The reputation of those writings, which he probably expected to +be immortal, is every day fading; while those peculiarities of manner +and that careless table-talk the memory of which, he probably thought, +would die with him, are likely to be remembered as long as the English +language is spoken in any quarter of the globe. + + + + +ON W. E. GLADSTONE + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, April, 1839] + +_The State in its Relations with the Church_. By W. E. GLADSTONE, Esq., +Student of Christ Church, and M.P. for Newark. 8vo. Second Edition. +London, 1839. + +The author of this volume is a young man of unblemished character, and +of distinguished parliamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern +and unbending Tories who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader +whose experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose +cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor. It would not be at all +strange if Mr. Gladstone were one of the most unpopular men in England. +But we believe that we do him no more than justice when we say that his +abilities and his demeanour have obtained for him the respect and good +will of all parties. His first appearance in the character of an author +is therefore an interesting event; and it is natural that the gentle +wishes of the public should go with him to his trial. + +We are much pleased, without any reference to the soundness or +unsoundness of Mr. Gladstone's theories, to see a grave and elaborate +treatise on an important part of the Philosophy of Government proceed +from the pen of a young man who is rising to eminence in the House of +Commons. There is little danger that people engaged in the conflicts of +active life will be too much addicted to general speculation. The +opposite vice is that which most easily besets them. The times and tides +of business and debate tarry for no man. A politician must often talk +and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill informed +respecting a question; all his notions about it may be vague and +inaccurate; but speak he must; and if he is a man of ability, of tact, +and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, +it is possible to speak successfully. He finds that there is a great +difference between the effect of written words, which are perused and +reperused in the stillness of the closet, and the effect of spoken words +which, set off by the graces of utterance and gesture, vibrate for a +single moment on the ear. He finds that he may blunder without much +chance of being detected, that he may reason sophistically, and escape +unrefuted. He finds that, even on knotty questions of trade and +legislation, he can, without reading ten pages, or thinking ten minutes, +draw forth loud plaudits, and sit down with the credit of having made an +excellent speech.... The tendency of institutions like those of England +is to encourage readiness in public men, at the expense both of fulness +and of exactness. The keenest and most vigorous minds of every +generation, minds often admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, +are habitually employed in producing arguments such as no man of sense +would ever put into a treatise intended for publication, arguments which +are just good enough to be used once, when aided by fluent delivery and +pointed language. The habit of discussing questions in this way +necessarily reacts on the intellects of our ablest men, particularly of +those who are introduced into parliament at a very early age, before +their minds have expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate is +developed in such men to a degree which, to the multitude, seems as +marvellous as the performance of an Italian _Improvisatore._ + +But they are fortunate indeed if they retain unimpaired the faculties +which are required for close reasoning or for enlarged speculation. +Indeed we should sooner expect a great original work on political +science, such a work, for example, as the Wealth of Nations, from an +apothecary in a country town, or from a minister in the Hebrides, than +from a statesman who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a +distinguished debater in the House of Commons. + +We therefore hail with pleasure, though assuredly not with unmixed +pleasure, the appearance of this work. That a young politician should, +in the intervals afforded by his parliamentary avocations, have +constructed and propounded, with much study and mental toil, an original +theory on a great problem in politics, is a circumstance which, +abstracted from all consideration of the soundness or unsoundness of his +opinions, must be considered as highly creditable to him. We certainly +cannot wish that Mr. Gladstone's doctrines may become fashionable among +public men. But we heartily wish that his laudable desire to penetrate +beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, by long and intent +meditation, at the knowledge of great general laws, were much more +fashionable than we at all expect it to become. + +Mr. Gladstone seems to us to be, in many respects, exceedingly well +qualified for philosophical investigation. His mind is of large grasp; +nor is he deficient in dialectical skill. But he does not give his +intellect fair play. There is no want of light, but a great want of what +Bacon would have called dry light. Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is +refracted and distorted by a false medium of passions and prejudices. +His style bears a remarkable analogy to his mode of thinking, and indeed +exercises great influence on his mode of thinking. His rhetoric, though +often good of its kind, darkens and perplexes the logic which it should +illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, with a barren imagination +and a scanty vocabulary, would have saved him from almost all his +mistakes. He has one gift most dangerous to a speculator, a vast command +of a kind of language, grave and majestic, but of vague and uncertain +import; of a kind of language which affects us much in the same way in +which the lofty diction of the Chorus of Clouds affected the +simple-hearted Athenian. + + [Greek: o gae tou phthegmatos, os hieron, kai semnon, kai teratodes.] + +When propositions have been established, and nothing remains but to +amplify and decorate them, this dim magnificence may be in place. But if +it is admitted into a demonstration, it is very much worse than absolute +nonsense; just as that transparent haze, through which the sailor sees +capes and mountains of false sizes and in false bearings, is more +dangerous than utter darkness. Now, Mr. Gladstone is fond of employing +the phraseology of which we speak in those parts of his works which +require the utmost perspicuity and precision of which human language is +capable; and in this way he deludes first himself, and then his readers. +The foundations of his theory which ought to be buttresses of adamant, +are made out of the flimsy materials which are fit only for perorations. +This fault is one which no subsequent care or industry can correct. The +more strictly Mr. Gladstone reasons on his premises, the more absurd are +the conclusions which he brings out; and, when at last his good sense +and good nature recoil from the horrible practical inferences to which +this theory leads, he is reduced sometimes to take refuge in arguments +inconsistent with his fundamental doctrines, and sometimes to escape +from the legitimate consequences of his false principles, under cover of +equally false history. + +It would be unjust not to say that this book, though not a good book, +shows more talent than many good books. It abounds with eloquent and +ingenious passages. It bears the signs of much patient thought. It is +written throughout with excellent taste and excellent temper; nor does +it, so far as we have observed, contain one expression unworthy of a +gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. But the doctrines which are put +forth in it appear to us, after full and calm consideration, to be +false, to be in the highest degree pernicious, and to be such as, if +followed out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would +inevitably produce the dissolution of society; and for this opinion we +shall proceed to give our reasons with that freedom which the importance +of the subject requires, and which Mr. Gladstone, both by precept and by +example, invites us to use, but, we hope, without rudeness, and, we are +sure, without malevolence. + +Before we enter on an examination of this theory, we wish to guard +ourselves against one misconception. It is possible that some persons +who have read Mr. Gladstone's book carelessly, and others who have +merely heard in conversation, or seen in a newspaper, that the member +for Newark has written in defence of the Church of England against the +supporters of the voluntary system, may imagine that we are writing in +defence of the voluntary system, and that we desire the abolition of the +Established Church. This is not the case. It would be as unjust to +accuse us of attacking the Church, because we attack Mr. Gladstone's +doctrines, as it would be to accuse Locke of wishing for anarchy, +because he refuted Filmer's patriarchal theory of government, or to +accuse Blackstone of recommending the confiscation of ecclesiastical +property, because he denied that the right of the rector to tithe was +derived from the Levitical law. It is to be observed, that Mr. Gladstone +rests his case on entirely new grounds, and does not differ more widely +from us than from some of those who have hitherto been considered as the +most illustrious champions of the Church. He is not content with the +Ecclesiastical Polity, and rejoices that the latter part of that +celebrated work "does not carry with it the weight of Hooker's plenary +authority." He is not content with Bishop Warburton's Alliance of Church +and State. "The propositions of that work generally," he says, "are to +be received with qualification"; and he agrees with Bolingbroke in +thinking that Warburton's whole theory rests on a fiction. He is still +less satisfied with Paley's defence of the Church, which he pronounces +to be "tainted by the original vice of false ethical principles," and +"full of the seeds of evil." He conceives that Dr. Chalmers has taken a +partial view of the subject, and "put forth much questionable matter." +In truth, on almost every point on which we are opposed to Mr. +Gladstone, we have on our side the authority of some divine, eminent as +a defender of existing establishments. + +Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great fundamental +proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of the +principal ends of government, as government. If Mr. Gladstone has not +proved this proposition, his system vanishes at once. + +We are desirous, before we enter on the discussion of this important +question, to point out clearly a distinction which, though very obvious, +seems to be overlooked by many excellent people. In their opinion, to +say that the ends of government are temporal and not spiritual is +tantamount to saying that the temporal welfare of man is of more +importance than his spiritual welfare. But this is an entire mistake. +The question is not whether spiritual interests be or be not superior in +importance to temporal interests; but whether the machinery which +happens at any moment to be employed for the purpose of protecting +certain temporal interests of a society be necessarily such a machinery +as is fitted to promote the spiritual interests of that society. Without +a division of labour the world could not go on. It is of very much more +importance that men should have food than that they should have +pianofortes. Yet it by no means follows that every pianoforte-maker +ought to add the business of a baker to his own; for, if he did so, we +should have both much worse music and much worse bread. It is of much +more importance that the knowledge of religious truth should be wisely +diffused than that the art of sculpture should flourish among us. Yet it +by no means follows that the Royal Academy ought to unite with its +present functions those of the Society for Promoting Christian +Knowledge, to distribute theological tracts, to send forth missionaries, +to turn out Nollekens for being a Catholic, Bacon for being a methodist, +and Flaxman for being a Swedenborgian. For the effect of such folly +would be that we should have the worst possible Academy of Arts, and the +worst possible Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. The +community, it is plain, would be thrown into universal confusion, if it +were supposed to be the duty of every association which is formed for +one good object to promote every other good object. + +As to some of the ends of civil government, all people are agreed. That +it is designed to protect our persons and our property; that it is +designed to compel us to satisfy our wants, not by rapine, but by +industry; that it is designed to compel us to decide our differences, +not by the strong hand, but by arbitration; that it is designed to +direct our whole force, as that of one man, against any other society +which may offer us injury; these are propositions which will hardly be +disputed. + +Now these are matters in which man, without any reference to any higher +being, or to any future state, is very deeply interested. Every human +being, be he idolater, Mahometan, Jew, Papist, Socinian, Deist, or +Atheist, naturally loves life, shrinks from pain, desires comforts which +can be enjoyed only in communities where property is secure. To be +murdered, to be tortured, to be robbed, to be sold into slavery, these +are evidently evils from which men of every religion, and men of no +religion, wish to be protected; and therefore it will hardly be disputed +that men of every religion, and of no religion, have thus far a common +interest in being well governed. + +But the hopes and fears of man are not limited to this short life and to +this visible world. He finds himself surrounded by the signs of a power +and wisdom higher than his own; and, in all ages and nations, men of all +orders of intellect, from Bacon and Newton, down to the rudest tribes of +cannibals, have believed in the existence of some superior mind. Thus +far the voice of mankind is almost unanimous. But whether there be one +God, or many, what may be God's natural and what His mortal attributes, +in what relation His creatures stand to Him, whether He have ever +disclosed Himself to us by any other revelation than that which is +written in all the parts of the glorious and well ordered world which He +has made, whether His revelation be contained in any permanent record, +how that record should be interpreted, and whether it have pleased Him +to appoint any unerring interpreter on earth, these are questions +respecting which there exists the widest diversity of opinion, and +respecting some of which a large part of our race has, ever since the +dawn of regular history, been deplorably in error. + +Now here are two great objects: one is the protection of the persons and +estates of citizens from injury; the other is the propagation of +religious truth. No two objects more entirely distinct can well be +imagined. The former belongs wholly to the visible and tangible world in +which we live; the latter belongs to that higher world which is beyond +the reach of our senses. The former belongs to this life; the latter to +that which is to come. Men who are perfectly agreed as to the importance +of the former object, and as to the way of obtaining it, differ as +widely as possible respecting the latter object. We must, therefore, +pause before we admit that the persons, be they who they may, who are +trusted with power for promotion of the former object, ought always to +use that power for the promotion of the latter object. + + * * * * * + +The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone has fallen into an error very common +among men of less talents than his own. It is not unusual for a person +who is eager to prove a particular proposition to assume a _major_ of +huge extent, which includes that particular proposition, without ever +reflecting that it includes a great deal more. The fatal facility with +which Mr. Gladstone multiplies expressions stately and sonorous, but of +indeterminate meaning, eminently qualifies him to practise this sleight +on himself and on his readers. He lays down broad general doctrines +about power, when the only power of which he is thinking is the power of +governments, and about conjoint action when the only conjoint action of +which he is thinking is the conjoint action of citizens in a state. He +first resolves on his conclusion. He then makes a _major_ of most +comprehensive dimensions, and having satisfied himself that it contains +his conclusion, never troubles himself about what else it may contain: +and as soon as we examine it we find that it contains an infinite number +of conclusions, every one of which is a monstrous absurdity. + +It is perfectly true that it would be a very good thing if all the +members of all the associations in the world were men of sound religious +views. We have no doubt that a good Christian will be under the guidance +of Christian principles, in his conduct as director of a canal company +or steward of a charity dinner. If he were, to recur to a case which we +have before put, a member of a stage-coach company, he would, in that +capacity, remember that "a righteous man regardeth the life of his +beast." But it does not follow that every association of men must, +therefore, as such association, profess a religion. It is evident that +many great and useful objects can be attained in this world only by +co-operation. It is equally evident that there cannot be efficient +co-operation, if men proceed on the principle that they must not +co-operate for one object unless they agree about other objects. Nothing +seems to us more beautiful or admirable in our social system than the +facility with which thousands of people, who perhaps agree only on a +single point, can combine their energies for the purpose of carrying that +single point. We see daily instances of this. Two men, one of them +obstinately prejudiced against missions, the other president of a +missionary society, sit together at the board of a hospital, and +heartily concur in measures for the health and comfort of the patients. +Two men, one of whom is a zealous supporter and the other a zealous +opponent of the system pursued in Lancaster's schools, meet at the +Mendicity Society, and act together with the utmost cordiality. The +general rule we take to be undoubtedly this, that it is lawful and +expedient for men to unite in an association for the promotion of a good +object, though they may differ with respect to other objects of still +higher importance. + + * * * * * + +If, indeed, the magistrate would content himself with laying his +opinions and reasons before the people, and would leave the people, +uncorrupted by hope or fear, to judge for themselves, we should see +little reason to apprehend that his interference in favour of error +would be seriously prejudicial to the interests of truth. Nor do we, as +will hereafter be seen, object to his taking this course, when it is +compatible with the efficient discharge of his more especial duties. But +this will not satisfy Mr. Gladstone. He would have the magistrate resort +to means which have a great tendency to make malcontents, to make +hypocrites, to make careless nominal conformists, but no tendency +whatever to produce honest and rational conviction. It seems to us quite +clear that an inquirer who has no wish except to know the truth is more +likely to arrive at the truth than an inquirer who knows that, if he +decides one way, he shall be rewarded, and that, if he decides the other +way, he shall be punished. Now, Mr. Gladstone would have governments +propagate their opinions by excluding all dissenters from all civil +offices. That is to say, he would have governments propagate their +opinions by a process which has no reference whatever to the truth or +falsehood of those opinions, by arbitrarily uniting certain worldly +advantages with one set of doctrines, and certain worldly inconveniences +with another set. It is of the very nature of argument to serve the +interests of truth; but if rewards and punishments serve the interests +of truth, it is by mere accident. It is very much easier to find +arguments for the divine authority of the Gospel than for the divine +authority of the Koran. But it is just as easy to bribe or rack a Jew +into Mahometanism as into Christianity. + +From racks, indeed, and from all penalties directed against the persons, +the property, and the liberty of heretics, the humane spirit of Mr. +Gladstone shrinks with horror. He only maintains that conformity to the +religion of the state ought to be an indispensable qualification for +office; and he would, unless we have greatly misunderstood him, think it +his duty, if he had the power, to revive the Test Act, to enforce it +rigorously, and to extend it to important classes who were formerly +exempt from its operation. + +This is indeed a legitimate consequence of his principles. But why stop +here? Why not roast dissenters at slow fires? All the general reasonings +on which this theory rests evidently leads to sanguinary persecution. If +the propagation of religious truth be a principal end of government, as +government; if it be the duty of government to employ for that end its +constitutional power; if the constitutional power of governments +extends, as it most unquestionably does, to the making of laws for the +burning of heretics; if burning be, as it most assuredly is, in many +cases, a most effectual mode of suppressing opinions; why should we not +burn? If the relation in which government ought to stand to the people +be, as Mr. Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation, we are irresistibly +led to the conclusion that persecution is justifiable. For the right of +propagating opinions by punishment is one which belongs to parents as +clearly as the right to give instruction. A boy is compelled to attend +family worship: he is forbidden to read irreligious books: if he will +not learn his catechism, he is sent to bed without his supper: if he +plays truant at church-time a task is set him. If he should display the +precocity of his talents by expressing impious opinions before his +brothers and sisters, we should not much blame his father for cutting +short the controversy with a horse-whip. All the reasons which lead us +to think that parents are peculiarly fitted to conduct the education of +their children, and that education is the principal end of a parental +relation, lead us also to think that parents ought to be allowed to use +punishment, if necessary, for the purpose of forcing children, who are +incapable of judging for themselves, to receive religious instruction +and to attend religious worship. Why, then, is this prerogative of +punishment, so eminently paternal, to be withheld from a paternal +government? It seems to us, also, to be the height of absurdity to +employ civil disabilities for the propagation of an opinion, and then to +shrink from employing other punishments for the same purpose. For +nothing can be clearer than that, if you punish at all, you ought to +punish enough. The pain caused by punishment is pure unmixed evil, and +never ought to be inflicted, except for the sake of some good. It is +mere foolish cruelty to provide penalties which torment the criminal +without preventing the crime. Now it is possible, by sanguinary +persecution unrelentingly inflicted, to suppress opinions. In this way +the Albigenses were put down. In this way the Lollards were put down. In +this way the fair promise of the Reformation was blighted in Italy and +Spain. But we may safely defy Mr. Gladstone to point out a single +instance in which the system which he recommends has succeeded. + + * * * * * + +But we must proceed in our examination of his theory. Having, as he +conceives, proved that it is the duty of every government to profess +some religion or other, right or wrong, and to establish that religion, +he then comes to the question what religion a government ought to +prefer; and he decides this question in favour of the form of +Christianity established in England. The Church of England is, according +to him, the pure Catholic Church of Christ, which possesses the +apostolical succession of ministers, and within whose pale is to be +found that unity which is essential to truth. For her decisions he +claims a degree of reverence far beyond what she has ever, in any of her +formularies, claimed for herself; far beyond what the moderate school of +Bossuet demands for the Pope; and scarcely short of what that school +would ascribe to Pope and General Council together. To separate from her +communion is schism. To reject her traditions or interpretations of +Scripture is sinful presumption. + +Mr. Gladstone pronounces the right of private judgment, as it is +generally understood throughout Protestant Europe, to be a monstrous +abuse. He declares himself favourable, indeed, to the exercise of +private judgment, after a fashion of his own. We have, according to him, +a right to judge all the doctrines of the Church of England to be sound, +but not to judge any of them to be unsound. He has no objection, he +assures us, to active inquiry into religious questions. On the contrary, +he thinks such inquiry highly desirable, as long as it does not lead to +diversity of opinion; which is much the same thing as if he were to +recommend the use of fire that will not burn down houses, or of brandy +that will not make men drunk. He conceives it to be perfectly possible +for mankind to exercise their intellects vigorously and freely on +theological subjects, and yet to come to exactly the same conclusions +with each other and with the Church of England. And for this opinion he +gives, as far as we have been able to discover, no reason whatever, +except that everybody who vigorously and freely exercises his +understanding on Euclid's Theorems assents to them. "The activity of +private judgment," he truly observes, "and the unity and strength of +conviction in mathematics vary directly as each other." On this +unquestionable fact he constructs a somewhat questionable argument. +Everybody who freely inquires agrees, he says, with Euclid. But the +Church is as much in the right as Euclid. Why, then, should not every +free inquirer agree with the Church? We could put many similar +questions. Either the affirmative or the negative of the proposition +that King Charles wrote the _Icon Basilike_ is as true as that two sides +of a triangle are greater than the third side. Why, then, do Dr. +Wordsworth and Mr. Hallam agree in thinking two sides of a triangle +greater than the third side, and yet differ about the genuineness of the +_Icon Basilike?_ The state of the exact sciences proves, says Mr. +Gladstone, that, as respects religion, "the association of these two +ideas, activity of inquiry, and variety of conclusion, is a fallacious +one." We might just as well turn the argument the other way, and infer +from the variety of religious opinions that there must necessarily be +hostile mathematical sects, some affirming, and some denying, that the +square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the sides. But we +do not think either the one analogy or the other of the smallest value. +Our way of ascertaining the tendency of free inquiry is simply to open +our eyes and look at the world in which we live; and there we see that +free inquiry on mathematical subjects produces unity, and that free +inquiry on moral subjects produces discrepancy. There would undoubtedly +be less discrepancy if inquirers were more diligent and candid. But +discrepancy there will be among the most diligent and candid, as long as +the constitution of the human mind, and the nature of moral evidence, +continue unchanged. That we have not freedom and unity together is a +very sad thing; and so it is that we have not wings. But we are just as +likely to see the one defect removed as the other. It is not only in +religion that this discrepancy is found. It is the same with all matters +which depend on moral evidence, with judicial questions, for example, +and with political questions. All the judges will work a sum in the rule +of three on the same principle, and bring out the same conclusion. But +it does not follow that, however honest and laborious they may be, they +will all be of one mind on the Douglas case. So it is vain to hope that +there may be a free constitution under which every representative will +be unanimously elected, and every law unanimously passed; and it would +be ridiculous for a statesman to stand wondering and bemoaning himself +because people who agree in thinking that two and two make four cannot +agree about the new poor law, or the administration of Canada. + +There are two intelligible and consistent courses which may be followed +with respect to the exercise of private judgment; the course of the +Romanist, who interdicts private judgment because of its inevitable +inconveniences; and the course of the Protestant, who permits private +judgment in spite of its inevitable inconveniences. Both are more +reasonable than Mr. Gladstone, who would have private judgment without +its inevitable inconveniences. The Romanist produces repose by means of +stupefaction. The Protestant encourages activity, though he knows that +where there is much activity there will be some aberration. Mr. +Gladstone wishes for the unity of the fifteenth century with the active +and searching spirit of the sixteenth. He might as well wish to be in +two places at once. + + * * * * * + +We have done; and nothing remains but that we part from Mr. Gladstone +with the courtesy of antagonists who bear no malice. We dissent from his +opinions, but we admire his talents; we respect his integrity and +benevolence; and we hope that he will not suffer political avocations so +entirely to engross him, as to leave him no leisure for literature and +philosophy. + + + + +ON MADAME D'ARBLAY + + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1843] + +ART. IX.--_Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay_. 5 vols. 8vo. London, +1842. + +Though the world saw and heard little of Madame D'Arblay during the last +forty years of her life, and though that little did not add to her fame, +there were thousands, we believe, who felt a singular emotion when they +learned that she was no longer among us. The news of her death carried +the minds of men back at one leap, clear over two generations, to the +time when her first literary triumphs were won. All those whom we have +been accustomed to revere as intellectual patriarchs, seemed children +when compared with her; for Burke had sate up all night to read her +writings, and Johnson had pronounced her superior to Fielding, when +Rogers was still a schoolboy, and Southey still in petticoats. Yet more +strange did it seem that we should just have lost one whose name had +been widely celebrated before any body had heard of some illustrious men +who, twenty, thirty, or forty years ago, were, after a long and splendid +career, borne with honour to the grave. Yet so it was. Frances Burney +was at the height of fame and popularity before Cowper had published his +first volume, before Person had gone up to college, before Pitt had +taken his seat in the House of Commons, before the voice of Erskine had +been once heard in Westminster Hall. Since the appearance of her first +work, sixty-two years had passed; and this interval had been crowded, +not only with political, but also with intellectual revolutions. +Thousands of reputations had, during that period, sprung up, bloomed, +withered, and disappeared. New kinds of composition had come into +fashion, had gone out of fashion, had been derided, had been forgotten. +The fooleries of Della Crusca, and the fooleries of Kotzebue, had for a +time bewitched the multitude, but had left no trace behind them; nor had +misdirected genius been able to save from decay the once flourishing +school of Godwin, of Darwin, and of Radcliffe. Many books, written for +temporary effect, had run through six or seven editions, and had then +been gathered to the novels of Afra Behn, and the epic poems of Sir +Richard Blackmore. Yet the early works of Madame D'Arblay, in spite of +the lapse of years, in spite of the change of manners, in spite of the +popularity deservedly obtained by some of her rivals, continued to hold +a high place in the public esteem. She lived to be a classic. Time set +on her fame, before she went hence, that seal which is seldom set except +on the fame of the departed. Like Sir Condy Rackrent in the tale, she +survived her own wake, and overheard the judgment of posterity. + +Having always felt a warm and sincere, though not a blind admiration for +her talents, we rejoiced to learn that her Diary was about to be made +public. Our hopes, it is true, were not unmixed with fears. We could not +forget the fate of the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, which were published ten +years ago. The unfortunate book contained much that was curious and +interesting. Yet it was received with a cry of disgust, and was speedily +consigned to oblivion. The truth is, that it deserved its doom. It was +written in Madame D'Arblay's later style--the worst style that has ever +been known among men. No genius, no information, could have saved from +proscription a book so written. We, therefore, open the Diary with no +small anxiety, trembling lest we should light upon some of that peculiar +rhetoric which deforms almost every page of the Memoirs, and which it is +impossible to read without a sensation made up of mirth, shame and +loathing. We soon, however, discovered to our great delight that this +Diary was kept before Madame D'Arblay became eloquent. It is, for the +most part, written in her earliest and best manner; in true woman's +English, clear, natural, and lively. The two works are lying side by +side before us, and we never turn from the Memoirs to the Diary without +a sense of relief. The difference is as great as the difference between +the atmosphere of a perfumer's shop, fetid with lavender water and +jasmine soap, and the air of a heath on a fine morning in May. Both +works ought to be consulted by every person who wishes to be well +acquainted with the history of our literature and our manners. But to +read the Diary is a pleasure; to read the Memoirs will always be a task. + + * * * * * + +The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her +twenty-fifth year, well deserves to be recorded. When her education had +proceeded no further than the horn-book, she lost her mother, and +thenceforward she educated herself. Her father appears to have been as +bad a father as a very honest, affectionate, and sweet-tempered man can +well be. He loved his daughter dearly; but it never seems to have +occurred to him that a parent has other duties to perform to children +than that of fondling them. It would indeed have been impossible for him +to superintend their education himself. His professional engagements +occupied him all day. At seven in the morning he began to attend his +pupils, and, when London was full, was sometimes employed in teaching +till eleven at night. He was often forced to carry in his pocket a tin +box of sandwiches, and a bottle of wine and water, on which he dined in +a hackney-coach while hurrying from one scholar to another. Two of his +daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris; but he imagined that Frances +would run some risk of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she +were educated in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home. +No governess, no teacher of any art or of any language, was provided for +her. But one of her sisters showed her how to write; and, before she was +fourteen, she began to find pleasure in reading. + +It was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed, +when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very +small. When at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with the +most celebrated works of Voltaire and Molière; and, what seems still +more extraordinary, had never heard or seen a line of Churchill, who, +when she was a girl, was the most popular of living poets. It is +particularly deserving of observation, that she appears to have been by +no means a novel-reader. Her father's library was large; and he had +admitted into it so many books which rigid moralists generally exclude, +that he felt uneasy, as he afterwards owned, when Johnson began to +examine the shelves. But in the whole collection there was only a single +novel, Fielding's Amelia. + +An education, however, which to most girls would have been useless, but +which suited Fanny's mind better than elaborate culture, was in constant +progress during her passage from childhood to womanhood. The great book +of human nature was turned over before her. Her father's social position +was very peculiar. He belonged in fortune and station to the middle +class. His daughters seem to have been suffered to mix freely with those +whom butlers and waiting-maids call vulgar. We are told that they were +in the habit of playing with the children of a wig-maker who lived in +the adjoining house. Yet few nobles could assemble in the most stately +mansions of Grosvenor Square or St. James's Square, a society so various +and so brilliant as was sometimes to be found in Dr. Burney's cabin. His +mind, though not very powerful or capacious, was restlessly active; and, +in the intervals of his professional pursuits, he had contrived to lay +up much miscellaneous information. His attainments, the suavity of his +temper, and the gentle simplicity of his manners, had obtained for him +ready admission to the first literary circles. While he was still at +Lynn, he had won Johnson's heart by sounding with honest zeal the +praises of the English Dictionary. In London the two friends met +frequently, and agreed most harmoniously. One tie, indeed, was wanting +to their mutual attachment. Burney loved his own art passionately; and +Johnson just knew the bell of St. Clement's church from the organ. They +had, however, many topics in common; and on winter nights their +conversations were sometimes prolonged till the fire had gone out, and +the candles had burned away to the wicks. Burney's admiration of the +powers which had produced Rasselas and The Rambler, bordered on +idolatry. He gave a singular proof of this at his first visit to +Johnson's ill-furnished garret. The master of the apartment was not at +home. The enthusiastic visitor looked about for some relique which he +might carry away; but he could see nothing lighter than the chairs and +the fire-irons. At last he discovered an old broom, tore some bristles +from the stump, wrapped them in silver paper, and departed as happy as +Louis IX when the holy nail of St. Denis was found. Johnson, on the +other hand, condescended to growl out that Burney was an honest fellow, +a man whom it was impossible not to like. + +Garrick, too, was a frequent visitor in Poland Street and St. Martin's +Lane. That wonderful actor loved the society of children, partly from +good-nature, and partly from vanity. The ecstasies of mirth and terror +which his gestures and play of countenance never failed to produce in a +nursery, flattered him quite as much as the applause of mature critics. +He often exhibited all his powers of mimicry for the amusement of the +little Burneys, awed them by shuddering and crouching as if he saw a +ghost, scared them by raving like a maniac in St. Lukes', and then at +once became an auctioneer, a chimney-sweeper, or an old woman, and made +them laugh till the tears ran down their cheeks. + +But it would be tedious to recount the names of all the men of letters +and artists whom Frances Burney had an opportunity of seeing and +hearing. Colman, Twining, Harris, Baretti, Hawkesworth, Reynolds, Barry, +were among those who occasionally surrounded the tea-table and +supper-tray at her father's modest dwelling. This was not all. The +distinction which Dr. Burney had acquired as a musician, and as the +historian of music, attracted to his house the most eminent musical +performers of that age. The greatest Italian singers who visited England +regarded him as the dispenser of fame in their art, and exerted +themselves to obtain his suffrage. Pachierotti became his intimate +friend. The rapacious Agujari, who sang for nobody else under fifty +pounds an air, sang her best for Dr. Burney without a fee; and in the +company of Dr. Burney even the haughty and eccentric Gabrielli +constrained herself to behave with civility. It was thus in his power to +give, with scarcely any expense, concerts equal to those of the +aristocracy. On such occasions the quiet street in which he lived was +blocked up by coroneted chariots, and his little drawing-room was +crowded with peers, peeresses, ministers, and ambassadors. On one +evening, of which we happen to have a full account, there were present +Lord Mulgrave, Lord Bruce, Lord and Lady Edgecumbe, Lord Barrington from +the War-Office, Lord Sandwich from the Admiralty, Lord Ashburnham, with +his gold key dangling from his pocket, and the French Ambassador, M. De +Guignes, renowned for his fine person and for his success in gallantry. +But the great show of the night was the Russian Ambassador, Count +Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a blaze with jewels, and in +whose demeanour the untamed ferocity of the Scythian might be discerned +through a thin varnish of French politeness. As he stalked about the +small parlour, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the girls whispered +to each other, with mingled admiration and horror, that he was the +favoured lover of his august mistress; that he had borne the chief part +in the revolution to which she owed her throne; and that his huge hands, +now glittering with diamond rings, had given the last squeeze to the +windpipe of her unfortunate husband. + +With such illustrious guests as these were mingled all the most +remarkable specimens of the race of lions--a kind of game which is +hunted in London every spring with more than Meltonian ardour and +perseverance. Bruce, who had washed down steaks cut from living oxen +with water from the fountains of the Nile, came to swagger and talk +about his travels. Omai lisped broken English, and made all the +assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love-songs, +such as those with which Oberea charmed her Opano. + +With the literary and fashionable society which occasionally met under +Dr. Burney's roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was +not a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts. She +was shy almost to awkwardness, and scarcely ever joined in the +conversation. The slightest remark from a stranger disconcerted her; and +even the old friends of her father who tried to draw her out could +seldom extract more than a Yes or a No. Her figure was small, her face +not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore suffered to withdraw +quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to observe all that +passed. Her nearest relations were aware that she had good sense, but +seem not to have suspected, that under her demure and bashful deportment +were concealed a fertile invention and a keen sense of the ridiculous. +She had not, it is true, an eye for the fine shades of character. But +every marked peculiarity instantly caught her notice and remained +engraven on her imagination. Thus, while still a girl, she had laid up +such a store of materials for fiction as few of those who mix much in +the world are able to accumulate during a long life. She had watched and +listened to people of every class, from princes and great officers of +state down to artists living in garrets, and poets familiar with +subterranean cook-shops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed in +review before her, English, French, German, Italian, lords and fiddlers, +deans of cathedrals and managers of theatres, travellers leading about +newly caught savages, and singing women escorted by deputy-husbands. + +So strong was the impression made on the mind of Frances by the society +which she was in the habit of seeing and hearing, that she began to +write little fictitious narratives as soon as she could use her pen with +ease, which, as we have said, was not very early. Her sisters were +amused by her stories. But Dr. Burney knew nothing of their existence; +and in another quarter her literary propensities met with serious +discouragement. When she was fifteen, her father took a second wife. The +new Mrs. Burney soon found out that her daughter-in-law was fond of +scribbling, and delivered several good-natured lectures on the subject. +The advice no doubt was well-meant, and might have been given by the +most judicious friend; for at that time, from causes to which we may +hereafter advert, nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young lady +than to be known as a novel-writer. Frances yielded, relinquished her +favourite pursuit, and made a bonfire of all her manuscripts.[1] + +[1] There is some difficulty here as to the chronology. "This + sacrifice," says the editor of the Diary, "was made in the young + authoress's fifteenth year." This could not be; for the sacrifice + was the effect, according to the editor's own showing, of the + remonstrances of the second Mrs. Burney; and Frances was in her + sixteenth year when her father's second marriage took place. + +She now hemmed and stitched from breakfast to dinner with scrupulous +regularity. But the dinners of that time were early; and the afternoon +was her own. Though she had given up novel-writing, she was still fond +of using her pen. She began to keep a diary, and she corresponded +largely with a person who seems to have had the chief share in the +formation of her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old friend of her +father. His name, well known, near a century ago, in the most splendid +circles of London, has long been forgotten. + +Crisp was an old and very intimate friend of the Burneys. To them alone +was confided the name of the desolate old hall in which he hid himself +like a wild beast in a den. For them were reserved such remains of his +humanity as had survived the failure of his play. Frances Burney he +regarded as his daughter. He called her his Fannikin, and she in return +called him her dear Daddy. In truth, he seems to have done much more +than her real father for the development of her intellect; for though he +was a bad poet, he was a scholar, a thinker, and an excellent +counsellor. He was particularly fond of Dr. Burney's concerts. They had, +indeed, been commenced at his suggestion, and when he visited London he +constantly attended them. But when he grew old, and when gout, brought +on partly by mental irritation, confined him to his retreat, he was +desirous of having a glimpse of that gay and brilliant world from which +he was exiled, and he pressed Fannikin to send him full accounts of her +father's evening parties. A few of her letters to him have been +published; and it is impossible to read them without discerning in them +all the powers which afterwards produced Evelina and Cecilia, the +quickness in catching every odd peculiarity of character and manner, the +skill in grouping, the humour, often richly comic, sometimes even +farcical. + +Fanny's propensity to novel-writing had for a time been kept down. It +now rose up stronger than ever. The heroes and heroines of the tales +which had perished in the flames, were still present to the eye of her +mind. One favourite story, in particular, haunted her imagination. It +was about a certain Caroline Evelyn, a beautiful damsel who made an +unfortunate love match, and died, leaving an infant daughter. Frances +began to imagine to herself the various scenes, tragic and comic, +through which the poor motherless girl, highly connected on one side, +meanly connected on the other, might have to pass. A crowd of unreal +beings, good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded the pretty, timid, +young orphan; a coarse sea-captain; an ugly insolent fop, blazing in a +superb court-dress; another fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on +Snow Hill, and tricked out in second-hand finery for the Hampstead ball; +an old woman, all wrinkles and rouge, flirting her fan with the air of a +Miss of seventeen, and screaming in a dialect made up of vulgar French +and vulgar English; a poet lean and ragged, with a broad Scotch accent. +By degrees these shadows acquired stronger and stronger consistence: the +impulse which urged Frances to write became irresistible; and the result +was the history of Evelina. + +Then came, naturally enough, a wish, mingled with many fears, to appear +before the public; for, timid as Frances was, and bashful, and +altogether unaccustomed to hear her own praises, it is clear that she +wanted neither a strong passion for distinction, nor a just confidence +in her own powers. Her scheme was to become, if possible, a candidate +for fame without running any risk of disgrace. She had no money to bear +the expense of printing. It was therefore necessary that some bookseller +should be induced to take the risk; and such a bookseller was not +readily found. Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he +were trusted with the name of the author. A publisher in Fleet Street, +named Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some correspondence took place +between this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and +desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange +Coffee-House. But, before the bargain was finally struck, Fanny thought +it her duty to obtain her father's consent. She told him that she had +written a book, that she wished to have his permission to publish +[Transcriber's note: "published" in original] it anonymously, but that +she hoped that he would not insist upon seeing it. What followed may +serve to illustrate what we meant when we said that Dr. Burney was as +bad a father as so good-hearted a man could possibly be. It never seems +to have crossed his mind that Fanny was about to take a step on which +the whole happiness of her life might depend, a step which might raise +her to an honourable eminence, or cover her with ridicule and contempt. +Several people had already been trusted, and strict concealment was +therefore not to be expected. On so grave an occasion, it was surely his +duty to give his best counsel to his daughter, to win her confidence, to +prevent her from exposing herself if her book were a bad one, and, if it +were a good one, to see that the terms which she made with the publisher +were likely to be beneficial to her. Instead of this, he only stared, +burst out a laughing, kissed her, gave her leave to do as she liked, and +never even asked the name of her work. The contract with Lowndes was +speedily concluded. Twenty pounds were given for the copyright, and were +accepted by Fanny with delight. Her father's inexcusable neglect of his +duty, happily caused her no worse evil than the loss of twelve or +fifteen hundred pounds. + +After many delays Evelina appeared in January 1778. Poor Fanny was sick +with terror, and durst hardly stir out of doors. Some days passed before +any thing was heard of the book. It had, indeed, nothing but its own +merits to push it into public favour. Its author was unknown. The house +by which it was published, was not, we believe, held in high estimation. +No body of partisans had been engaged to applaud. The better class of +readers expected little from a novel about a young lady's entrance into +the world. There was, indeed, at that time a disposition among the most +respectable people to condemn novels generally; nor was this disposition +by any means without excuse; for works of that sort were then almost +always silly, and very frequently wicked. + +Soon, however, the first faint accents of praise began to be heard. The +keepers of the circulating libraries reported that every body was asking +for Evelina, and that some person had guessed Anstey to be the Author. +Then came a favourable notice in the London Review; then another still +more favourable in the Monthly. And now the book found its way to tables +which had seldom been polluted by marble-covered volumes. Scholars and +statesmen who contemptuously abandoned the crowd of romances to Miss +Lydia Languish and Miss Sukey Saunter, were not ashamed to own that they +could not tear themselves away from Evelina. Fine carriages and rich +liveries, not often seen east of Temple Bar, were attracted to the +publisher's shop in Fleet Street. Lowndes was daily questioned about the +author; but was himself as much in the dark as any of the questioners. +The mystery, however, could not remain a mystery long. It was known to +brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins: and they were far too proud and +too happy to be discreet. Dr. Burney wept over the book in rapture. +Daddy Crisp shook his fist at his Fannikin in affectionate anger at not +having been admitted to her confidence. The truth was whispered to Mrs. +Thrale; and then it began to spread fast. + +The book had been admired while it was ascribed to men of letters long +conversant with the world, and accustomed to composition. But when it +was known that a reserved, silent young woman had produced the best work +of fiction that had appeared since the death of Smollett, the +acclamations were redoubled. What she had done was, indeed, +extraordinary. But, as usual, various reports improved the story till it +became miraculous. Evelina, it was said, was the work of a girl of +seventeen. Incredible as this tale was, it continued to be repeated down +to our own time. Frances was too honest to confirm it. Probably she was +too much a woman to contradict it; and it was long before any of her +detractors thought of this mode of annoyance. Yet there was no want of +low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her first +appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the asp +George Steevens and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, +occur to them to search the parish-register of Lynn, in order that they +might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly +chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose +spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a +worthless edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our +readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books. + +But we must return to our story. The triumph was complete. The timid and +obscure girl found herself on the highest pinnacle of fame. Great men, +on whom she had gazed at a distance with humble reverence, addressed her +with admiration, tempered by the tenderness due to her sex and age. +Burke, Windham, Gibbon, Reynolds, Sheridan, were among her most ardent +eulogists. Cumberland acknowledged her merit, after his fashion, by +biting his lips and wriggling in his chair whenever her name was +mentioned. But it was at Streatham that she tasted, in the highest +perfection, the sweets of flattery, mingled with the sweets of +friendship. Mrs. Thrale, then at the height of prosperity and +popularity--with gay spirits, quick wit, showy though superficial +acquirements, pleasing though not refined manners, a singularly amiable +temper, and a loving heart--felt towards Fanny as towards a younger +sister. With the Thrales Johnson was domesticated. He was an old friend +of Dr. Burney; but he had probably taken little notice of Dr. Burney's +daughters, and Fanny, we imagine, had never in her life dared to speak +to him, unless to ask whether he wanted a nineteenth or a twentieth cup +of tea. He was charmed by her tale, and preferred it to the novels of +Fielding, to whom, indeed, he had always been grossly unjust. He did +not, indeed, carry his partiality so far as to place Evelina by the side +of Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison; yet he said that his favourite +had done enough to have made even Richardson feel uneasy. With Johnson's +cordial approbation of the book was mingled a fondness, half gallant +half paternal, for the writer; and his fondness his age and character +entitled him to show without restraint. He began by putting her hand to +his lips. But soon he clasped her in his huge arms, and implored her to +be a good girl. She was his pet, his dear love, his dear little Burney, +his little character-monger. At one time, he broke forth in praise of +the good taste of her caps. At another time, he insisted on teaching her +Latin. That, with all his coarseness and irritability, he was a man of +sterling benevolence, has long been acknowledged. But how gentle and +endearing his deportment could be, was not known till the Recollections +of Madame D'Arblay were published. + +We have mentioned a few of the most eminent of those who paid their +homage to the author of Evelina. The crowd of inferior admirers would +require a catalogue as long as that in the second book of the Iliad. In +that catalogue would be Mrs. Cholmondeley, the sayer of odd things, and +Seward, much given to yawning, and Baretti, who slew the man in the +Haymarket, and Paoli, talking broken English, and Langton, taller by the +head than any other member of the club, and Lady Millar, who kept a vase +wherein fools were wont to put bad verses, and Jerningham, who wrote +verses fit to be put into the vase of Lady Millar, and Dr. Franklin-- +not, as some have dreamed, the great Pennsylvanian Dr. Franklin, who +could not then have paid his respects to Miss Burney without much risk +of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, but Dr. Franklin the less-- + + [Greek: _Aias + meion, outi tosos ge osos Telamonios Aias, + alla polu meion._] + +It would not have been surprising if such success had turned even a +strong head, and corrupted even a generous and affectionate nature. But, +in the Diary, we can find no trace of any feeling inconsistent with a +truly modest and amiable disposition. There is, indeed, abundant proof +that Frances enjoyed, with an intense, though a troubled, joy, the +honours which her genius had won; but it is equally clear that her +happiness sprang from the happiness of her father, her sister, and her +dear Daddy Crisp. While flattered by the great, the opulent, and the +learned, while followed along the Steyne at Brighton and the Pantiles at +Tunbridge Wells by the gaze of admiring crowds, her heart seems to have +been still with the little domestic circle in St. Martin's Street. If +she recorded with minute diligence all the compliments, delicate and +coarse, which she heard wherever she turned, she recorded them for the +eyes of two or three persons who had loved her from infancy, who had +loved her in obscurity, and to whom her fame gave the purest and most +exquisite delight. Nothing can be more unjust than to confound these +outpourings of a kind heart, sure of perfect sympathy, with the egotism +of a blue-stocking, who prates to all who come near her about her own +novel or her own volume of sonnets. + +It was natural that the triumphant issue of Miss Burney's first venture +should tempt her to try a second. Evelina, though it had raised her +fame, had added nothing to her fortune. Some of her friends urged her to +write for the stage. Johnson promised to give her his advice as to the +composition. Murphy, who was supposed to understand the temper of the +pit as well as any man of his time, undertook to instruct her as to +stage-effect. Sheridan declared that he would accept a play from her +without even reading it. Thus encouraged she wrote a comedy named The +Witlings. Fortunately it was never acted or printed. We can, we think, +easily perceive from the little which is said on the subject in the +Diary, that The Witlings would have been damned, and that Murphy and +Sheridan thought so, though they were too polite to say so. Happily +Frances had a friend who was not afraid to give her pain. Crisp, wiser +for her than he had been for himself, read the manuscript in his lonely +retreat, and manfully told her that she had failed, that to remove +blemishes here and there would be useless, that the piece had abundance +of wit but no interest, that it was bad as a whole, that it would remind +every reader of the _Femmes Savantes_, which, strange to say, she had +never read, and that she could not sustain so close a comparison with +Molière. This opinion, in which Dr. Burney concurred, was sent to +Frances in what she called a "hissing, groaning, cat-calling epistle." +But she had too much sense not to know that it was better to be hissed +and cat-called by her Daddy than by a whole sea of heads in the pit of +Drury-Lane Theatre; and she had too good a heart not to be grateful for +so rare an act of friendship. She returned an answer which shows how +well she deserved to have a judicious, faithful, and affectionate +adviser. "I intend," she wrote, "to console myself for your censure by +this greatest proof I have ever received of the sincerity, candour, and, +let me add, esteem, of my dear daddy. And as I happen to love myself +rather more than my play, this consolation is not a very trifling one. +This, however, seriously I do believe, that when my two daddies put +their heads together to concert that hissing, groaning, cat-calling +epistle they sent me, they felt as sorry for poor little Miss Bayes as +she could possibly do for herself. You see I do not attempt to repay +your frankness with the air of pretended carelessness. But, though +somewhat disconcerted just now, I will promise not to let my vexation +live out another day. Adieu, my dear daddy! I won't be mortified, and I +won't be _downed_; but I will be proud to find I have, out of my own +family, as well as in it, a friend who loves me well enough to speak +plain truth to me." + +Frances now turned from her dramatic schemes to an undertaking far +better suited to her talents. She determined to write a new tale, on a +plan excellently contrived for the display of the powers in which her +superiority to other writers lay. It was in truth a grand and various +picture-gallery, which presented to the eye a long series of men and +women, each marked by some strong peculiar feature. There were avarice +and prodigality, the pride of blood and the pride of money, morbid +restlessness and morbid apathy, frivolous garrulity, supercilious +silence, a Democritus to laugh at every thing, and a Heraclitus to +lament over every thing. The work proceeded fast, and in twelve months +was completed. It wanted something of the simplicity which had been +among the most attractive charms of Evelina; but it furnished ample +proof that the four years which had elapsed since Evelina appeared, had +not been unprofitably spent. Those who saw Cecilia in manuscript +pronounced it the best novel of the age. Mrs. Thrale laughed and wept +over it. Crisp was even vehement in applause, and offered to insure the +rapid and complete success of the book for half a crown. What Miss +Burney received for the copyright is not mentioned in the Diary; but we +have observed several expressions from which we infer that the sum was +considerable. That the sale would be great nobody could doubt; and +Frances now had shrewd and experienced advisers, who would not suffer +her to wrong herself. We have been told that the publishers gave her two +thousand pounds, and we have no doubt that they might have given a still +larger sum without being losers. + +Cecilia was published in the summer of 1782. The curiosity of the town +was intense. We have been informed by persons who remember those days, +that no romance of Sir Walter Scott was more impatiently awaited, or +more eagerly snatched from the counters of the booksellers. High as +public expectation was, it was amply satisfied; and Cecilia was placed, +by general acclamation, among the classical novels of England. + +Miss Burney was now thirty. Her youth had been singularly prosperous; +but clouds soon began to gather over that clear and radiant dawn. Events +deeply painful to a heart so kind as that of Frances, followed each +other in rapid succession. She was first called upon to attend the +death-bed of her best friend, Samuel Crisp. When she returned to St. +Martin's Street, after performing this melancholy duty, she was appalled +by hearing that Johnson had been struck with paralysis; and, not many +months later, she parted from him for the last time with solemn +tenderness. He wished to look on her once more; and on the day before +his death she long remained in tears on the stairs leading to his +bedroom, in the hope that she might be called in to receive his +blessing. But he was then sinking fast, and, though he sent her an +affectionate message, was unable to see her. But this was not the worst. +There are separations far more cruel than those which are made by death. +Frances might weep with proud affection for Crisp and Johnson. She had +to blush as well as to weep for Mrs. Thrale. + +Life, however, still smiled upon her. Domestic happiness, friendship, +independence, leisure, letters, all these things were hers; and she +flung them all away. + + * * * * * + +Then the prison was opened, and Frances was free once more. Johnson, as +Burke observed, might have added a striking page to his poem on the +Vanity of Human Wishes, if he had lived to see his little Burney as she +went into the palace and as she came out of it. + +The pleasures, so long untasted, of liberty, of friendship, of domestic +affection, were almost too acute for her shattered frame. But happy days +and tranquil nights soon restored the health which the Queen's toilette +and Madame Schwellenberg's card-table had impaired. Kind and anxious +faces surrounded the invalid. Conversation the most polished and +brilliant revived her spirits. Travelling was recommended to her; and +she rambled by easy journeys from cathedral to cathedral, and from +watering-place to watering-place. She crossed the New Forest, and +visited Stonehenge and Wilton, the cliffs of Lyme, and the beautiful +valley of Sidmouth. Thence she journeyed by Powderham Castle, and by the +ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, to Bath, and from Bath, when the winter was +approaching, returned well and cheerful to London. There she visited her +old dungeon, and found her successor already far on the way to the +grave, and kept to strict duty, from morning till midnight, with a +sprained ankle and a nervous fever. + +At this time England swarmed with French exiles driven from their +country by the Revolution. A colony of these refugees settled at Juniper +Hall in Surrey, not far from Norbury Park, where Mr. Lock, an intimate +friend of the Burney family, resided. Frances visited Norbury, and was +introduced to the strangers. She had strong prejudices against them; for +her Toryism was far beyond, we do not say that of Mr. Pitt, but that of +Mr. Reeves; and the inmates of Juniper Hall were all attached to the +constitution of 1791, and were therefore more detested by the Royalists +of the first emigration than Petion or Marat. But such a woman as Miss +Burney could no longer resist the fascination of that remarkable +society. She had lived with Johnson and Windham, with Mrs. Montague and +Mrs. Thrale. Yet she was forced to own that she had never heard +conversation before. The most animated eloquence, the keenest +observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were united +to charm her. For Madame de StaĂ«l was there, and M. de Talleyrand. There +too was M. de Narbonne, a noble representative of French aristocracy; +and with M. de Narbonne was his friend and follower General D'Arblay, an +honourable and amiable man, with a handsome person, frank soldier-like +manners, and some taste for letters. + +The prejudices which Frances had conceived against the constitutional +royalists of France rapidly vanished. She listened with rapture to +Talleyrand and Madame de StaĂ«l, joining with M. D'Arblay in execrating +the Jacobins, and in weeping for the unhappy Bourbons, took French +lessons from him, fell in love with him, and married him on no better +provision [Transcriber's note: "pro-provision" in original] than a +precarious annuity of one hundred pounds. + + * * * * * + +We now turn from the life of Madame D'Arblay to her writings. There can, +we apprehend, be little difference of opinion as to the nature of her +merit, whatever differences may exist as to its degree. She was +emphatically what Johnson called her, a character-monger. It was in the +exhibition of human passions and whims that her strength lay; and in +this department of art she had, we think, very distinguished skill. + +Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of +dialogue, stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of nature, +endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity. The characters of which he +has given us an impression, as vivid as that which we receive from the +characters of our own associates, are to be reckoned by scores. Yet in +all these scores hardly one character is to be found which deviates +widely from the common standard, and which we should call very eccentric +if we met it in real life. The silly notion that every man has one +ruling passion, and that this clue, once known, unravels all the +mysteries of his conduct, finds no countenance in the plays of +Shakespeare. There man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions, +which contend for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn. What is +Hamlet's ruling passion? Or Othello's? Or Harry the Fifth's? Or +Wolsey's? Or Lear's? Or Shylock's? Or Benedick's? Or Macbeth's? Or that +of Cassius? Or that of Falconbridge? But we might go on for ever. Take a +single example--Shylock. Is he so eager for money as to be indifferent +to revenge? Or so eager for revenge as to be indifferent to money? Or so +bent on both together as to be indifferent to the honour of his nation +and the law of Moses? All his propensities are mingled with each other; +so that, in trying to apportion to each its proper part, we find the +same difficulty which constantly meets us in real life. A superficial +critic may say, that hatred is Shylock's ruling passion. But how many +passions have amalgamated to form that hatred? It is partly the result +of wounded pride: Antonio has called him dog. It is partly the result of +covetousness: Antonio has hindered him of half a million; and, when +Antonio is gone, there will be no limit to the gains of usury. It is +partly the result of national and religious feeling: Antonio has spit on +the Jewish gaberdine; and the oath of revenge has been sworn by the +Jewish Sabbath. We might go through all the characters which we have +mentioned, and through fifty more in the same way; for it is the +constant manner of Shakespeare to represent the human mind as lying, not +under the absolute dominion of one despotic propensity, but under a +mixed government, in which a hundred powers balance each other. +Admirable as he was in all parts of his art, we most admire him for +this, that, while he has left us a greater number of striking portraits +than all other dramatists put together, he has scarcely left us a single +caricature. + +Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers who, +in the point which we have noticed, have approached nearest to the +manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane +Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a +multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such +as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from +each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. There +are, for example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to +find in any parsonage in the kingdom, Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry +Tilney, Mr. Edmund Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They are all specimens of the +upper part of the middle class. They have all been liberally educated. +They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They +are all young. They are all in love. Not one of them has any hobbyhorse, +to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we +read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid +likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to +Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, +than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend +brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate, that they +elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we +know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have +contributed. + +A line must be drawn, we conceive, between artists of this class, and +those poets and novelists whose skill lies in the exhibiting of what Ben +Jonson called humours. The words of Ben are so much to the purpose, that +we will quote them-- + + When some one peculiar quality + Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw + All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, + In their confluxions all to run one way, + This may be truly said to be a humour. + +There are undoubtedly persons, in whom humours such as Ben describes +have attained a complete ascendency. The avarice of Elwes, the insane +desire of Sir Egerton Brydges for a barony to which he had no more right +than to the crown of Spain, the malevolence which long meditation on +imaginary wrongs generated in the gloomy mind of Bellingham, are +instances. The feeling which animated Clarkson and other virtuous men +against the slave-trade and slavery, is an instance of a more honourable +kind. + +Seeing that such humours exist, we cannot deny that they are proper +subjects for the imitations of art. But we conceive that the imitation +of such humours, however skilful and amusing, is not an achievement of +the highest order; and, as such humours are rare in real life, they +ought, we conceive, to be sparingly introduced into works which profess +to be pictures of real life. Nevertheless, a writer may show so much +genius in the exhibition of these humours, as to be fairly entitled to a +distinguished and permanent rank among classics. The chief seats of all, +however, the places on the dais and under the canopy, are reserved for +the few who have excelled in the difficult art of portraying characters +in which no single feature is extravagantly overcharged. + +If we have expounded the law soundly, we can have no difficulty in +applying it to the particular case before us. Madame D'Arblay has left +us scarcely any thing but humours. Almost every one of her men and women +has some one propensity developed to a morbid degree. In Cecilia, for +example, Mr. Delvile never opens his lips without some allusion to his +own birth and station; or Mr. Briggs, without some allusion to the +hoarding of money; or Mr. Hobson, without betraying the self-indulgence +and self-importance of a purse-proud upstart; or Mr. Simkins, without +uttering some sneaking remark for the purpose of currying favour with +his customers; or Mr. Meadows, without expressing apathy and weariness +of life; or Mr. Albany, without declaiming about the vices of the rich +and the misery of the poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some indelicate +eulogy on her son; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her +husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport +all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly +prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of +Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well. + +We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame D'Arblay a place in the +highest rank of art; but we cannot deny that, in the rank to which she +belonged, she had few equals, and scarcely any superior. The variety of +humours which is to be found in her novels is immense; and though the +talk of each person separately is monotonous, the general effect is not +monotony, but a very lively and agreeable diversity. Her plots are +rudely constructed and improbable, if we consider them in themselves. +But they are admirably framed for the purpose of exhibiting striking +groups of eccentric characters, each governed by his own peculiar whim, +each talking his own peculiar jargon, and each bringing out by +opposition the oddities of all the rest. We will give one example out of +many which occur to us. All probability is violated in order to bring +Mr. Delvile, Mr. Briggs, Mr. Hobson, and Mr. Albany into a room +together. But when we have them there, we soon forget probability in the +exquisitely ludicrous effect which is produced by the conflict of four +old fools, each raging with a monomania of his own, each talking a +dialect of his own, and each inflaming all the others anew every time he +opens his mouth. + +Yet one word more. It is not only on account of the intrinsic merit of +Madame D'Arblay's early works that she is entitled to honourable +mention. Her appearance is an important epoch in our literary history. +Evelina was the first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a +picture of life and manners, that lived or deserved to live. The Female +Quixote is no exception. That work has undoubtedly great merit, when +considered as a wild satirical harlequinade; but, if we consider it as a +picture of life and manners, we must pronounce it more absurd than any +of the romances which it was designed to ridicule. + +Indeed, most of the popular novels which preceded Evelina, were such as +no lady would have written; and many of them were such as no lady could +without confusion own that she had read. The very name of novel was held +in horror among religious people. In decent families which did not +profess extraordinary sanctity, there was a strong feeling against all +such works. Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three years before Evelina +appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of sober fathers and +husbands, when he pronounced the circulating library an evergreen tree +of diabolical knowledge. This feeling, on the part of the grave and +reflecting, increased the evil from which it had sprung. The novelist, +having little character to lose, and having few readers among serious +people, took without scruple liberties which in our generation seem +almost incredible. + +Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the +English drama; and she did it in a better way. She first showed that a +tale might be written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life +of London might be exhibited with great force, and with broad comic +humour, and which yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with +rigid morality, or even with virgin delicacy. She took away the reproach +which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition. She +vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share in a fair and noble +province of letters. Several accomplished women have followed in her +track. At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no +small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is +more honourably distinguished by fine observation, by grace, by delicate +wit, by pure moral feeling. Several among the successors of Madame +D'Arblay have equalled her; two, we think, have surpassed her. But the +fact that she has been surpassed, gives her an additional claim to our +respect and gratitude; for in truth we owe to her, not only Evelina, +Cecilia, and Camilla, but also Mansfield Park and the Absentee. + + + + +ANONYMOUS ON WORDSWORTH + + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, October, 1807] + +_Poems_, in Two Volumes. By W. WORDSWORTH. London, 1807. + +This author is known to belong to a certain brotherhood of poets, who +have haunted for some years about the lakes of Cumberland; and is +generally looked upon, we believe, as the purest model of the +excellences and peculiarities of the school which they have been +labouring to establish. Of the general merits of that school, we have +had occasion to express our opinion pretty fully, in more places than +one, and even to make some allusion to the former publications of the +writer now before us. We are glad, however, to have found an opportunity +of attending somewhat more particularly to his pretentions. + +The Lyrical Ballads were unquestionably popular; and, we have no +hesitation in saying, deservedly popular: for in spite of their +occasional vulgarity, affectation, and silliness, they were undoubtedly +characterised by a strong spirit of originality, of pathos, and natural +feeling; and recommended to all good minds by the clear impression which +they bore of the amiable disposition and virtuous principles of the +author. By the help of these qualities, they were enabled, not only to +recommend themselves to the indulgence of many judicious readers, but +even to beget among a pretty numerous class of persons, a sort of +admiration of the very defects by which they were attended. It was on +this account chiefly, that we thought it necessary to set ourselves +against the alarming innovation. Childishness, conceit, and affectation, +are not of themselves very popular or attractive; and though mere +novelty has sometimes been found sufficient to give them a temporary +currency, we should have had no fear of their prevailing to any +dangerous extent, if they had been graced with no more seductive +accompaniments. It was precisely because the perverseness and bad taste +of this new school was combined with a great deal of genius and of +laudable feeling, that we were afraid of their spreading and gaining +ground among us, and that we entered into the discussion with a degree +of zeal and animosity which some might think unreasonable towards +authors, to whom so much merit had been conceded. There were times and +moods, indeed, in which we were led to suspect ourselves of +unjustifiable severity, and to doubt, whether a sense of public duty had +not carried us rather too far in reprobation of errors, that seemed to +be atoned for, by excellences of no vulgar description. At other times +the magnitude of these errors--the disgusting absurdities into which +they led their feebler admirers, and the derision and contempt which +they drew from the more fastidious, even upon the merits with which they +were associated, made us wonder more than ever at the perversity by +which they were retained, and regret that we had not declared ourselves +against them with still more formidable and decided hostility. + +In this temper of mind, we read the _annonce_ of Mr. Wordsworth's +publication with a good deal of interest and expectation, and opened his +volumes with greater anxiety, than he or his admirers will probably give +us credit for. We have been greatly disappointed certainly as to the +quality of the poetry; but we doubt whether the publication has afforded +so much satisfaction to any other of his readers:--it has freed us from +all doubt or hesitation as to the justice of our former censures, and +has brought the matter to a test, which we cannot help hoping may be +convincing to the author himself. + +Mr. Wordsworth, we think, has now brought the question, as to the merit +of his new school of poetry, to a very fair and decisive issue. The +volumes before us are much more strongly marked by its peculiarities +than any former publication of the fraternity. In our apprehension, they +are, on this very account, infinitely less interesting or meritorious; +but it belongs to the public, and not to us, to decide upon their merit, +and we will confess, that so strong is our conviction of their obvious +inferiority, and the grounds of it, that we are willing for once to +waive our right of appealing to posterity, and to take the judgment of +the present generation of readers, and even of Mr. Wordsworth's former +admirers, as conclusive on this occasion. If these volumes, which have +all the benefit of the author's former popularity, turn out to be nearly +as popular as the lyrical ballads--if they sell nearly to the same +extent--or are quoted and imitated among half as many individuals, we +shall admit that Mr. Wordsworth has come much nearer the truth in his +judgment of what constitutes the charm of poetry, than we had previously +imagined--and shall institute a more serious and respectful inquiry into +his principles of composition than we have yet thought necessary. On the +other hand,--if this little work, selected from the compositions of five +maturer years, and written avowedly for the purpose of exalting a +system, which has already excited a good deal of attention, should be +generally rejected by those whose prepossessions were in its favour, +there is room to hope, not only that the system itself will meet with no +more encouragement, but even that the author will be persuaded to +abandon a plan of writing, which defrauds his industry and talents of +their natural reward. + +Putting ourselves thus upon our country, we certainly look for a verdict +against this publication; and have little doubt indeed of the result, +upon a fair consideration of the evidence contained in these volumes. To +accelerate that result, and to give a general view of the evidence, to +those into whose hands the record may not have already fallen, we must +now make a few observations and extracts. + +We shall not resume any of the particular discussions by which we +formerly attempted to ascertain the value of the improvements which this +new school has effected in poetry: but shall lay the grounds of our +opposition, for this time, a little more broadly. The end of poetry, we +take it, is to please--and the same, we think, is strictly applicable to +every metrical composition from which we receive pleasure, without any +laborious exercise of the understanding. Their pleasure may, in general, +be analysed into three parts--that which we receive from the excitement +of Passion or emotion--that which is derived from the play of +Imagination, or the easy exercise of Reason--and that which depends on +the character and qualities of the Diction. The two first are the vital +and primary springs of poetical delight, and can scarcely require +explanation to anyone. The last has been alternately over-rated and +undervalued by the possessors of the poetical art, and is in such low +estimation with the author now before us and his associates, that it is +necessary to say a few words in explanation of it. + +One great beauty of diction exists only for those who have some degree +of scholarship or critical skill. This is what depends on the exquisite +_propriety_ of the words employed, and the delicacy with which they are +adapted to the meaning which is to be expressed. Many of the finest +passages in Virgil and Pope derive their principal charm from the fine +propriety of their diction. Another source of beauty, which extends only +to the more instructed class of readers, is that which consists in the +judicious or happy application of expressions which have been sanctified +by the use of famous writers, or which bear the stamp of a simple or +venerable antiquity. There are other beauties of diction, however, which +are perceptible by all--the beauties of sweet sounds and pleasant +associations. The melody of words and verses is indifferent to no reader +of poetry; but the chief recommendation of poetical language is +certainly derived from those general associations, which give it a +character of dignity or elegance, sublimity or tenderness. Everyone +knows that there are low and mean expressions, as well as lofty and +grave ones; and that some words bear the impression of coarseness and +vulgarity, as clearly as others do of refinement and affection. We do +not mean, of course, to say anything in defiance of the hackneyed +commonplace of ordinary versemen. Whatever might have been the original +character of these unlucky phrases, they are now associated with nothing +but ideas of schoolboy imbecility and vulgar affectation. But what we do +maintain is, that much of the most popular poetry in the world owes its +celebrity chiefly to the beauty of its diction; and that no poetry can +be long or generally acceptable, the language of which is coarse, +inelegant, or infantine. + +From this great source of pleasure, we think the readers of Mr. +Wordsworth are in great measure cut off. His diction has nowhere any +pretensions to elegance or dignity; and he has scarcely ever +condescended to give the grace of correctness or melody to his +versification. If it were merely slovenly or neglected, however, all +this might be endured. Strong sense and powerful feeling will ennoble +any expressions; or, at least, no one who is capable of estimating these +higher merits, will be disposed to mark these little defects. But, in +good truth, no man, now-a-days, composes verses for publication, with a +slovenly neglect of their language. It is a fine and laborious +manufacture, which can scarcely ever be made in a hurry; and the faults +which it has, may, for the most part, be set down to bad taste or +incapacity, rather than to carelessness or oversight. With Mr. +Wordsworth and his friends it is plain that their peculiarities of +diction are things of choice, and not of accident. They write as they +do, upon principle and system; and it evidently costs them much pains to +keep _down_ to the standard which they have proffered themselves. They +are to the full as much mannerists, too, as the poetasters who ring +changes on the commonplaces of magazine versification; and all the +difference between them is that they borrow their phrases from a +different and a scantier _gradus ad Parnassum_. If they were, indeed, to +discard all imitation and set phraseology, and bring in no words merely +for show or for metre,--as much, perhaps, might be gained in freedom and +originality, as would infallibly be lost in allusion and authority; but, +in point of fact, the new poets are just as much borrowers as the old; +only that, instead of borrowing from the more popular passages of their +illustrious predecessors, they have preferred furnishing themselves from +vulgar ballads and plebian nurseries. + +Their peculiarities of diction alone, are enough, perhaps, to render +them ridiculous; but the author before us really seems anxious to court +this literary martyrdom by a device still more infallible,--we mean that +of connecting his most lofty, tender, or impassioned conceptions, with +objects and incidents which the greater part of his readers will +probably persist in thinking low, silly, or uninteresting. Whether this +is done from affectation and conceit alone, or whether it may not arise, +in some measure, from the self-illusion of a mind of extraordinary +sensibility, habituated to solitary meditation, we cannot undertake to +determine. It is possible enough, we allow, that the sights of a +friend's garden-spade, of a sparrow's-nest, or a man gathering leeches, +might really have suggested to such a mind a train of powerful +impressions and interesting reflections; but it is certain, that, to +most minds, such associations will always appear forced, strained, and +unnatural; and that the composition in which it is attempted to exhibit +them, will always have the air of parody, or ludicrous and affected +singularity. All the world laughs at Eligiac stanzas to a sucking pig--a +Hymn on Washing-day, Sonnets to one's grandmother--or Pindarics on +gooseberry-pie; and yet, we are afraid, it will not be quite easy to +persuade Mr. Wordsworth, that the same ridicule must infallibly attach +to most of the pathetic pieces in these volumes. To satisfy our readers, +however, as to the justice of this and our other anticipations, we shall +proceed without further preface, to lay before them a short view of +their contents. + +The first is a kind of ode "to the Daisy,--" very flat, feeble, and +affected; and in diction as artificial, and as much encumbered with +heavy expletives as the theme of an unpractised schoolboy.... + +The scope of the piece is to say, that the flower is found everywhere; +and that it has suggested many pleasant thoughts to the author--some +chime of fancy, "_wrong or right_"--some feeling of devotion _more or +less_--and other elegancies of the same stamp.... + +The next is called "Louisa," and begins in this dashing and affected +manner. + + I met Louisa in the shade; + And, having seen that lovely maid, + _Why should I fear to say_ + That she is ruddy, fleet and strong; + _And down the rocks can leap along_, + Like rivulets in May? I. 7. + +Does Mr. Wordsworth really imagine that this is more natural or engaging +than the ditties of our common song-writers?... + +By and by, we have a piece of namby-pamby "to the Small Celandine," +which we should almost have taken for a professed imitation of one of +Mr. Phillips's prettyisms.... + +Further on, we find an "Ode to Duty," in which the lofty vein is very +unsuccessfully attempted. This is the concluding stanza. + + Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear + The Godhead's most benignant grace; + Nor know we anything so fair + As is the smile upon thy face; + Flowers laugh before thee on their beds; + And fragrance in thy footing treads; + Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; + And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong. I. 73. + + +The two last lines seem to be utterly without meaning; at least we have +no sort of conception in what sense _Duty_ can be said to keep the old +skies _fresh_, and the stars from wrong. + +The next piece, entitled "The Beggars," may be taken, in fancy, as a +touchstone of Mr. Wordsworth's merit. There is something about it that +convinces us it is a favourite of the author's; though to us, we will +confess, it appears to be a very paragon of silliness and +affectation.... "Alice Fell" is a performance of the same order.... If +the printing of such trash as this be not felt as an insult on the +public taste, we are afraid it cannot be insulted. + +After this follows the longest and most elaborate poem in the volume, +under the title of "Resolution and Independence." The poet roving about +on a common one fine morning, falls into pensive musings on the fate of +the sons of song, which he sums up in this fine distich. + + We poets in our youth begin in gladness; + But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness. I, p. 92. + +In the midst of his meditations-- + + I saw a man before me unawares, + The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.... + +The very interesting account, which he is lucky enough at last to +comprehend, fills the poet with comfort and admiration; and, quite glad +to find the old man so cheerful, he resolves to take a lesson of +contentedness from him; and the poem ends with this pious ejaculation-- + + "God," said I, "be my help and stay secure; + I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor." I, p. 97. + +We defy the bitterest enemy of Mr. Wordsworth to produce anything at all +parallel to this from any collection of English poetry, or even from the +specimens of his friend Mr. Southey.... + +The first poems in the second volume were written during a tour in +Scotland. The first is a very dull one about Rob Roy, but the title that +attracted us most was "An Address to the Sons of Burns," after visiting +their father's grave. Never was anything, however, more miserable.... +The next is a very tedious, affected performance, called "The Yarrow +Unvisited." ... After this we come to some ineffable compositions, which +the poet has entitled, "Moods of my own Mind." ... We have then a +rapturous mystical ode to the Cuckoo; in which the author, striving +after force and originality, produces nothing but absurdity ... after +this there is an address to a butterfly.... We come next to a long story +of a "Blind Highland Boy," who lived near an arm of the sea, and had +taken a most unnatural desire to venture on that perilous element. His +mother did all she could to prevent him; but one morning, when the good +woman was out of the way, he got into a vessel of his own, and pushed +out from the shore. + + In such a vessel ne'er before + Did human creature leave the shore. II, p. 72. + +And then we are told, that if the sea should get rough, "a beehive would +be ship as safe." "But say, what was it?" a poetical interlocutor is +made to exclaim most naturally; and here followeth the answer, upon +which all the pathos and interest of the story depend. + + A HOUSEHOLD TUB, like one of those + Which women use to wash their clothes!! II, p. 72. + +This, it will be admitted, is carrying the matter as far as it will go; +nor is there anything,--down to the wiping of shoes or the evisceration +of chickens, which may not be introduced in poetry, if this is +tolerated.... + +Afterwards come some stanzas about an echo repeating a cuckoo's +voice.... Then we have Elegiac stanzas "to the spade of a friend," +beginning-- + + Spade! with which Wilkinson hath till'd his lands. + +But too dull to be quoted any further. + +After this there is a minstrel's song, on the Restoration of Lord +Clifford the Shepherd, which is in a very different strain of poetry; +and then the volume is wound up with an "Ode," with no other title but +the motto _Paulo majora canamus_. This is, beyond all doubt, the most +illegible and unintelligible part of the publication. We can pretend to +no analysis or explanation of it.... + +We have thus gone through this publication, with a view to enable our +readers to determine, whether the author of these verses which have now +been exhibited, is entitled to claim the honours of an improver or +restorer of our poetry, and to found a new school to supersede or +new-model all our maxims on the subject. If we were to stop here, we do +not think that Mr. Wordsworth, or his admirers, would have any reason to +complain; for what we have now quoted is undeniably the most peculiar +and characteristic part of his publication, and must be defended and +applauded if the merit or originality of his system is to be seriously +maintained. In our opinion, however, the demerit of that system cannot +be fairly appreciated, until it be shown, that the author of the bad +verses which we have already extracted, can write good verses when he +pleases; and that, in point of fact, he does always write good verses, +when, by any account, he is led to abandon his system, and to transgress +the laws of that school which he would fain establish on the ruin of all +existing authority. + +The length to which our extracts and observations have already extended, +necessarily restrains us within more narrow limits in this part of our +citations; but it will not require much labour to find a pretty decided +contrast to some of the passages we have already detailed. The song on +the restoration of Lord Clifford is put into the mouth of an ancient +minstrel of the family; and in composing it, the author was led, +therefore, almost irresistibly to adopt the manner and phraseology that +is understood to be connected with that sort of composition, and to +throw aside his own babyish incidents and fantastical sensibilities.... + +All English writers of sonnets have imitated Milton; and, in this way, +Mr. Wordsworth, when he writes sonnets, escapes again from the trammels +of his own unfortunate system; and the consequence is, that his sonnets +are as much superior to the greater part of his other poems, as Milton's +sonnets are superior to his.... + +When we look at these, and many still finer passages, in the writings of +this author, it is impossible not to feel a mixture of indignation and +compassion, at that strange infatuation which has bound him up from the +fair exercise of his talents, and withheld from the public the many +excellent productions that would otherwise have taken the place of the +trash now before us. Even in the worst of these productions, there are, +no doubt, occasional little traits of delicate feeling and original +fancy; but these are quite lost and obscured in the mass of childishness +and insipidity with which they are incorporated, nor can anything give +us a more melancholy view of the debasing effects of this miserable +theory, than that it has given ordinary men a right to wonder at the +folly and presumption of a man gifted like Mr. Wordsworth, and made him +appear, in his second avowed publication, like a bad imitator of the +worst of his former productions. + +We venture to hope, that there is now an end of this folly; and that, +like other follies, it will be found to have cured itself by the +extravagances resulting from its unbridled indulgence. In this point of +view, the publication of the volumes before us may ultimately be of +service to the good cause of literature. Many a generous rebel, it is +said, has been reclaimed to his allegiance by the spectacle of lawless +outrage and excess presented in the conduct of the insurgents; and we +think there is every reason to hope, that the lamentable consequences +which have resulted from Mr. Wordsworth's open violation of the +established laws of poetry, will operate as a wholesome warning to those +who might otherwise have been seduced by his example, and be the means +of restoring to that antient and venerable code its due honour and +authority. + + + + +ON MATURIN'S "MELMOTH" + + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, July, 1821] + +_Melmoth, the Wanderer_. 4 vols. By the Author of _Bertram_. Constable & +Co. Edinburgh, 1820. + +It was said, we remember, of Dr. Darwin's Botanic Garden--that it was +the sacrifice of Genius in the Temple of False Taste; and the remark may +be applied to the work before us, with the qualifying clause, that in +this instance the Genius is less obvious, and the false taste more +glaring. No writer of good judgment would have attempted to revive the +defunct horrors of Mrs. Radcliffe's School of Romance, or the demoniacal +incarnations of Mr. Lewis: But, as if he were determined not to be +arraigned for a single error only, Mr. Maturin has contrived to render +his production almost as objectionable in the manner as it is in the +matter. The construction of his story, which is singularly clumsy and +inartificial, we have no intention to analyze:--many will probably have +perused the work, before our review reaches them; and to those who have +not, it may be sufficient to announce, that the imagination of the +author runs riot, even beyond the usual license of romance;--that his +hero is a modern Faustus, who has bartered his soul with the powers of +darkness for protracted life, and unlimited worldly enjoyment;--his +heroine, a species of insular goddess, a virgin Calypso of the Indian +ocean, who, amid flowers and foliage, lives upon figs and tamarinds; +associates with peacocks, loxias and monkeys; is worshipped by the +occasional visitants of her island; finds her way to Spain, where she is +married to the aforesaid hero by the hand of a dead hermit, the ghost of +a murdered domestic being the witness of their nuptials; and finally +dies in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Madrid!--To complete this +phantasmagoric exhibition, we are presented with sybils and misers; +parricides; maniacs in abundance; monks with scourges pursuing a naked +youth streaming with blood; subterranean Jews surrounded by the +skeletons of their wives and children; lovers blasted by lightning; +Irish hags, Spanish grandees, shipwrecks, caverns, Donna Claras and +Donna Isidoras, all opposed to each other in glaring and violent +contrast, and all their adventures narrated with the same undeviating +display of turgid, vehement, and painfully elaborated language. Such are +the materials, and the style of this expanded nightmare: And as we can +plainly perceive, among a certain class of writers, a disposition to +haunt us with similar apparitions, and to describe them with a +corresponding tumor of words, we conceive it high time to step forward +and abate a nuisance which threatens to become a besetting evil, unless +checked in its outset. + +Political changes were not the sole cause of the rapid degeneracy in +letters that followed the Augustan era of Rome. Similar corruptions and +decay have succeeded to the intellectual eminence of other nations; and +we might be almost led to conclude, that mental as well as physical +power, after attaining a certain perfection, became weakened by +expansion, and sunk into a state of comparative imbecility, until time +and circumstance gave it a new progressive impetus. One great cause of +this deterioration is the insatiable thirst for novelty, which, becoming +weary even of excellence, will "sate itself in a celestial bed, and prey +on garbage." In the torpidity produced by an utter exhaustion of sensual +enjoyment, the Arreoi Club of Otaheite is recorded to have found a +miserable excitement, by swallowing the most revolting filth; and the +jaded intellectual appetites of more civilized communities will +sometimes seek a new stimulus in changes almost as startling. Some +adventurous writer, unable to obtain distinction among a host of +competitors, all better qualified than himself to win legitimate +applause, strikes out a fantastic or monstrous innovation; and arrests +the attention of many who would fall asleep over monotonous excellence. +Imitators are soon found;--fashion adopts the new folly;--the old +standard of perfection is deemed stale and obsolete;--and thus, by +degrees, the whole literature of a country becomes changed and +deteriorated. It appears to us, that we are now labouring in a crisis of +this nature. In our last Number, we noticed the revolution in our +poetry; the transition from the lucid terseness and exquisite polish of +Pope and Goldsmith, to the rambling, diffuse, irregular, and imaginative +style of composition by which the present era is characterized; and we +might have added, that a change equally complete, though diametrically +opposite in its tendency, has been silently introduced into our prose. +In this we have oscillated from freedom to restraint;--from the easy, +natural, and colloquial style of Swift, Addison and Steele, to the +perpetually strained, ambitious, and overwrought stiffness, of which the +author we are now considering affords a striking exemplification. "He's +knight o' the shire, and represents them all." There is not the smallest +keeping in his composition:--less solicitous what he shall say, than how +he shall say it, he exhausts himself in a continual struggle to produce +effect by dazzling, terrifying, or surprising. Annibal Caracci was +accused of an affectation of muscularity, and an undue parade of +anatomical knowledge, even upon quiescent figures: But the artist whom +we are now considering has no quiescent figures:--even his repose is a +state of rigid tension, if not extravagant distortion. He is the Fuseli +of novelists. Does he deem it necessary to be energetic, he forthwith +begins foaming at the mouth, and falling into convulsions; and this +orgasm is so often repeated, and upon such inadequate occasions, that we +are perpetually reminded of the tremendous puerilities of the Della +Cruscan versifiers, or the ludicrous grand eloquence of the Spaniard, +who tore a certain portion of his attire, "as if heaven and earth were +coming together." In straining to reach the sublime, he perpetually +takes that single unfortunate step which conducts him to the ridiculous +--a failure which, in a less gifted author, might afford a wicked +amusement to the critic, but which, when united with such undoubted +genius as the present work exhibits, must excite a sincere and painful +regret in every admirer of talent. + +Whatever be the cause, the fact, we think, cannot be disputed, that a +peculiar tendency to this gaudy and ornate style, exists among the +writers of Ireland. Their genius runs riot in the wantonness of its own +uncontrolled exuberance;--their imagination, disdaining the restraint of +judgment, imparts to their literature the characteristics of a nation in +one of the earlier stages of civilization and refinement. The florid +imagery, gorgeous diction, and Oriental hyperboles, which possess a sort +of wild propriety in the vehement sallies of Antar the Bedoween +chieftain of the twelfth century, become cold extravagance and +floundering fustian in the mouth of a barrister of the present age; and +we question whether any but a native of the sister island would have +ventured upon the experiment of their adoption. Even in the productions +of Mr. Moore, the sweetest lyric poet of this or perhaps any age, this +national peculiarity is not infrequently perceptible; and we were +compelled, in our review of his Lalla Rookh, a subject which justified +the introduction of much Eastern splendour and elaboration, to point out +the excessive finery, the incessant sparkle and efflorescence by which +the attention of the reader was fatigued, and his senses overcome. He +rouged his roses, and poured perfume upon his jessamines, until we +fainted under the oppression of beauty and odour, and were ready to "die +of a rose in aromatic pain." + +Dryden, in alluding to the metaphysical poets, exclaims "rather than all +things wit, let none be there":--though we would not literally adopt +this dictum, we can safely confirm the truth of the succeeding lines-- + + Men doubt, because so thick they lie, + If those be stars that paint the Galaxy:-- + +And we scruple not to avow, whatever contempt may be expressed for our +taste by the advocates of the toiling and turgid style, both in and out +of Ireland, that the prose works which we have lately perused with the +greatest pleasure, so far as their composition was concerned, have been +Belzoni's Travels, and Salame's Account of the Attack upon Algiers. +Unable, from their insufficient mastery of our tongue, to rival the +native manufacture of stiff and laborious verbosity, these foreigners +have contented themselves with the plainest and most colloquial language +that was consistent with a clear exposition of their meaning;--a +practice to which Swift was indebted for the lucid and perspicuous +character of his writings, and which alone has enabled a great living +purveyor of "twopenny trash" to retain a certain portion of popularity, +in spite of his utter abandonment of all consistency and public +principle. If the writers to whom we are alluding will not condescend to +this unstudied and familiar mode of communing with the public, let them +at least have the art to conceal their art, and not obtrude the +conviction that they are more anxious to display themselves than inform +their readers; and let them, above all things, consent to be +intelligible to the plainest capacity; for though speech, according to +the averment of a wily Frenchman, was given to us to conceal our +thoughts, no one has yet ventured to extend the same mystifying +definition to the art of writing ... + +After this, let us no longer smile at the furious hyperboles of Della +Crusca upon Mrs. Robinson's eyes. In the same strain we are told of a +convent whose "walls sweat, and its floors quiver," when a contumacious +brother treads them;--and when the parents of the same personage are +torn from his room by the Director of the convent, we are informed that +"the rushing of their robes as he dragged them out, seemed like the +whirlwind that attends the presence of the destroying angel." In a +similar spirit, of pushing every thing to extremes when he means to be +impressive, the author is sometimes offensively minute; as when he makes +the aforesaid persecuted monk declare, that "the cook had learned the +secret of the convent (that of tormenting those whom they had no longer +hopes of commanding), and mixed the fragments he threw to me with ashes, +hair, and dust;"--and sometimes the extravagance of his phrases becomes +simply ludicrous. Two persons are trying to turn a key--"It grated, +resisted; the lock seemed invincible. Again we tried with cranched +teeth, indrawn breath, and fingers stripped almost to the bone--in +vain." And yet, after they had almost stripped their fingers to the +bone, they succeed in turning that which they could not move when their +hands were entire. + +We have said that Mr. Maturin had contrived to render his work as +objectionable in the matter as in the manner; and we proceed to the +confirmation of our assertion. We do not arraign him solely for the +occasional indecorousness of his conceptions, or the more offensive tone +of some of his colloquies, attempted to be palliated by the flimsy plea, +that they are, appropriate in the mouths that utter them. Dr. Johnson, +as a proof of the total suppression of the reasoning faculty in dreams, +used to cite one of his own, wherein he imagined himself to be holding +an argument with an adversary, whose superior powers filled him with a +mortification which a moment's reflection would have dissipated, by +reminding him that he himself supplied the repartees of his opponent as +well as his own. In his waking dreams, Mr. Maturin is equally the parent +of all the parties who figure in his Romance; and, though not personally +responsible for their sentiments, he is amenable to the bar of criticism +for every phrase or thought which transgresses the bounds of decorum, or +violates the laws that regulate the habitual intercourse of polished +society. It is no defence to say, that profane or gross language is +natural to the characters whom he embodies. Why does he select such? It +may be proper in them; but what can make it proper to us? There are +wretches who never open their lips but to blaspheme; but would any +author think himself justified in filling his page with their +abominations? It betrays a lamentable deficiency of tact and judgment, +to imagine, as the author of Melmoth appears to do, that he may seize +upon nature in her most unhallowed or disgusting moods, and dangle her +in the eyes of a decorous and civilized community. We shall not stop to +stigmatize, as it deserves, the wild and flagrant calumnies which he +insinuates against three-fourths of his countrymen, by raking in the +long-forgotten rubbish of Popery for extinct enormities, which he +exaggerates as the inevitable result, rather than the casual abuse of +the system, and brands with an intolerant zeal, quite as uncharitable as +that which he condemns. These faults are either so peculiar to the +individual, or in their nature so obviously indefensible, as to repel +rather than invite imitation. But there is another peculiarity in the +productions of this gentleman which claims a more detailed notice, +because it seems likely to have extensive effects in corrupting others: +--we mean his taste for horrible and revolting subjects. We thought we +had supped full of this commodity; but it seems as if the most ghastly +and disgusting portion of the meal was reserved for the present day, and +its most hideous concoction for the writer before us,--who is never so +much in his favourite element as when he can "on horror's head horrors +accumulate." He assimilates the sluggish sympathies of his readers to +those of sailors and vulgar ballad readers, who cannot be excited to an +interest in the battle of the Arethusa, unless they learn that "her +sails smoaked with brains, and her scuppers ran blood;"--a line which +threatens him with formidable competitors from before the mast. Mere +physical horror, unalleviated by an intense mental interest, or +redeeming charities of the heart, may possess a certain air of +originality, not from the want of ability in former writers to delineate +such scenes, but from then-deference to the "_multaque tolles ex +oculis_" of Horace; from the conviction of their utter unfitness for +public exhibition. There is, however, a numerous class of inferior +caterers to the public, ready to minister to any appetite, however foul +and depraved, if they be once furnished with a precedent; and we foresee +an inundation of blood and abomination if they be not awed or ridiculed +into silence. We have quietly submitted to these inflictions from two or +three distinguished writers, whose talents may extenuate, though they +cannot justify, such outrages upon feeling. When regular artists and +professors conduct us into their dissecting room, the skill with which +they anatomise may reconcile us to the offensiveness of the operation; +but if butchers and resurrection-men are to drag us into their shambles, +while they mangle human carcases with their clumsy and unhallowed hands, +the stoutest spectators must turn from the exhibition with sickness and +disgust. + +Were any proof wanting that this Golgotha style of writing is likely to +become contagious, and to be pushed to a more harrowing extravagance at +each successive imitation, Mr. Maturin would himself supply it.... + +We have omitted this miscreant's flippant allusion to Madame de SevignĂ© +and his own damnation, uttered in a spirit which (to use the author's +own words upon another occasion), "mingled ridicule with horror, and +seemed like a Harlequin in the infernal regions flirting with the +furies:"--But we must not forget to mention, as little characteristic +touches in this scene of preposterous horrors, that the monster who +describes it was also a parricide, and that the female, on whose dying +agonies he had feasted, was his only sister! After this appalling +extract, we need not pursue our quotations from pages which, as more +than one of the personages say of themselves, seem to swim in blood and +fire; and we shall conclude with the following passage from a dream-- + + The next moment I was chained to my chair again,--the fires were lit, + the bells rang out, the litanies were sung;--my feet were scorched to + a cinder,--my muscles cracked, my blood and marrow hissed, my flesh + consumed like shrinking leather,--the bones of my leg hung two black + withering and moveless sticks in the ascending blaze;--it ascended, + caught my hair,--I was crowned with fire,--my head was a ball of + molten metal, my eyes flashed and melted in their sockets:--I opened + my mouth, it drank fire,--I closed it, the fire was within,--and still + the bells rang on, and the crowd shouted, and the king and queen, and + all the nobility and priesthood looked on, and we burned and burned! I + was a cinder, body and soul, in my dream. II. 301. + +These, and other scenes equally wild and abominable, luckily counteract +themselves;--they present such a Fee-fa-fum for grown up people, such a +burlesque upon tragic horrors, that a sense of the ludicrous +irresistibly predominates over the terrific; and, to avoid disgust, our +feelings gladly take refuge in contemptuous laughter. Pathos like this +may affect women, and people of weak nerves, with sickness at the +stomach;--it may move those of stouter fibre to scornful derision; but +we doubt whether, in the whole extensive circle of novel readers, it has +ever drawn a single tear. The Society for the Suppression of Mendicity +has fortunately cleared our streets of the offensive vagrants who used +to thrust their mangled limbs and putrid sores into our faces to extort +from our disgust what they could not wring from our compassion:--Be it +_our_ care to suppress those greater nuisances who, infesting the high +ways of literature, would attempt, by a still more revolting exhibition, +to terrify or nauseate us out of those sympathies which they might not +have the power to awaken by any legitimate appeal. + +Let it not be imagined, from any thing we have now said, that we think +meanly of Mr. Maturin's genius and abilities. It is precisely because we +hold both in respect that we are sincerely anxious to point out their +misapplication; and we have extended our observations to a greater +length than we contemplated, partly because we fear that his strong +though unregulated imagination, and unlimited command of glowing +language, may inflict upon us a herd of imitators who, "possessing the +contortions of the Sybil without her inspiration," will deluge us with +dull, turgid, and disgusting enormities;--and partly because we are not +without hopes that our animadversions, offered in a spirit of sincerity, +may induce the Author himself to abandon this new Apotheosis of the old +Raw-head-and-bloody-bones, and assume a station in literature more +consonant to his high endowments, and to that sacred profession to +which, we understand, he does honour by the virtues of his private life. + + + + +THE QUARTERLY REVIEW + + +If Macaulay represents a new _Edinburgh_ from the days of Jeffrey, +Brougham, and Sydney Smith, the variety of criticism embraced by the +_Quarterly_ is even more startling. There was more malice, and far +coarser personalities in the early days, and almost continuously while +Gifford, Croker, and Lockhart held the reins: it is--almost certainly-- +among these three that the responsibility for our "anonymous" group of +onslaughts may be distributed. The two earliest appreciations of Jane +Austen (from Scott and Whately) offer an interlude--actually in the same +period--which positively startles us by the honesty of its attempt at +fair criticism and the entire freedom from personality. + +Gladstone's interesting recognition of Tennyson, and the "Church in +Arms" against Darwin (so ably pleaded by Wilberforce), belong to yet +another school of criticism which comes much nearer to our day, though +retaining the solemnity, the prolixity, and the _ex cathedra_ assumption +of authority with which all the Reviews began their career; and is +singularly cautious in its independence. + + +WILLIAM GIFFORD + +(1757-1826) + +Gifford was the editor of the _Quarterly_ from its foundation in +February, 1809, until September, 1824, and undoubtedly established its +reputation for scurrility. It is probable that more reviews were +written, or directly inspired, by him than have been actually traced to +his pen; and, in any case, as Leigh Hunt puts it, he made it his +business to + + See that others + Misdeem and miscontrue, like miscreant brothers; + Misquote, and misplace, and mislead, and misstate, + Misapply, misinterpret, misreckon, misdate, + Missinform, misconjecture, misargue, in short + Miss all that is good, that ye miss not the court. + +Gifford was hated even more than his associates; not only, we fear, for +his venal sycophancy, but because he had been apprenticed to a shoemaker +and never concealed the lowness of his origin. Moreover, "the little +man, dumpled up together and so ill-made as to seem almost deformed," +received from Fortune-- + + One eye not overgood, + Two sides that to their cost have stood + A ten years' hectic cough, + Aches, stitches, all the various ills + That swell the devilish doctor's bills, + And sweep poor mortals off. + +Scott is almost alone in his generosity towards the learning and +industry of an editor who helped to make infamous the title of critic. +His original poems (_The Baviad_ and _The Moeviad_) have a certain +sledge-hammer merit; and he did yeoman service by suppressing the _Della +Cruscans_. + +It was Gifford also "who did the butchering business in the +Anti-Jacobin." He was far heavier, in bludgeoning, than Jeffrey; while +Hazlitt epitomized his principles of criticism with his accustomed +vigour:--"He believes that modern literature should wear the fetters of +classical antiquity; that truth is to be weighed in the scales of +opinion and prejudice; that power is equivalent to right; that genius is +dependent on rules; that taste and refinement of language consist in +_word-catching_." + + * * * * * + +Gifford's review of _Ford's Weber_ is, perhaps, no more than can be +expected of the man who had edited _Massinger_ six years before he wrote +it; and produced a _Ben Jonson_ in 1816 and a _Ford_ in 1827. Of these +works Thomas Moore exclaimed "What a canker'd carle it is! Strange that +a man should be able to lash himself up into such a spiteful fury, not +only against the living but the dead, with whom he engages in a sort of +_sciomachy_ in every page. Poor dull and dead Malone is the shadow at +which he thrusts his 'Jonson,' as he did at poor Monck Mason, still +duller and deader, in his _Massinger_." Mr. A.H. Bullen, again, remarks +of his Ford, "Gifford was so intent on denouncing the inaccuracy of +others that he frequently failed to secure accuracy himself.... In +reading the old dramatists we do not want to be distracted by editorial +invectives and diatribes." + +The review of _Endymion_ called forth Byron's famous apostrophe to-- + + John Keats, who was killed off by one critique + Just as he really promised something great, + If not intelligible, without Greek + Contrived to talk about the gods of late + Much as they might have been supposed to speak. + Poor fellow! his was an untoward fate; + 'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, + Should let itself be snuff'd out by one article. + +It is but just to say, however, that the _Blackwood_ review of the same +poem, printed below, was scarcely less virulent; and later critics have +scouted the notion of the poet not having more strength of mind than he +is credited with by Byron. It is strange to notice that De Quincey found +in _Endymion_ "the very midsummer madness of affectation, of false +vapoury sentiment, and of fantastic effeminacy"; while one is ashamed +for the timidity of the publisher who chose to return all unsold copies +to George Keats because of "the ridicule which has, time after time, +been showered upon it." + + +JOHN WILSON CROKER + +(1780-1857) + +Croker was certainly unfortunate in his enemies, though they have given +him immortality. The contemptible Rigby in Disraeli's _Coningsby_ +(admittedly drawn from him) is scarcely more damaging to his reputation +than the sound, if prejudiced, onslaught of Macaulay's review, of which +we find echoes, after twelve years, in the same essayist's Madame +D'Arblay. Dr. Hill tells us that he "added considerably to our knowledge +of Johnson," yet he was a thoroughly bad editor and had no real sympathy +with either the subject or the author of that incomparable "Life": +through his essentially low mind. He was not a scholar, and he was +inaccurate. + +Croker was intimately associated with the _Quarterly_ from its +foundation until 1857, retaining his bitterness and spite to the year of +his death. But he was a born fighter, and never happier than in the heat +of controversy. That he secured the friendship of Scott, Peel, and +Wellington must go to prove that his political, and literary prejudices, +had not destroyed altogether his private character. He is credited with +being the first writer to use the word "conservatives" in the +_Quarterly_, January, 1830. He was a member of the Irish Bar, M.P. for +Dublin, Acting Chief Secretary for Ireland, Secretary of the Admiralty +(where his best work was accomplished), and a Privy Councillor. + + * * * * * + +The veiled sarcasm of his attack on _Sydney Smith_ was only to be +expected from a Tory reviewer, and was probably inflamed by that heated +loyalty to the Church which characterised his paper. + +_Macaulay_ had certainly provoked his retaliation, and we +may notice here the same eager partisanship of Church and +State, pervading even his personal malice. + + +JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART + +(1794-1854) + +It is to be regretted that Lockhart, who is so honourably remembered by +his great _Life of Scott_, his "fine and animated translation" of +Spanish Ballads, and his neglected--but powerful--_Adam Blair_, should +be so intimately associated with the black record of the _Quarterly_. He +was also a contributor to _Blackwood_ from October, 1817, succeeding +Gifford in the editorial chair of Mr. Murray's Review in 1825 until +1853. + +But Lockhart was "more than a satirist and a snarler." His polished +jibes were more mischievous than brutal. "This reticent, sensitive, +attractive, yet dangerous youth ... slew his victims mostly by the +midnight oil, not by any blaze of gaiety, or in the accumulative fervour +of social sarcasm. From him came most of those sharp things which the +victims could not forget.... Lockhart put in his sting in a moment, +inveterate, instantaneous, with the effect of a barbed dart, yet almost, +as it seemed, with the mere intention of giving point to his sentences, +and no particular feeling at all." + +Carlyle describes him as "a precise, brief, active person of +considerable faculty, which however, had shaped itself _gigmanically_ +only. Fond of quizzing, yet not _very_ maliciously. Has a broad, black +brow, indicating force and penetration, but the lower half of the face +diminishing into the character at best of distinctness, almost of +triviality." + + * * * * * + +There is certainly a good deal of perversity about the _abuse_ of +Vathek, so startlingly combined with almost immoderate eulogy: to which +the discriminating enthusiasm of his Coleridge affords a pleasing +contrast. + +It should be noticed that Lockhart has also been credited with the +bitter critical part of the _Jane Eyre_ review, printed below--of which +any man ought to have been ashamed--as Miss Rigby (afterwards Lady +Eastlake) is believed to have written "the part about the governess." He +probably had a hand in the Blackwood series on "The Cockney School of +Poetry" (see below); and, in some ways, those reviews are more +characteristic. + + + +SIR WALTER SCOTT + +(1771-1832) + +It would be out of place here to enter upon any biography or criticism +of the author of _Waverley_, or for that matter of Jane Austen. It is +sufficient to notice that Scott has found something generous to say (in +diaries, letters, or formal criticism) on every writer he had occasion +to mention, and that in his somewhat neglected, but frequently quoted, +_Lives of the Novelists_, a striking pre-eminence was given to women; +particularly Mrs. Radcliffe and Clara Reeve. Indeed, the essay on Mrs. +Radcliffe, a "very novel and rather heretical revelation" is "probably +the best in the whole set." + +We remember, too, the famous passage in his _General Preface to the +Waverley Novels_:--"without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate +the rich humour, pathetic tenderness and admirable tact of my +accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my own +country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately +achieved for Ireland";--an ambition of which the modesty only equals the +success achieved. + +In "appreciating" Jane Austen, indeed, Scott is far more cautious, if +not apologetic, than any critic of to-day would dream of being; but, +when we remember the prejudices then existing against women writers +(despite the popularity of Madame D'Arblay) and the well-nigh universal +neglect accorded the author of _Pride and Prejudice_, we should perhaps +rather marvel at the independent sincerity of his pronounced praise. The +article, at any rate, has historic significance, as the first serious +recognition of her immortal work. + + +RICHARD WHATELY + +(1787-1863) + +The "dogmatical and crotchety" Archbishop of Dublin was looked at +askance by the extreme Evangelicals of his day (though Thomas Arnold has +eulogised his holiness), and there is no doubt that his theology, +however able and sincere, was mainly inspired by the "daylight of +ordinary reason and of historical fact," opposed to the dogmas of +tradition. He combated sceptical criticism by an ingenious parody +entitled "Historical Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte," and his +epigram on the majority of preachers--that "they aim at nothing and they +hit it," proves his freedom from any touch of sacerdotalism. His +"Rhetoric," his "Logic," and his "Political Economy" were praised by so +eminent a judge as John Stuart Mill, though criticised by Hamilton; and +Lecky remarks on the "admirable lucidity of his style." + +His work, however, was as a whole too fragmentary to become standard, +and he regarded it himself as "the mission of his life to make up +cartridges for others to fire." + + * * * * * + +We may notice that in writing of _Jane Austen_, only six years after +Scott, though still measured and judicial, he permits himself a much +more assured attitude of applause; and the article affords most valuable +indication of the steady progress by which her masterpieces achieved the +supremacy now acknowledged by all. + + +WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE + +(1809-1898) + +It would be no less impertinent, and unnecessary, to dwell in these +pages upon the political, or literary, work of the greatest of modern +premiers. It is sufficient to recall the certainty which used to follow +a notice by Gladstone of a large and immediate rise in sales. Mr. John +Morley remarking that Gladstone's "place is not in literary or critical +history, but elsewhere," reminds us that his style was sometimes called +Johnsonian, though without good ground.... Some critics charged him in +1840 with "prolix clearness." "The old charge," says Mr. Gladstone upon +this, was obscure compression. I do not doubt that both may be true, and +the former may have been the result of a well-meant effort to escape +from the latter. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Morley, again, selects the essay on Tennyson for especial praise. +Though one is apt to forget it, the Laureate did not meet with anything +like immediate recognition; and, though coming twenty-eight years after +the appreciation by J.S. Mill, this article does not assume the +supremacy afterwards accorded the poet by common consent. + + +SAMUEL WILBERFORCE + +(1805-1873) + +"One of the most conspicuous and remarkable figures" of his generation +the versatile Bishop of Oxford is said to have come "next to Gladstone +as a man of inexhaustible powers of work." Known from his Oxford days as +Soapy Sam, he was involved through no fault of his own, in some of the +odium attached to the "Essays and Reviews" and "Colenso" cases: his +private life was embittered by the secession to Rome of his two +brothers, his brother-in-law, his only daughter, and his son-in-law. "He +was an unwearied ecclesiastical politician, always involved in +discussions and controversies, sometimes, it was thought, in intrigues; +without whom nothing was done in convocation, nor, where Church +interests were involved, in the House of Lords." The energy with which +he governed his diocese for twenty-four years earned for him the title +of "Romodeller [Transcriber's note: sic] of the Episcopate." + + * * * * * + +The attempt, by a man whose "relaxations" were botany and ornithology, +but who had no claims to be called an expert, to defeat Darwin on his +own ground--and the dignified horror of a Churchman at some deductions +from evolution--is eminently characteristic of the period. + +The earnest criticism of Newman's conversion to Rome concerns one of the +most striking events of his generation, and illustrates the "church" +attitude on such questions. + + +ANONYMOUS + +We have hinted already that the responsibility for this group of +ill-mannered recriminations may probably be distributed between Gifford, +Croker, and Lockhart. It is curious to notice that the second attack on +Scott appeared after his admission to the ranks of contributors; and the +author of _Waverley_ is perhaps the one man said to have friends both on +the _Edinburgh_ and the _Quarterly_. That on Leigh Hunt, always the pet +topic of Toryism, from whom he certainly provoked some retaliation, is +only paralleled in _Blackwood_. We have included the _Shakespeare_ and +the _Moxon_ as attractively brief samples on the approved model of +savage banter, and the _Jane Eyre_ as perhaps the most flagrant example +of bad taste to be found in these merciless pages. It was George Henry +Lewis, by the way, who so much offended Charlotte BrontĂ« by the +greeting, "There ought to be a bond between us, for we have both written +naughty books." + +It is interesting to find Thackeray among those it was permitted to +praise: though the "moral" objection to his "realism" reveals a strange +attitude. + +We may notice, with some surprise, that the attitude towards George +Eliot is nearly as hostile as towards Charlotte BrontĂ«. + + + + +GIFFORD ON WEBER'S "FORD" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, December, 1811] + + +... When it is determined to reprint the writings of an ancient author, +it is usual, we believe, to bestow a little labour in gratifying the +natural desire of the reader to know something of his domestic +circumstances. Ford had declared in the title-pages of his several +plays, that he was of the Inner Temple; and, from his entry there, Mr. +Malone, following up the inquiry, discovered that he was the second son +of Thomas Ford, Esq., and that he was baptized at Ilsington, in +Devonshire, the 17th of April, 1586. To this information Mr. Weber has +added nothing; and he hopes that the meagreness of his biographical +account will be readily excused by the reader who has examined the lives +of his (Ford's) dramatical contemporaries, in which we are continually +"led to lament that our knowledge respecting them amounts to little +better than nothing." It would surely be unjust to appear dissatisfied +at the imperfect account of an ancient author, when all the sources of +information have been industriously explored. But, in the present case, +we doubt whether Mr. Weber can safely "lay this flattering unction to +his soul"; and we shall therefore give such a sketch of the poet's life, +as an attentive examination of his writings has enabled us to +compile.... + +Reversing the observation of Dryden on Shakespeare, it may be said of +Ford that "he wrote laboriously, not luckily": always elegant, often +elevated, never sublime, he accomplished by patient and careful industry +what Shakespeare and Fletcher produced by the spontaneous exuberance of +native genius. He seems to have acquired early in life, and to have +retained to the last a softness of versification peculiar to himself. +Without the majestic march of verse which distinguishes the poetry of +Massinger, and with none of that playful gaiety which characterises the +dialogue of Fletcher, he is still easy and harmonious. There is, +however, a monotony in his poetry, which those who have perused his +scenes long together must have inevitably perceived. His dialogue is +declamatory and formal, and wants that quick chace of replication and +rejoinder so necessary to effect in representation. If we could put out +of our remembrance the singular merits of "The Lady's Trial," we should +consider the genius of Ford as altogether inclined to tragedy; and even +there so large a proportion of the pathetic pervades the drama, that it +requires the "humours" of Guzman and Fulgoso, in addition to a happy +catastrophe, to warrant the name of comedy. In the plots of his +tragedies Ford is far from judicious; they are for the most part too +full of the horrible, and he seems to have had recourse to an +accumulation of terrific incidents, to obtain that effect which he +despairs of producing by pathos of language. Another defect in Ford's +poetry, proceeding from the same source, is the alloy of pedantry which +pervades his scenes, at one time exhibited in the composition of uncouth +phrases, at another in perplexity of language; and he frequently labours +with a remote idea, which, rather than throw it away, he obtrudes upon +his reader, involved in inextricable obscurity. We cannot agree with the +editor in praising his delineation of the female character: less than +women in their passions, they are more than masculine in their exploits +and sufferings; but, excepting Spinella in "The Lady's Trial," and +perhaps Penthea, we do not remember in Ford's plays, any example of that +meekness and modesty which compose the charm of the female character.... + +Mr. Weber is known to the admirers of our antient literature by two +publications which, although they may not be deemed of great importance +in themselves, have yet a fair claim to notice. We speak of the battle +of Flodden Field, and the Romances of the fourteenth century: which, as +far as we have looked into them, appear very creditable to his industry +and accuracy: his good genius, we sincerely regret to say, appears in a +great measure to have forsaken him from the moment that he entered upon +the task of editing a dramatic poet. + +In the mechanical construction of his work Mr. Weber has followed the +last edition of Massinger, with a servility which appears, in his mind, +to have obviated all necessity of acknowledging the obligation: we will +not stop to enquire whether he might not have found a better model; but +proceed to the body of the work. As we feel a warm interest in +everything which regards our ancient literature, on the sober +cultivation of which the purity, copiousness, and even harmony of the +English language must, in no small degree, depend, we shall notice some +of the peculiarities of the volumes before us, in the earnest hope that +while we relieve Ford from a few of the errors and misrepresentations +with which he is here encumbered, we may convince Mr. Weber that +something more is necessary to a faithful editor than the copying of +printers' blunders, and to a judicious commentator, than a blind +confidence in the notes of every collection of old plays. + +Mr. Weber's attempts at explanation (for explanations it seems, there +must be) are sometimes sufficiently humble. "Carriage," he tells us, "is +behaviour." It is so; we remember it in our spelling-book, among the +words of three syllables, we have therefore no doubt of it. But you must +have, rejoins the editor; and accordingly, in every third or fourth +page, he persists in affirming that "carriage is behaviour." In the same +strain of thankless kindness, he assures us that "fond is foolish," +"but, except," "content, contentment," and _vice versa_, "period +[Transcriber's note: 'peroid' in original], end," "demur, delay," "ever, +always," "sudden, quickly," "quick, suddenly," and so on through a long +vocabulary of words of which a girl of six years old would blush to ask +the meaning.... + +The confidence which Mr. Weber reposes in Steevens, not only on one but +on every occasion, is quite exemplary: the name alone operates as a +charm, and supersedes all necessity of examining into the truth of his +assertions; and he gently reminds those who occasionally venture to +question it, that "they are ignorant and superficial critics." Vol. ii, +p. 256.--"I have seen Summer go up and down with _hot codlings!_ Mr. +Steevens observes that a codling _antiently_ meant an immature apple, +and the present passage _plainly_ proves it, as none but immature apples +could be had in summer," all this wisdom is thrown away. We can assure +Mr. Weber, on the authority of Ford himself, that "hot codlings" are +_not_ apples, either mature or immature. Steevens is a dangerous guide +for such as do not look well about them. His errors are specious: for he +was a man of ingenuity: but he was often wantonly mischievous, and +delighted to stumble for the mere gratification of dragging unsuspecting +innocents into the mire with him. He was, in short, the very Puck of +commentators.... + +No writer, in our remembrance, meets with so many "singular words" as +the present editor. He conjectures, however, that _unvamp'd_ means +_disclosed_. It means not stale, not patched up. We should have supposed +it impossible to miss the sense of so trite an expression.... Mr. +Weber's acquaintance with our dramatic writers extends, as the reader +must have observed, very little beyond the indexes of Steevens and Reed. +If he cannot find the word of which he is in quest, in them, he sets it +down as an uncommon expression, or a coinage of his author.... + +These inadvertences, and many others which might be noticed, being +chiefly confined to the notes, do not, perhaps, detract much from the +value of the text: we now turn to some of a different kind, which bear +hard on the editor, and prove that his want of knowledge is not +compensated by any extraordinary degree of attention. It is not +sufficient for Mr. Weber to say that many of the errors which we shall +point out are found in the old copy. It was his duty to reform them. A +facsimile of blunders no one requires. Modern editions of our old poets +are purchased upon the faith of a corrected text: this is their only +claim to notice; and, if defective here, they become at once little +better than waste-paper.... + +There is something extremely capricious in Mr. Weber's mode of +proceeding: words are tampered with which are necessary to the right +understanding of the text, while others, which reduce it to absolute +jargon, are left unmolested.... + +We might carry this part of our examination to an immense extent; but we +forbear. Enough, and more than enough, is done to show that a strict +revision of the text is indispensible; and, if it should fall to the lot +of the present editor to undertake it, we trust that he will evince +somewhat more care than he manifests in the conclusion of the work +before us. It will scarcely be credited that Mr. Weber should travel +through such a volume as we have just passed, in quest of errata, and +find only one. "Vol. ii (he says), p. 321, line 12, for satiromastrix +read satiromastix!" + +We could be well content to rest here; but we have a more serious charge +to bring against the editor, than the omission of points, or the +misapprehension of words. He has polluted his pages with the blasphemies +of a poor maniac, who, it seems, once published some detached scenes of +the "Broken Heart." For this unfortunate creature, every feeling mind +will find an apology in his calamitous situation; but--for Mr. Weber, we +know not where the warmest of his friends will seek either palliation or +excuse. + + + +ON KEATS + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, April, 1818] + +Reviewers have sometimes been accused of not reading the works which +they affected to criticise. On the present occasion we shall anticipate +the author's complaint, and honestly confess that we have not read his +work. Not that we have been wanting in our duty--far from it--indeed, we +have made efforts almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to +be, to get through it; but with the fullest stretch of our perseverence, +we are forced to confess that we have not been able to struggle beyond +the first of the four books[1] of which this Poetic Romance consists. We +should extremely lament this want of energy, or whatever it may be, on +our parts, were it not for one consolation--namely, that we are no +better acquainted with the meaning of that book through which we have so +painfully toiled than we are with that of the three which we have not +looked into. + +[1] _Endymion: A Poetic Romance_. By John Keats. London, 1818. + +It is not that Mr. Keats (if that be his real name, for we almost doubt +that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a rhapsody) +it is not, we say, that the author has not powers of language, rays of +fancy, and gleams of genius--he has all these; but he is unhappily a +disciple of the new school of what has been somewhere called Cockney +poetry; which may be defined to consist of the most incongruous ideas in +the most uncouth language. + +Of this school Mr. Leigh Hunt, as we observed in a former number, +aspires to be the hierophant. Our readers will recollect the pleasant +recipes for harmonious and sublime poetry which he gave us in his +preface to _Rimini_, and the still more facetious instances of his +harmony and sublimity in the verses themselves; and they will recollect +above all the contempt of Pope, Johnson, and such like poetasters and +pseudo-critics, which so forcibly contrasted itself with Mr. Leigh +Hunt's approbation of + + --All the things itself had wrote, + Of special merit though of little note. + +The author is a copyist of Mr. Hunt, but he is more unintelligible, +almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten times more tiresome and +absurd than his prototype, who, though he impudently presumed to seat +himself in the chair of criticism, and to measure his own poetry by his +own standard, yet generally had a meaning. But Mr. Keats had advanced no +dogmas which he was bound to support by examples, his nonsense therefore +is quite gratuitous; he writes it for its own sake, and being bitten by +Mr. Leigh Hunt's insane criticism, more than rivals the insanity of his +poetry. + +Mr. Keats's preface hints that his poem was produced under peculiar +circumstances.... + + The two first books, and indeed the two last, are not of such + completion as to warrant their passing the press. p. vii. + +Thus, "the two first books" are, even in his own judgment, unfit to +appear, and "the two last" are, it seems, in the same condition--and as +two and two make four, and as that is the whole number of books, we have +a clear and, we believe, a very just estimate of the entire work. + +Mr. Keats, however, deprecates criticism on this "immature and feverish" +work in terms which are themselves sufficiently feverish; and we confess +that we should have abstained from inflicting upon him any of the +tortures of the "_fierce hell_" of criticism, which terrify his +imagination, if he had not begged to be spared in order that he might +write more; if we had not observed in him a certain degree of talent +which deserves to be put in the right way, or which, at least, ought to +be warned of the wrong; and if, finally, he had not told us that he is +of an age and temper which imperiously require mental discipline. + +Of the story we have been able to make out but little; it seems to be +mythological, and probably relates to the loves of Diana and Endymion; +but of this, as the scope of the work has altogether escaped us, we +cannot speak with any degree of certainty: and must therefore content +ourselves with giving some instances of its diction and versification.-- +And here again we are perplexed and puzzled.--At first it appeared to +us, that Mr. Keats had been amusing himself and wearying his readers +with an immeasurable game at _bouts rimĂ©s_; but, if we recollect +rightly, it is an indispensable condition at this play, that the rhymes +when filled up shall have a meaning; and our author, as we have already +hinted, has no meaning. He seems to us to write a line at random, and +then he follows not the thought excited by this line, but that suggested +by the _rhyme_ with which it concludes. There is hardly a complete +couplet inclosing a complete idea in the whole book. He wanders from one +subject to another, from the association, not of ideas, but of sounds, +and the work is composed of hemistichs which, it is quite evident, have +forced themselves upon the author by the mere force of the catchwords on +which they turn.... + + Be still the unimaginable lodge + For solitary thinkings; such as dodge + Conception to the very bourne of heaven, + Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven, + That spreading in this dull and clodded earth + Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth. p. 17. + +_Lodge, dodge--heaven, leaven--earth, birth_; such, in six words, is the +sum and substance of six lines. + +We come now to the author's taste in versification. He cannot indeed +write a sentence, but perhaps he may be able to spin a line. Let us see. +The following are specimens of his prosodial notions of our English +heroic metre. + + Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, + The passion poesy, glories infinite, p. 4. + + So plenteously all weed-hidden roots, p. 6. + +... By this time our readers must be pretty well satisfied as to the +meaning of his sentences and the structures of his lines: we now present +them with some of the new words with which, in imitation of Mr. Leigh +Hunt, he adorns our language. + +We are told that "turtles _passion_ their voices" (p. 15); that "an +arbour was _nested_" (p. 23); and a lady's locks "_gordian'd_" up (p. +32); and to supply the place of nouns thus verbalised Mr. Keats, with +great fecundity, spawns new ones; such as "men-slugs and human +_serpentry_" (p. 14); "_honey-feel_ of bliss" (p. 45); "wives prepare +_needments_" (p. 13)--and so forth. + +Then he has formed new verbs by the process of cutting off their tails, +the adverbs, and affixing them to their foreheads; thus "the wine +out-sparkled" (p. 10); the "multitude up-follow'd" (p. 11); and "night +up-took" (p. 29). "The wind up-blows" (p. 32); and the "hours are +down-sunken" (p. 36). + +But if he sinks some adverbs in the verbs he compensates the language +with adverbs and adjectives which he separates from the parent stock. +Thus, a lady "whispers _pantingly_ and close," makes "_hushing_ signs," +and steers her skiff into a "_ripply_ cove" (p. 23); a shower falls +"_refreshfully_" (p. 45); and a vulture has a "_spreaded_ tail" (p. 44). + +But enough of Mr. Leigh Hunt and his simple neophite.--If anyone should +be bold enough to purchase this "Poetic Romance," and so much more +patient than ourselves, as to get beyond the first book, and so much +more fortunate as to find a meaning, we entreat him to make us +acquainted with his success; we shall then return to the task which we +now abandon in despair, and endeavour to make all due amends to Mr. +Keats and to our readers. + + + + +CROKER ON SYDNEY SMITH + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, February, 1810] + +This sermon[1] is written on the characters and duties of the clergy. +Perhaps it would have produced more effect upon the Yorkshire divines +had it come from one who had lived longer among them, and of the +correspondence of whose life with his doctrines, they had better +opportunities of judging; one whom, from long experience, they knew to +be neither sullied by the little "affectations," nor "agitated by the +little vanities of the world," whose strict observance of "those +decencies and proprieties," which persons in their profession "owe to +their situation in society," they had remarked through a long course of +years. Whether the life of Mr. Smith would form an illustration of his +own precepts remains to be proved. But, if we rightly recollect dates, +he is still to his neighbours a sort of unknown person, and hardly yet +tried in his new situation of a parish priest. We therefore think, in +spite of all the apologies with which he has prefaced his advice, that a +more judicious topic might easily have been selected. + +[1] A sermon preached before His Grace the Archbishop of York, and the + clergy, at Malton, at the Visitation, Aug., 1809. By the Rev. Sydney + Smith, A.M., Rector of Foston, in Yorkshire, and late Fellow of New + College, Oxford. Carpenter, 1809. + +In the execution of this sermon there is little to commend. As a system +of duties for any body of clergy, it is wretchedly deficient:--and +really, when we call to mind the rich, the full, the vigorous, eloquent, +and impassioned manner in which these duties are recommended and +inforced in the writings of our old divines, we are mortified beyond +measure at the absolute poverty, crudeness, and meanness of the present +attempt to mimic them. As a composition, it is very imperfect: it has +nearly the same merits, and rather more than the same defects, which +characterise his former publications. Mr. Smith never writes but in a +loose declamatory way. He is careless of connection, and not very +anxious about argument. His sole object is to produce an effect at the +moment, a strong first impression upon an audience, and if that can be +done he is very indifferent as to what may be the result of examination +and reflection.... + +If Mr. Smith is not only not a Socinian, but if in his heart he doubts +as to the least important point of the most abstruce and controverted +subject on which our articles have decided, if, in short, he is not one +of the most rigorously orthodox divines that exists, he has been guilty +of the grossest and most disgusting hypocrisy--he has pronounced in the +face of the public to which he appeals, and of the church to which he +belongs, in the most solemn manner, and on the most solemn subject, a +direct, intentional, and scandalous falsehood--he has acted in a way +utterly subversive of all confidence among men; and the greater part of +the wretches who retire from a course of justice degraded for perjury +rank higher in the scale of morality, than an educated man holding a +respectable place in society, who could thus trifle with the most sacred +obligations. He could be induced to this base action only by a base +motive, that of obviating any difficulties which a suspicion of his +holding opinions different from those avowed by the establishment, might +throw in the way of his preferment: and of rendering himself a possible +object of the bounty of "his worthy masters and mistresses," whenever +the golden days arrive, in which they shall again dispense the favours +of the crown. Such must be the case, if Mr. Smith is not sincere. There +is no alternative. Now this is scarcely to be believed of any gentleman +of tolerably fair character, still less of a teacher of morality and +religion, who holds forth in all his writings the most refined +sentiments of honour and disinterestedness. + +The style of his profession of faith, however, partakes very much of the +most offensive peculiarities of his manner. It is abrupt and violent to +a degree which not only shocks good taste, but detracts considerably +from the appearance of sincerity. It seems as if he considered his creed +as a sort of nauseous medicine which could only be taken off at a +draught, and he looks round for applause at the heroic effort by which +he has drained the cup to its very dregs. + +But the passage about the verse in St. John is yet more extraordinary. +Has Mr. Smith really gone through the controversy upon this subject? And +even if he has, is this the light way in which a man wholly unknown in +the learned world, is entitled to contradict the opinion of some of the +greatest scholars of Europe? We have, however, the mere word of the +facetious rector of Foston, opposite to the authority and the arguments +of a Porson and a Griesbach. It is at his command, unsupported by the +smallest attempt at reasoning, that we are to set aside the opinion of +men whose lives have been spent in the study of the Greek language, and +of biblical criticism, and which has been acquiesced in by many of the +most competent judges both here and abroad. Such audacity (to call it by +no coarser name) is in itself only calculated to excite laughter and +contempt: coupled as it is with a most unprovoked and unwarrantable +mention of the name of the Bishop of Lincoln, it excites indignation. We +feel no morbid sensibility for the character of a mitred divine: but we +cannot see a blow aimed at the head of one of the chiefs of the church, +a pious, learned, and laborious man, by the hand of ignorance and +presumption, without interposing, not to heal the wound, for no wound +has been made, but to chastise the assailant. The Bishop of Lincoln +gives up these verses, not carelessly, and unadvisedly, but doubtless +because he is persuaded that the cause of true Religion can never be so +much injured as by resting its defence upon passages liable to so much +suspicion; and because he knows, that the doctrine of the Trinity by no +means depends upon that particular passage, but may be satisfactorily +deduced from various other expressions, and from the general tenor of +holy writ. Indeed, if we were not prevented from harbouring any such +suspicion by Mr. Smith's flaming profession of the _iotal_ accuracy of +his creed; and if we could doubt the orthodoxy of the divine, without +impugning the honesty of the man, we should be inclined to suspect that +his defence of the verses proceeded from a concealed enemy. We are not +unaware that the question cannot even yet be regarded as finally and +incontrovertibly settled, but we apprehend the truth to be that Mr. +Smith, not having read one syllable upon the subject, but having +accidentally heard that there was a disputed verse in St. John relative +to the doctrine of the Trinity, and that it had been given up by the +Bishop of Lincoln, thought he could not do better than by one dash of +the pen, to show his knowledge of controversy, and the orthodoxy of his +belief, at the expense of that prelate's character for discretion and +zeal.... + +The next note is mere political, an ebullition of party rage, in which +Mr. Smith abuses the present ministry with great bitterness, talks of +"wickedness," "weakness," "ignorance," "temerity," after the usual +fashion of opposition pamphlets, and clamours loudly against what, with +an obstinacy of misrepresentation hardly to be credited, he persists in +terming the "persecuting laws" against the Roman Catholics.... He is +very anxious that his political friends should not desist from urging +the question--an act of tergiversation and unconsistency which, he +thinks, would ruin them in the estimation of the public. Yet, if we +mistake not, these gentlemen, at least that portion of them with which +Mr. Smith (as we are told) is most closely connected, gave up, without a +blush, India, Reform, and Peace, all of which they taught us to believe +were vital questions in which the honour or the security of the country +was involved. But Catholic emancipation has some peculiar +recommendations. It is odious to the people, and painful to the King, +and therefore it cannot be delayed, without an utter sacrifice of +character.... + +Now we are by no means so eager on Mr. Smith in what he would term the +cause of _religious freedom_. We belong to that vulgar school of timid +churchmen, to whom the elevation of a vast body of sectaries to a level +with the establishment, is a matter of very grave consideration, if not +of alarm. We think that something is due to the prejudices (supposing +them to be no more than prejudices) of nine-tenths of the people of +England; and we are even so childish (for which we crave Mr. Smith's +pardon) as to pay some regard to the feelings of the King, in whose +personal mortification, we fairly own, we should not take the smallest +pleasure.... + +We now take leave of the sermon and its notes. But, before we conclude, +we are desirous ... to convey to Mr. Smith a little salutary advice ... +to remind him that unmeasured severity of invective against others, will +naturally produce, at the first favourable opportunity, a retort of +similar harshness upon himself; and that unless he feels himself +completely invulnerable, the conduct which he has hitherto pursued, is +not only uncharitable and violent, but foolish. He should be told that, +although he possesses some talents, they are by no means, as he +supposes, of the first order. He writes in a tone of superiority which +would hardly be justifiable at the close of a long and successful +literary career. His acquirements are very moderate, though he wants +neither boldness nor dexterity in displaying them to the best advantage; +and he is far, very far indeed, from being endowed with that powerful, +disciplined, and comprehensive mind, which should entitle him to decide +authoritatively and at once upon the most difficult parts of subjects so +far removed from one another as biblical criticism and legislation. His +style is rapid and lively, but hasty and inaccurate; and he either +despises or is incapable of regular and finished composition. + +Humour, indeed (we speak now generally, of all these performances which +have been ascribed to him by common consent), is his strong point; and +here he is often successful; but even from this praise many deductions +must be made. His jokes are broad and coarse; he is altogether a +mannerist, and never knows where to stop. The [Greek: _Paedenagan_] +seems quite unknown to him. His pleasantry does not proceed from keen +and well-supported irony; just, but unexpected comparisons; but depends, +for effect, chiefly upon strange polysyllabic epithets, and the endless +enumeration of minute circumstances. In this he, no doubt, displays +considerable ingenuity, and a strong sense of what is ludicrous; but his +good things are almost all prepared after one receipt. There is some +talent, but more trick, in their composition. The thing is well done, +but it is of a low order; we meet with nothing graceful, nothing +exquisite, nothing that pleases upon repetition and reflection. In +everything that Mr. Smith attempts, in all his "bravura" passages, +serious or comic, one is always shocked by some affectation or +absurdity; something in direct defiance of all those principles which +have been established by the authority of the best critics, and the +example of the best writers: indeed, bad taste seems to be Mr. Smith's +evil genius, both as to sentiment and expression. It is always hovering +near him, and, like one of the harpies, is sure to pounce down before +the end of the feast, and spoil the banquet, and disgust the guests. + +The present publication is by far the worst of all his performances, +avowed or imputed. Literary merit it has none; but in arrogance, +presumption, and absurdity, it far outdoes all his former outdoings. +Indeed, we regard it as one of the most deplorable mistakes that has +ever been committed by a man of supposed talents.... + + + + +ON MACAULAY + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, March, 1849] + +_The History of England from the Accession of James II_. +By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 2 vols. 8vo. 1849. + +The reading world will not need our testimony, though we willingly give +it, that Mr. Macaulay possesses great talents and extraordinary +acquirements. He unites powers and has achieved successes, not only +various, but different in their character, and seldom indeed conjoined +in one individual. He was while in Parliament, though not quite an +orator, and still less a debater, the most brilliant rhetorician of the +House. His Roman ballads (as we said in an article on their first +appearance) exhibit a novel idea worked out with a rare felicity, so as +to combine the spirit of the ancient minstrels with the regularity of +construction and sweetness of versification which modern taste requires; +and his critical Essays exhibit a wide variety of knowledge with a great +fertility of illustration, and enough of the salt of pleasantry and +sarcasm to flavour and in some degree disguise a somewhat declamatory +and pretentious dogmatism. It may seem too epigrammatic, but it is, in +our serious judgment, strictly true, to say that his History seems to be +a kind of combination and exaggeration of the peculiarities of all his +former efforts. It is as full of political prejudice and partisan +advocacy as any of his parliamentary speeches. It makes the facts of +English History as fabulous as his Lays do those of Roman tradition; and +it is written with as captious, as dogmatical, and as cynical a spirit +as the bitterest of his Reviews. That upon so serious an undertaking he +has lavished uncommon exertion, is not to be doubted; nor can any one +during the first reading escape the _entraĂ®nement_ of his picturesque, +vivid, and pregnant execution: but we have fairly stated the impression +left on ourselves by a more calm and leisurely perusal. We have been so +long the opponents of the political party to which Mr. Macaulay belongs +that we welcomed the prospect of again meeting him on the neutral ground +of literature. We are of that class of Tories--Protestant Tories, as +they were called--that have no sympathy with the Jacobites. We are as +strongly convinced as Mr. Macaulay can be of the necessity of the +Revolution of 1688--of the general prudence and expediency of the steps +taken by our Whig and Tory ancestors of the Convention Parliament, and +of the happiness, for a century and a half, of the constitutional +results. We were, therefore, not without hope that at least in these two +volumes, almost entirely occupied with the progress and accomplishment +of that Revolution, we might without any sacrifice of our political +feelings enjoy unalloyed the pleasures reasonably to be expected from +Mr. Macaulay's high powers both of research and illustration. That hope +has been deceived: Mr. Macaulay's historical narrative is poisoned with +a rancour more violent than even the passions of the time; and the +literary qualities of the work, though in some respects very remarkable, +are far from redeeming its substantial defects. There is hardly a page-- +we speak literally, hardly a page--that does not contain something +objectionable either in substance or in colour: and the whole of the +brilliant and at first captivating narrative is perceived on examination +to be impregnated to a really marvellous degree with bad taste, bad +feeling, and, we are under the painful necessity of adding--bad faith. + +These are grave charges: but we make them in sincerity, and we think +that we shall be able to prove them; and if, here or hereafter, we +should seem to our readers to use harsher terms than good taste might +approve, we beg in excuse to plead that it is impossible to fix one's +attention on, and to transcribe large portions of a work, without being +in some degree infected with its spirit; and Mr. Macaulay's pages, +whatever may be their other characteristics, are as copious a +repertorium of vituperative eloquence as, we believe, our language can +produce, and especially against everything in which he chooses (whether +right or wrong) to recognise the shibboleth of Toryism. We shall +endeavour, however, in the expression of our opinions, to remember the +respect we owe to our readers and to Mr. Macaulay's general character +and standing in the world of letters, rather than the provocations and +examples of the volumes immediately before us. + +Mr. Macaulay announces his intention of bringing down the history of +England almost to our own times; but these two volumes are complete in +themselves, and we may fairly consider them as a history of the +Revolution; and in that light the first question that presents itself to +us is why Mr. Macaulay has been induced to re-write what had already +been so often and even so recently written--among others, by Dalrymple, +a strenuous but honest Whig, and by Mr. Macaulay's own oracles, Fox and +Mackintosh? It may be answered that both Fox and Mackintosh left their +works imperfect. Fox got no farther than Monmouth's death; but +Mackintosh came down to the Orange invasion, and covered full nine-tenths +of the period as yet occupied by Mr. Macaulay. Why then did Mr. +Macaulay not content himself with beginning where Mackintosh left off-- +that is, with the Revolution? and it would have been the more natural, +because, as our readers know, it is there that Hume's history +terminates. + +What reason does he give for this work of supererogation? None. He does +not (as we shall see more fully by and by) take the slightest notice of +Mackintosh's history, no more than if it had never existed. Has he +produced a new fact? Not one. Has he discovered any new materials? None, +as far as we can judge, but the collections of Fox and Mackintosh, +confided to him by their families.[1] It seems to us a novelty in +literary practice that a writer raised far by fame and fortune above the +vulgar temptations of the craft should undertake to tell a story already +frequently and recently told by masters of the highest authority and +most extensive information, without having, or even professing to have, +any additional means or special motive to account for the attempt. + +[1] It appears from two notes of acknowledgments to M. Guizot and the + keepers of the archives at The Hague, that Mr. Macaulay obtained + some additions to the copies which Mackintosh already had of the + letters of Ronquillo the Spanish and Citters the Dutch minister at + the court of James. We may conjecture that these additions were + insignificant, since Mr. Macaulay has nowhere, that we have + observed, specially noticed them; but except these, whatever they + may be, we find no trace of anything that Fox and Mackintosh had not + already examined and classed. + +We suspect, however, that we can trace Mr. Macaulay's design to its true +source--the example and success of the author of Waverley. The +historical novel, if not invented, at least first developed and +illustrated by the happy genius of Scott, took a sudden and extensive +hold of the public taste; he himself, in most of his subsequent novels, +availed himself largely of the historical element which had contributed +so much to the popularity of Waverley. The press has since that time +groaned with his imitators. We have had historical novels of all classes +and grades. We have had served up in this form the Norman Conquest and +the Wars of the Roses, the Gunpowder Plot and the Fire of London, +Darnley and Richelieu--and almost at the same moment with Mr. Macaulay's +appeared a professed romance of Mr. Ainsworth's on the same subject-- +James II. Nay, on a novelist of this popular order has been conferred +the office of _Historiographer_ to the Queen. + +Mr. Macaulay, too mature not to have well measured his own peculiar +capacities, not rich in invention but ingenious in application, saw the +use that might be made of this principle, and that history itself would +be much more popular with a large embroidery of personal, social, and +even topographical anecdote and illustration, instead of the sober garb +in which we had been in the habit of seeing it. Few histories indeed +ever were or could be written without some admixture of this sort. The +father of the art himself, old Herodotus, vivified his text with a +greater share of what we may call personal anecdote than any of his +classical followers. Modern historians, as they happened to have more or +less of what we may call _artistic_ feeling, admitted more or less of +this decoration into their text, but always with an eye (which Mr. +Macaulay never exercises) to the appropriateness and value of the +illustration. Generally, however, such matters have been thrown into +notes, or, in a few instances--as by Dr. Henry and in Mr. Knight's +interesting and instructive "Pictorial History"--into separate chapters. +The large class of memoir-writers may also be fairly considered as +anecdotical historians--and they are in fact the sources from which the +novelists of the new school extract their principal characters and main +incidents. + +Mr. Macaulay deals with history, evidently, as we think, in imitation of +the novelists--his first object being always picturesque effect--his +constant endeavour to give from all the repositories of gossip that have +reached us a kind of circumstantial reality to his incidents, and a sort +of dramatic life to his personages. For this purpose he would not be +very solicitous about contributing any substantial addition to history, +strictly so called; on the contrary, indeed, he seems to have willingly +taken it as he found it, adding to it such lace and trimmings as he +could collect from the Monmouth-street of literature, seldom it may be +safely presumed of very delicate quality. It is, as Johnson drolly said, +"an old coat with a new facing--the old dog in a new doublet." The +conception was bold, and--so far as availing himself, like other +novelists, of the fashion of the day to produce a popular and profitable +effect--the experiment has been eminently successful. + +But besides the obvious incentives just noticed, Mr. Macaulay had also +the stimulus of what we may compendiously call a strong party spirit. +One would have thought that the Whigs might have been satisfied with +their share in the historical library of the Revolution:--besides Rapin, +Echard, and Jones, who, though of moderate politics in general, were +stout friends to the Revolution, they have had of professed and zealous +Whigs, Burnet, the foundation of all, Kennett, Oldmixon, Dalrymple, +Laing, Brodie, Fox, and finally Mackintosh and his continuator, besides +innumerable writers of less note, who naturally adopted the successful +side; and we should not have supposed that the reader of any of those +historians, and particularly the later ones, could complain that they +had been too sparing of imputation, or even vituperation, to the +opposite party. But not so Mr. Macaulay. The most distinctive feature on +the face of his pages is personal virulence--if he has at all succeeded +in throwing an air of fresh life into his characters, it is mainly due, +as any impartial and collected reader will soon discover, to the simple +circumstance of his hating the individuals of the opposite party as +bitterly, as passionately, as if they were his own personal enemies-- +more so, indeed, we hope than he would a mere political antagonist of +his own day. When some one suggested to the angry O'Neil that one of the +Anglo-Irish families whom he was reviling as strangers had been four +hundred years settled in Ireland, the Milesian replied, "_I hate the +churls as if they had come but yesterday_." Mr. Macaulay seems largely +endowed with this (as with a more enviable) species of memory, and he +hates, for example, King Charles I as if he had been murdered only +yesterday. Let us not be understood as wishing to abridge an historian's +full liberty of censure--but he should not be a satirist, still less a +libeller. We do not say nor think that Mr. Macaulay's censures were +always unmerited--far from it--but they are always, we think without +exception, immoderate. Nay, it would scarcely be too much to say that +this massacre of character is the point on which Mr. Macaulay must +chiefly rest any claims he can advance to the praise of impartiality, +for while he paints everything that looks like a Tory in the blackest +colours, he does not altogether spare any of the Whigs against whom he +takes a spite, though he always visits them with a gentler correction. +In fact, except Oliver Cromwell, King William, a few gentlemen who had +the misfortune to be executed or exiled for high treason, and every +dissenting minister that he has or can find occasion to notice, there +are hardly any persons mentioned who are not stigmatized as knaves or +fools, differing only in degrees of "turpitude" and "imbecility". Mr. +Macaulay has almost realized the work that Alexander Chalmers's playful +imagination had fancied, a _Biographia Flagitiosa_, or _The Lives of +Eminent Scoundrels_. This is also an imitation of the Historical Novel, +though rather in the track of Eugene Aram and Jack Sheppard than of +Waverley or Woodstock; but what would you have? To attain the +picturesque--the chief object of our artist--he adopts the ready process +of dark colours and a rough brush. Nature, even at the worst, is never +gloomy enough for a Spagnoletto, and Judge Jeffries himself, for the +first time, excites a kind of pity when we find him (like one to whom he +was nearly akin) not so black as he is painted. + +From this first general view of Mr. Macaulay's Historical Novel, we now +proceed to exhibit in detail some grounds for the opinion which we have +ventured to express. + +We premise that we are about to enter into details, because there is in +fact little to question or debate about but details. We have already +hinted that there is absolutely no new fact of any consequence, and, we +think we can safely add, hardly a new view of any historical fact, in +the whole book. Whatever there may remain questionable or debatable in +the history of the period, we should have to argue with Burnet, +Dalrymple, or Mackintosh, and not with Mr. Macaulay. It would, we know, +have a grander air if we were to make his book the occasion of +disquisitions on the rise and progress of the constitution--on the +causes by which the monarchy of the Tudors passed, through the murder of +Charles, to the despotism of Cromwell--how again that produced a +restoration which settled none of the great moral or political questions +which had generated all those agitations, and which, in return, those +agitations had complicated and inflamed--and how, at last, the +undefined, discordant, and antagonistic pretensions of the royal and +democratical elements were reconciled by the Revolution and the Bill of +Rights--and finally, whether with too much or too little violence to the +principles of the ancient constitution--all these topics, we say, would, +if we were so inclined, supply us, as they have supplied Mr. Macaulay, +with abundant opportunities of grave tautology and commonplace; but we +decline to raise sham debates on points where there is no contest. We +can have little historic difference, properly so called, with one who +has no historical difference on the main facts with anybody else: +instead, then, of pretending to treat any great questions, either of +constitutional learning or political philosophy, we shall confine +ourselves to the humbler but more practical and more useful task above +stated. + +Our first complaint is of a comparatively small and almost mechanical, +and yet very real, defect--the paucity and irregularity of his dates, +and the mode in which the few that he does give are overlaid, as it +were, by the text. This, though it may be very convenient to the writer, +and quite indifferent to the reader, of an historical romance, is +perplexing to any one who might wish to read and weigh the book as a +serious history, of which dates are the guides and landmarks; and when +they are visibly neglected we cannot but suspect that the historian will +be found not very solicitous about strict accuracy. This negligence is +carried to such an extent that, in what looks like a very copious table +of contents, one of the most important events of the whole history-- +that, indeed, on which the Revolution finally turned--the marriage of +Princess Mary to the Prince of Orange, is not noticed; nor is any date +affixed to the very cursory mention of it in the text. It is rather hard +to force the reader who buys this last new model history, in general so +profuse of details, to recur to one of the old-fashioned ones to +discover that this important event happened in the year 1675, and on the +4th of November--a day thrice over remarkable in William's history--for +his birth, his marriage, and his arrival with his invading army on the +coast of Devon. + +Our second complaint is of one of the least important, perhaps, but most +prominent defects of Mr. Macaulay's book--his Style--not merely the +choice and order of words, commonly called style, but the turn of mind +which prompts the choice of expressions as well as of topics. We need +not repeat that Mr. Macaulay has a great facility of language, a +prodigal _copia verborum_--that he narrates rapidly and clearly--that he +paints very forcibly,--and that his readers throughout the tale are +carried on, or away, by something of the sorcery which a brilliant +orator exercises over his auditory. But he has also in a great degree +the faults of the oratorical style. He deals much too largely in +epithets--a habit exceedingly dangerous to historical truth. He +habitually constructs a piece of what should be calm, dispassionate +narrative, upon the model of the most passionate peroration--adhering in +numberless instances to precisely the same specific formula of artifice. +His diction is often inflated into fustian, and he indulges in +exaggeration till it sometimes, unconsciously no doubt, amounts to +falsehood. It is a common fault of those who strive at producing +oratorical effects, to oscillate between commonplace and extravagance; +and while studying Mr. Macaulay, one feels as if vibrating between facts +that every one knows and consequences which nobody can believe. We are +satisfied that whoever will take, as we have been obliged to do, the +pains of sifting what Mr. Macaulay has produced from his own mind with +what he has borrowed from others, will be entirely of our opinion. In +truth, when, after reading a page or two of this book, we have occasion +to turn to the same transaction in Burnet, Dalrymple, or Hume, we feel +as if we were exchanging the glittering agility of a rope-dancer for +gentlemen in the attire and attitude of society. And we must say that +there is not one of those writers that does not give a clearer and more +trustworthy account of all that is really historical in the period than +can be collected from Mr. Macaulay's more decorated pages. We invite our +readers to try Mr. Macaulay's merits as an historian by the test of +comparison with his predecessors. + + * * * * * + +Every great painter is supposed to make a larger use of one particular +colour. What a monstrous bladderful of _infamy_ Mr. Macaulay must have +squeezed on his palette when he took to portrait-painting! We have no +concern, except as friends to historical justice, for the characters of +any of the parties thus stigmatized, nor have we room or time to discuss +these, or the hundred other somewhat similar cases which the volumes +present; but we have looked at the authorities cited by Mr. Macaulay, +and we do not hesitate to say that, "as is his wont," he has, with the +exception of Jeffries, outrageously exaggerated them. + +We must next notice the way in which Mr. Macaulay refers to and uses his +authorities--no trivial points in the execution of a historical work-- +though we shall begin with comparatively small matters. In his chapter +on manners, which we may call the most remarkable in his book, one of +his most frequent references is to "Chamberlayne's State of England, +1684." It is referred to at least a dozen or fourteen times in that +chapter alone; but we really have some doubt whether Mr. Macaulay knew +the nature of the book he so frequently quoted. Chamberlayne's work, of +which the real title is "_Angliae_ [or, after the Scotch Union, _Magnae +Britanniae_] _Notitia, or the Present State of England_" [or _Great +Britain_], was a kind of periodical publication, half history and half +court-calendar. It was first published in 1669, and new editions or +reprints, with new dates, were issued, not annually, we believe, but so +frequently that there are between thirty and forty of them in the +Museum, ending with 1755. From the way and for the purposes for which +Mr. Macaulay quotes Chamberlayne, we should almost suspect that he had +lighted on the volume for 1684, and, knowing of no other, considered it +as a substantive work published in that year. _Once_ indeed he cites the +date of 1686, but there was, it seems, no edition of that year, and this +may be an accidental error; but however that may be, our readers will +smile when they hear that the two first and several following passages +which Mr. Macaulay cites from Chamberlayne (i. 290 and 291), as +_characteristic_ of the _days of Charles II_, distinctively from more +modern times, are to be found _literatim_ in every succeeding +"Chamberlayne" down to 1755--the last we have seen--were thus +continually reproduced because the proprietors and editors of the table +book knew they were _not_ particularly characteristical of one year or +reign more than another--and now, in 1849, might be as well quoted as +characteristics of the reign of George II as of Charles II. We must add +that there are references to Chamberlayne and to several weightier books +(some of which we shall notice more particularly hereafter), as +justifying assertions for which, on examining the said books with our +best diligence, we have not been able to find a shadow of authority. + +Our readers know that there was a Dr. John Eachard who wrote a +celebrated work on the "Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the +Clergy." They also know that there was a Dr. Lawrence Echard who wrote +both a History of England, and a History of the Revolution. Both of +these were remarkable men; but we almost doubt whether Mr. Macaulay, who +quotes the works of each, does not confound their persons, for he refers +to them both by the common (as it may once have been) name of _Each_ard, +and at least twenty times by the wrong name. This, we admit, is a small +matter; but what will some Edinburgh Reviewer (_temp_. Albert V) say if +he finds a writer confounding _Catherine_ and _Thomas_ Macaulay as "the +celebrated author of the great Whig History of England"--a confusion +hardly worse than that of the two Eachards--for Catherine, though now +forgotten by an ungrateful public, made quite as much noise in her day +as Thomas does in ours. + +But we are sorry to say we have a heavier complaint against Mr. +Macaulay. We accuse him of a habitual and really injurious perversion of +his authorities. This unfortunate indulgence, in whatever juvenile +levity it may have originated, and through whatever steps it may have +grown into an unconscious habit, seems to us to pervade the whole work-- +from Alpha to Omega--from Procopius to Mackintosh--and it is on that +very account the more difficult to bring to the distinct conception of +our readers. Individual instances can be, and shall be, produced; but +how can we extract and exhibit the minute particles that colour every +thread of the texture?--how extract the impalpable atoms that have +fermented the whole brewing? We must do as Dr. Faraday does at the +Institution when he exhibits in miniature the larger processes of +Nature. We will suppose, then--taking a simple phrase as the fairest for +the experiment--that Mr. Macaulay found Barillon saying in French, "_le +drĂ´le m'a fait peur_," or Burnet saying in English, "_the fellow +frightened me_." We should be pretty sure not to find the same words in +Mr. Macaulay. He would pause--he would first consider whether "the +fellow" spoken of was a _Whig_ or a _Tory_. If a Whig, the thing would +be treated as a joke, and Mr. Macaulay would transmute it playfully into +"_the rogue startled me_"; but if a _Tory_, it would take a deeper dye, +and we should find "_the villain assaulted me_"; and in either case we +should have a grave reference to + + Jan. 31, +"Barillon,-------- 1686"; or, "Burnet, i. 907." + Feb. 1, + +If our reader will keep this formula in his mind, he will find it a fair +exponent of Mr. Macaulay's _modus operandi_.... + +We shall now proceed to more general topics. We decline, as we set out +by saying, to treat this "New Atalantis" as a serious history, and +therefore we shall not trouble our readers with matters of such remote +interest as the errors and anachronisms with which the chapter that +affects to tell our earlier history abounds. Our readers would take no +great interest in a discussion whether Hengist was as fabulous as +Hercules, Alaric a Christian born, and "the fair chapels of New College +and St. George" at Windsor of the same date. But there is one subject in +that chapter on which we cannot refrain from saying a few words--THE +CHURCH. + +We decline to draw any inferences from this work as to Mr. Macaulay's +own religious opinions; but it is our duty to say--and we trust we may +do so without offence--that Mr. Macaulay's mode of dealing with the +general principle of Church government, and the doctrine, discipline, +and influence of the Church of England, cannot fail to give serious +pain, and sometimes to excite a stronger feeling than pain, in the mind +of every friend to that Church, whether in its spiritual or corporate +character. + +He starts with a notion that the fittest engine to redeem England from +the mischiefs and mistakes of oligarchical feudalism was to be found in +the imposing machinery and deception of the Roman Church; overlooking +the great truth that it was not the Romish Church, but the genius of +Christianity, working its vast but silent change, which was really +guiding on the chariot of civilization; but in this broad principle +there was not enough of the picturesqueness of detail to captivate his +mind. It would not suit him to distinguish between the Church of Christ +and the web of corruptions that had grown about her, but could not +effectually arrest the benignant influence inherent in her mainspring. +He therefore leads his readers to infer that Christianity came first to +Britain with St. Austin, and for aught that Mr. Macaulay condescends to +inform us, the existence of a prior Anglo-Saxon Church was a monkish +fiction. The many unhappy circumstances of the position taken up by the +Romish Church in its struggles for power--some of them unavoidable, it +may be, if such a battle were to be fought--are actually displayed as so +many blessings, attainable only by a system which the historian himself +condemns elsewhere as baneful and untrue. He maintains these strange +paradoxes and contradictions with a pertinacity quite surprising. He +doubts whether a true form of Christianity would have answered the +purposes of liberty and civilization half so well as the acknowledged +duplicities of the Church of Rome. + + It may perhaps be doubted whether a purer religion might not have been + found a less efficient agent.--i. 23. + + There is a point in the life both of an individual and a society at + which submission and faith, such as at a later period would be justly + called servility and credulity, are useful qualities.--i. 47. + +These are specimens of the often exposed fallacies in which he delights +to indulge. Place right and wrong in a state of uncertainty by reflected +lights, and you may fill up your picture as you like. And such for ever +is Mr. Macaulay's principle of art. It is not the elimination of error +that he seeks for, but an artistic balance of conflicting forces. And +this he pursues throughout: deposing the dignity of the historian for +the clever antithesis of the pamphleteer. At last, on this great and +important point of religious history--a point which more than any other +influences every epoch of English progress, he arrives at this pregnant +and illustrative conclusion-- + + It is difficult to say whether England owes more to the Roman Catholic + religion or to the Reformation.--i. 49. + +England owes nothing to "the Roman Catholic religion." She owes +everything to CHRISTIANITY, which Romanism injured and hampered but +could not destroy, and which the Reformation freed at least from the +worst of those impure and impeding excrescences. + +With regard to his treatment of the Reformation, and especially of the +Church of England, it is very difficult to give our readers an adequate +idea. Throughout a system of depreciation--we had almost said insult--is +carried on: sneers, sarcasms, injurious comparisons, sly +misrepresentations, are all adroitly mingled throughout the narrative, +so as to produce an unfavourable impression, which the author has not +the frankness to attempt directly. Even when obliged to approach the +subject openly, it is curious to observe how, under a slight veil of +impartiality, imputations are raised and calumnies accredited. For +instance, early in the first volume he gives us his view of the English +Reformation, as a kind of middle term, emerging out of the antagonist +struggles of the Catholics and Calvinists: and it is impossible not to +see that, between the three parties, he awards to the Catholics the +merit of unity and consistency; to the Calvinists, of reason and +independence; to the Anglicans, the lowest motives of expediency and +compromise. To enforce this last topic he relies on the inconsistencies, +some real and some imaginary, imputed to Cranmer, whose notions of +worldly expedience he chooses to represent as the source of the Anglican +Church.... + +Every one of the circumstances on which we may presume that Mr. Macaulay +would rely as justifying these charges has been long since, to more +candid judgments, either disproved, explained, or excused, and in truth +whatever blame can be justly attributed to any of them, belongs mainly, +if not exclusively, to those whose violence and injustice drove a +naturally upright and most conscientious man into the shifts and +stratagems of self-defence. With the greatest fault and the only crime +that Charles in his whole life committed Mr. Macaulay does not reproach +him--the consent to the execution of Lord Strafford--that indeed, as he +himself penitentially confessed, was a deadly weight on his conscience, +and is an indelible stain on his character; but even that guilt and +shame belongs in a still greater degree to Mr. Macaulay's patriot +heroes. + +This leads us to the conclusive plea which we enter to Mr. Macaulay's +indictment, namely--that all those acts alleged as the excuses of +rebellion and regicide occurred after the rebellion had broken out, and +were at worst only devices of the unhappy King to escape from the +regicide which he early foresaw. It was really the old story of the wolf +and the lamb. It was far down the stream of rebellion that these acts of +supposed perfidy on the part of Charles could be said to have troubled +it. + +But while he thus deals with the lamb, let us see how he treats the +wolf. We have neither space nor taste for groping through the long and +dark labyrinth of Cromwell's proverbial duplicity and audacious +apostacy: we shall content ourselves with two facts, which, though +stated in the gentlest way by Mr. Macaulay, will abundantly justify the +opinion which all mankind, except a few republican zealots, hold of that +man's sincerity, of whose abilities, wonderful as they were, the most +remarkable, and perhaps the most serviceable to his fortunes, was his +hypocrisy; so much so, that South--a most acute observer of mankind, and +who had been educated under the Commonwealth and Protectorate--in his +sermon on "Worldly Wisdom," adduces Cromwell as an instance of "habitual +dissimulation and imposture." Oliver, Mr. Macaulay tells us, modelled +his army on the principle of composing it of men fearing God, and +zealous for _public liberty_, and in the very next page he is forced to +confess that + + thirteen years followed in which for the first and the last time the + civil power of our country was subjected to military dictation.--i. + 120. + +Again, + + Oliver had made his choice. He had kept the hearts of his soldiers, + but he had _broken_ with every other class of his fellow citizens.--i. + 129. + +That is, he had broken through all the promises, pledges, and specious +pretences by which he had deceived and enslaved the nation, which Mr. +Macaulay calls with such opportune _naĂ¯vetĂ©, his fellow citizens_! Then +follows, not a censure of this faithless usurpation, but many laboured +apologies, and even defences of it, and a long series of laudatory +epithets, some of which are worth collecting as a rare contrast to Mr. +Macaulay's usual style, and particularly to the abuse of Charles, which +we have just exhibited. + + His _genius and resolution_ made him more _absolute master of his + country_ than any of her legitimate Kings had been.--i. 129. + +He having cut off the legitimate King's head on a pretence that Charles +had wished to make himself _absolutely master of the country_. + + Everything yielded to the _vigour and ability_ of Cromwell.--i. 130. + + The Government, though in the form of a Republic, was in truth a + despotism, moderated only by the _wisdom, the sober-mindedness, and + the magnanimity_ of the despot.--i. 137. + +With a vast deal more of the same tone. + +But Mr. Macaulay particularly expatiates on the influence that Cromwell +exercised over foreign states: and there is hardly any topic to which he +recurs with more pleasure, or, as we think, with less sagacity, than the +terror with which Cromwell and the contempt with which the Stuarts +inspired the nations of Europe. He somewhat exaggerates the extent of +this feeling, and greatly misstates or mistakes the cause; and as this +subject is in the present state of the world of more importance than any +others in the work, we hope we may be excused for some observations +tending to a sounder opinion on that subject. + +It was not, as Mr. Macaulay everywhere insists, the personal abilities +and genius of Cromwell that exclusively, or even in the first degree, +carried his foreign influence higher than that of the Stuarts. The +internal struggles that distracted and consumed the strength of these +islands throughout their reigns necessarily rendered us little +formidable to our neighbours; and it is with no good grace that a Whig +historian stigmatises that result as shameful; for, without discussing +whether it was justifiable or not, the fact is certain, that it was +opposition of the Whigs--often in rebellion and always in faction +against the Government--which disturbed all progress at home and +paralysed every effort abroad. We are not, we say, now discussing +whether that opposition was not justifiable and may not have been +ultimately advantageous in several constitutional points; we think it +decidedly was: but at present all we mean to do is to show that it had a +great share in producing on our foreign influence the lowering effects +of which Mr. Macaulay complains. + +And there is still another consideration which escapes Mr. Macaulay in +his estimate of such usurpers as Cromwell and Buonaparte. A usurper is +always more terrible both at home and abroad than a legitimate +sovereign: first, the usurper is likely to be (and in these two cases +was) a man of superior genius and military glory, wielding the +irresistible power of the sword; but there is still stronger contrast-- +legitimate Governments are bound--at home by laws--abroad by treaties, +family ties, and international interests; they acknowledge the law of +nations, and are limited, even in hostilities, by many restraints and +bounds. The despotic usurpers had no fetters of either sort--they had no +opposition at home, and no scruples abroad. Law, treaties, rights, and +the like, had been already broken through like cobwebs, and kings +naturally humbled themselves before a vigour that had dethroned and +murdered kings, and foreign nations trembled at a power that had subdued +in their own fields and cities the pride of England and the gallantry of +France! To contrast Cromwell and Charles II, Napoleon and Louis XVIII, +is sheer nonsense and mere verbiage--it is as if one should compare the +house-dog and the wolf, and argue that the terror inspired by the latter +was very much to his honour. All this is such a mystery to Mr. Macaulay +that he wanders into two theories so whimsical, that we hesitate between +passing them by as absurdities, or producing them for amusement; we +adopt the latter. One is that Cromwell could have no interest and +therefore no personal share in the death of Charles. "Whatever Cromwell +was," says Mr. Macaulay, "he was no fool; and he must have known that +Charles I was obviously a less difficulty in his way than Charles II." +Cromwell, we retain the phrase, "was no fool," and he thought and +_found_ that Charles II, was, as far as he was concerned, no difficulty +at all. The real truth was, that the revolutionary party in England in +1648, like that in France in 1792, was but a rope of sand which nothing +could cement and consolidate but the _blood of the Kings--that_ was a +common crime and a common and indissoluble tie which gave all their +consistency and force to both revolutions--a stroke of original sagacity +in Cromwell and of imitative dexterity in Robespierre. If Mr. Macaulay +admits, as he subsequently does (i. 129), that the regicide was "a +sacrament of blood," by which the party became irrevocably bound to each +other and separated from the rest of the nation, how can he pretend that +Cromwell derived no advantage from it? In fact, his admiration--we had +almost said fanaticism--for Cromwell betrays him throughout into the +blindest inconsistencies. + +The second vision of Mr. Macaulay is, if possible, still more absurd. He +imagines a Cromwell dynasty! If it had not been for Monk and his army, +the rest of the nation would have been loyal to the son of the +illustrious Oliver. + + Had the Protector and the Parliament been suffered to proceed + undisturbed, there can be little doubt that an order of things similar + to that which was afterwards established under the House of Hanover, + would have been established under the house of Cromwell.--i. 142. + +And yet in a page or two Mr. Macaulay is found making an admission-- +made, indeed, with the object of disparaging Monk and the royalists--but +which gives to his theory of a Cromwellian dynasty the most conclusive +refutation. + + It was probably not till Monk had been some days in the capital that + he made up his mind. The cry of the whole people was for a free + parliament; and there could _be no doubt that a parliament really free + would instantly restore the exiled family_.--i. 147. + +All this hypothesis of a Cromwellian dynasty _looks_ like sheer +nonsense; but we have no doubt it has a meaning, and we request our +readers not to be diverted by the almost ludicrous partiality and +absurdity of Mr. Macaulay's speculations from an appreciation of the +deep hostility to the monarchy from which they arise. They are like +bubbles on the surface of a dark pool, which indicate there is something +rotten below. + +We should if we had time have many other complaints to make of the +details of this chapter, which are deeply coloured with all Mr. +Macaulay's prejudices and passions. He is, we may almost say of course, +violent and unjust against Strafford and Clarendon; and the most +prominent touch of candour that we can find in this period of his +history is, that he slurs over the murder of Laud in an abscure +half-line (i. 119) as if he were--as we hope he really is--ashamed of +it. + +We now arrive at what we have heard called the celebrated third chapter +--celebrated it deserves to be, and we hope our humble observations may +add something to its celebrity. There is no feature of Mr. Macaulay's +book on which, we believe, he more prides himself, and which has been in +truth more popular with his readers, than the descriptions which he +introduces of the residences, habits, and manners of our ancestors. They +are, provided you do not look below the surface, as entertaining as +Pepys or Pennant, or any of the many scrap-book histories which have +been recently fabricated from those old materials; but when we come to +examine them, we find that in these cases, as everywhere else, Mr. +Macaulay's propensity to caricature and exaggerate leads him not merely +to disfigure circumstances, but totally to forget the principle on which +such episodes are admissible into regular history--namely, the +illustration of the story. They should be, as it were, woven into the +narrative, and not, as Mr. Macaulay generally treats them, stitched on +like patches. This latter observation does not of course apply to the +collecting a body of miscellaneous facts into a separate chapter, as +Hume and others have done; but Mr. Macaulay's chapter, besides, as we +shall show, the prevailing inaccuracy of its details, has one general +and essential defect specially its own. + +The moment Mr. Macaulay has selected for suspending his narrative to +take a view of the surface and society of England is the death of +Charles II. Now we think no worse point of time could have been chosen +for tracing the obscure but very certain connection between political +events and the manners of a people. The restoration, for instance, was +an era in manners as well as in politics--so was in a fainter degree the +Revolution--either, or both, of those periods would have afforded a +natural position for contemplating a going and a coming order of things; +but we believe that there are no two periods in our annals which were so +identical in morals and politics--so undistinguishable, in short, in any +national view--as the latter years of Charles and the earlier years of +James. Here then is an objection _in limine_ to this famous chapter--and +not _in limine_ only, but in substance; for in fact the period he has +chosen would not have furnished out the chapter, four-fifths of which +belong to a date later than that which he professes to treat of. In +short, the chapter is like an old curiosity-shop, into which--no matter +whether it happens to stand in Charles Street, William Street, or George +Street--the knick-knacks of a couple of centuries are promiscuously +jumbled. What does it signify, in a history of the reign of Charles II, +that a writer, "_sixty years after the Revolution_" (i. 347), says that +in the lodging-houses at Bath "the hearth-slabs" were "freestone, not +marble"--that "the best apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, +and furnished with rush-bottomed chairs"?--nay, that he should have the +personal good taste to lament that in those Boeotian days "_not a +wainscot was painted_" (348); and yet this twaddle of the reign of +George II, patched into the times of Charles II, is the appropriate +occasion which he takes to panegyrise this new mode of elucidating +history?--... + +It is a curious and, to persons of our opinions, not unsatisfactory +circumstance, that, though Mr. Macaulay almost invariably applies the +term _Tory_ in an opprobrious or contemptuous sense, yet so great is the +power of truth in surmounting the fantastical forms and colours laid +over it by this brilliant _badigeonneur_, that on the whole no one, we +believe, can rise from the work without a conviction that the Tories +(whatever may be said of their prejudices) were the honestest and most +conscientious of the whole _dramatis personae_; and it is this fact that +in several instances and circumstances imprints, as it were by force, +upon Mr. Macaulay's pages an air of impartiality and candour very +discordant from their general spirit. + +We are now arrived at the fourth chapter--really the first, strictly +speaking, of Mr. Macaulay's history--the accession of James II, where +also Sir James Mackintosh's history commences. And here we have to open +to our readers the most extraordinary instance of _parallelism_ between +two writers, unacknowledged by the later one, which we have ever seen. +Sir James Mackintosh left behind him a history of the Revolution, which +was published in 1834, three years after his death, in quarto: it comes +down to the Orange invasion, and, though it apparently had not received +the author's last corrections, and was clumsily edited, and tagged with +a continuation by a less able hand, the work is altogether (bating not a +little ultra-Whiggery) very creditable to Mackintosh's diligence, taste, +and power of writing; it is indeed, we think, his best and most +important work, and that by which he will be most favourably known to +posterity. From that work Mr. Macaulay has borrowed largely--prodigally-- +helped himself with both hands--not merely without acknowledging his +obligation, but without so much as alluding to the existence of any such +work. Nay--though this we are sure was never designed--he inserts a note +full of kindness and respect to Sir James Mackintosh, which would +naturally lead an uninformed reader to conclude that Sir James +Mackintosh, though he had _meditated_ such a work, had never even begun +writing it. On the 391st page of Mr. Macaulay's first volume, at the +mention of the old news-letters which preceded our modern newspapers, +Mr. Macaulay says, that "they form a valuable part of the literary +treasures collected by the late Sir James Mackintosh"; and to this he +adds the following foot-note: + + I take this opportunity of expressing my warm gratitude to the family + of my dear and honoured friend Sir James Mackintosh, for confiding to + me the materials collected by him _at a time when he meditated a work + similar to that which I have undertaken._ I have never seen, and I do + not believe that there anywhere exists, within the same compass, so + noble a _collection of extracts_ from public and private archives. The + judgment with which Sir James, in great masses of the rudest ore of + history, selected what was valuable and rejected what was worthless, + can be fully appreciated only by one who has toiled after him in the + same mine.--i. 391. + +Could any one imagine from this that Mackintosh had not only _meditated_ +a work, but actually written, and that his friends had published, a +large closely printed quarto volume, on the same subject, from the same +materials, and sometimes in the very same words as Mr. Macaulay's? + +The coincidence--the identity, we might almost say--of the two works is +so great, that, while we have been comparing them, we have often been +hardly able to distinguish which was which. We rest little on the +similiarity of facts, for the facts were ready made for both; and Mr. +Macaulay tells us that he worked from Mackintosh's materials; there +would, therefore, even if he had never seen Mackintosh's work, be a +community of topics and authorities; but, seeing as we do in every page +that he was writing with Mackintosh's volume before his eyes, we cannot +account for his utter silence about it.... + +Having thus shown Mr. Macaulay's mode of dealing with what forms the +chief and most characteristic feature of his book--its anecdotical +gossip--we shall now endeavour to exhibit the deceptive style in which +he treats the larger historical facts: in truth the style is the same--a +general and unhesitating sacrifice of accuracy and reality to +picturesque effect and party prejudices. He treats historical personages +as the painter does his _layman_--a supple figure which he models into +what he thinks the most striking attitude, and dresses up with the +gaudiest colours and most fantastical draperies. + +It is very difficult to condense into any manageable space the proofs of +a general system of accumulating and aggravating all that was ever, +whether truly or falsely, reproached to the Tories, and alleviating +towards the Whigs the charges which he cannot venture to deny or even to +question. The mode in which this is managed so as to keep up some show +of impartiality is very dexterous. The reproach, well or ill founded, +which he thinks most likely to damage the character of any one he +dislikes, is repeated over and over again in hope that the iteration +will at last be taken for proof, such as the perfidy of Charles I, the +profligacy and selfishness of Charles II, the cold and cruel stupidity +of James, the baseness of Churchill, the indecent violence of Rochester, +the contemptible subserviency of his brother, Clarendon, and so on +through a whole dictionary of abuse on every one whom he takes or +mistakes for a Tory, and on a few Whigs whom for some special reasons of +his own he treats like Tories. On the other hand, when he finds himself +reluctantly forced to acknowledge even the greatest enormity of the +Whigs--corruption--treason--murder he finds much gentler terms for the +facts; selects a scapegoat, some subaltern villain, or some one whom +history has already gibbeted, "to bear upon him all their iniquities," +and that painful sacrifice once made, he avoids with tender care a +recurrence to so disagreeable a subject.... + +After so much political detail it will be some kind of diversion to our +readers to examine Mr. Macaulay's most elaborate strategic and +topographical effort, worked up with all the combined zeal and skill of +an ex-Secretary-at-War and a pictorial historian--a copious description +of the battle of Sedgemoor. Mr. Macaulay seems to have visited +Bridgwater with a zeal worthy of a better result: for it has produced a +description of the surrounding country as pompous and detailed as if it +had been the scene of some grand strategic operations--a parade not +merely unnecessary, but absurd, for the so-called battle was but a +bungling skirmish. Monmouth had intended to surprise the King's troops +in their quarters by a midnight attack, but was stopped by a wide and +deep trench, of which he was not apprised, called Bussex Rhine, behind +which the King's army lay. "The trenches which drain the moor are," Mr. +Macaulay adds, "in that country called _rhines_." On each side of this +ditch the parties stood firing at each other in the dark. Lord Grey and +the cavalry ran away without striking a blow; Monmouth followed them, +too, soon; for some time the foot stood with a degree of courage and +steadiness surprising in such raw and half-armed levies; at last the +King's cavalry got round their flank, and they too ran: the King's foot +then crossed the ditch with little or no resistance, and slaughtered, +with small loss on their own side, a considerable number of the +fugitives, the rest escaping back to Bridgwater. Our readers will judge +whether such a skirmish required a long preliminary description of the +surrounding country. Mr. Macaulay might just as usefully have described +the plain of Troy. Indeed at the close of his long topographical and +etymological narrative Mr. Macaulay has the tardy candour to confess +that-- + + little is now to be learned by visiting the field of battle, for the + face of the country has been greatly changed, and the old _Bussex + Rhine_, on the banks of which the great struggle took place, has long + disappeared. + +This is droll. After spending a deal of space and fine writing in +describing the present prospect, he concludes by telling us candidly it +is all of no use, for the whole scene has changed. This is like +Walpole's story of the French lady who asked for her lover's picture; +and when he demurred observing that, if her husband were to see it, it +might betray their secret--"O dear, no," she said--just like Mr. +Macaulay--"I _will have the picture_, but it _need not be like_!" + +But even as to the change, we again doubt Mr. Macaulay's accuracy. The +word _Rhine_ in Somersetshire, as perhaps--_parva componere magnis_--in +the great German river, means _running_ water, and we therefore think it +very unlikely that a running stream should have disappeared; but we also +find in the Ordnance Survey of Somersetshire, made in our own time, the +course and name of _Bussck's Rhine_ distinctly laid down in front of +Weston, where it probably ran in Monmouth's day; and we are further +informed, in return to some inquiries that we have caused to be made, +that the _Rhine_ is now, in 1849, as visible and well known as ever it +was. + +But this grand piece of the military topography of a battlefield where +there was no battle must have its picturesque and pathetic episode, and +Mr. Macaulay finds one well suited to such a novel. When Monmouth had +made up his mind to attempt to _surprise_ the royal army, Mr. Macaulay +is willing (for a purpose which we shall see presently) to persuade +himself that the Duke let the whole town into his secret:-- + + That an attack was to be made under cover of the night was no secret + in Bridgwater. The town was full of women, who had repaired thither by + hundreds from the surrounding region to see their husbands, sons, + lovers, and brothers once more. There were many sad partings that day; + and many parted never to meet again. The report of the intended attack + came to the ears of a young girl who was zealous for the king. Though + of modest character, she had the courage to resolve that she would + herself bear the intelligence to Feversham. She stole out of + Bridgwater, and made her way to the royal camp. But that camp was not + a place where female innocence could be safe. Even the officers, + despising alike the irregular force to which they were opposed, and + the negligent general who commanded them, had indulged largely in + wine, and were ready for any excess of licentiousness and cruelty. One + of them seized the unhappy maiden, refused to listen to her errand, + and brutally outraged her. She fled in agonies of rage and shame, + leaving the wicked army to its doom.--i. 606, 7. + +--the _doom of the wicked army_, be it noted _en passant_, being a +complete victory. Mr. Macaulay cites Kennett for this story, and adds +that he is "_forced_ to believe the story to be true, because Kennett +declares that it was communicated to him in the year 1718 by a brave +officer who had fought at Sedgemoor, and had himself seen the poor girl +depart in an agony of distress,"--_ib_. + +We shall not dwell on the value of an anonymous story told +_three-and-thirty years_ after the Battle of Sedgemoor. The tale is +sufficiently refuted by notorious facts and dates, and indeed by its +internal absurdity. We know from the clear and indisputable evidence of +Wade, who commanded Monmouth's infantry, all the proceedings of that day. +Monmouth no doubt intended to move that night, and made open preparation +for it, and the partings so pathetically described may have, therefore, +taken place, and the rather because the intended movement was to leave +that part of the country altogether--_not_ to meet the King's troops, but +to endeavour to escape them by a forced march across the Avon and into +Gloucestershire. So far might have been known. But about _three_ o'clock +that afternoon Monmouth received intelligence by a spy that the King's +troops had advanced to Sedgemoor, but had taken their positions so +injudiciously, that there seemed a possibility of surprising them in a +night attack. On this Monmouth assembled a council of war, which agreed +that, instead of retreating that night towards the Avon as they had +intended, they should advance and attack, provided the spy, who was to +be sent out to a new reconnoissance, should report that the troops were +not intrenched. We may be sure that--as the news only arrived at three +in the afternoon--the assembling the council of war--the deliberation-- +the sending back the spy--his return and another deliberation--must have +protracted the final decision to so late an hour that evening, that it +is utterly impossible that the change of the design of a march northward +to that of an "_attack to be made under cover of the night_," could have +been that _morning_ no secret in Bridgwater. But our readers see it was +necessary for Mr. Macaulay to raise this fable, in order to account for +the poor girl's knowing so important a secret. So far we have argued the +case on Mr. Macaulay's own showing, which, we confess, was very +incautious on our part; but on turning to his authority we find, as +usual, a story essentially different. Kennett says-- + + A brave Captain in the Horse Guards, now living (1718), was in the + action at Sedgemoor, and gave me the account of it:--That on _Sunday + morning, July 5_, a young woman came from Monmouth's quarters to give + notice of his design to surprise the King's camp _that night_; but + this young woman being carried to a chief officer in a neighbouring + village, she was led upstairs and debauched by him, and, coming down + in a great fright and disorder (as he himself saw her), she went back, + and her message was not told.--_Kennett_, in. 432. + +This knocks the whole story on the head. Kennett was not aware (Wade's +narrative not being published when he wrote) that the King's troops did +not come in sight of Sedgemoor till about three o'clock P.M. of that +Sunday on the early morning of which he places the girl's visit to the +camp, and it was not till late that same evening that Monmouth changed +his original determination, and formed the sudden resolution with which, +to support Kennett's story, the whole town must have been acquainted at +least twelve hours before. These are considerations which ought not to +have escaped a philosophical historian who had the advantage, which +Kennett had not, of knowing the exact time when these details +occurred.... + +We must here conclude. We have exhausted our time and our space, but not +our topics. We have selected such of the more prominent defects and +errors of Mr. Macaulay as were manageable within our limits; but +numerous as they are, we beg that they may be considered as specimens +only of the infinitely larger assortment that the volumes would afford, +and be read not merely as individual instances, but as indications of +the general style of the work, and the prevailing _animus_ of the +writer. We have chiefly directed our attention to points of mere +historical inaccuracy and infidelity; but they are combined with a +greater admixture of other--we know not whether to call them literary or +moral--defects, than the insulated passages sufficiently exhibit. These +faults, as we think them, but which may to some readers be the prime +fascinations of the work, abound on its surface. And their very number +and their superficial prominence constitute a main charge against the +author, and prove, we think, his mind to be unfitted for the severity of +historical inquiry. He takes much pains to parade--perhaps he really +believes in--his impartiality, with what justice we appeal to the +foregoing pages; but he is guilty of a prejudice as injurious in its +consequences to truth as any political bias. He abhors whatever is not +in itself picturesque, while he clings with the tenacity of a Novelist +to the _piquant_ and the startling. Whether it be the boudoir of a +strumpet or the death-bed of a monarch--the strong character of a +statesman-warrior abounding in contrasts and rich in mystery, or the +personal history of a judge trained in the Old Bailey to vulgarize and +ensanguine the King's Bench--he luxuriates with a vigour and variety of +language and illustration which renders his "History" an attractive and +absorbing story-book. And so spontaneously redundant are these errors-- +so inwoven in the very texture of Mr. Macaulay's mind--that he seems +never able to escape from them. Even after the reader is led to believe +that all that can be said either of praise or vituperation as to +character, of voluptuous description and minute delineation as to fact +and circumstance, has been passed in review before him--when a new +subject, indeed, seems to have been started--all at once the old theme +is renewed, and the old ideas are redressed in all the affluent imagery +and profuse eloquence of which Mr. Macaulay is so eminent a master. Now +of the fancy and fashion of this we should not complain--quite the +contrary--in a professed novel: there is a theatre in which it would be +exquisitely appropriate and attractive; but the Temple of History is not +the floor for a morris-dance--the Muse Clio is not to be worshipped in +the halls of Terpsichore. We protest against this species of _carnival_ +history; no more like the reality than the Eglintoun Tournament or the +Costume Quadrilles of Buckingham Palace; and we deplore the squandering +of so much melodramatic talent on a subject which we have hitherto +reverenced as the figure of Truth arrayed in the simple argments +[Transcriber's note: sic] of Philosophy. We are ready to admit an +hundred times over Mr. Macaulay's literary powers--brilliant even under +the affectation with which he too frequently disfigures them. He is a +great painter, but a suspicious narrator; a grand proficient in the +picturesque, but a very poor professor of the historic. These volumes +have been, and his future volumes as they appear will be, devoured with +the same eagerness that _Oliver Twist_ or _Vanity Fair_ excite--with the +same quality of zest, though perhaps with a higher degree of it;--but +his pages will seldom, we think, receive a second perusal--and the work, +we apprehend, will hardly find a permanent place on the historic shelf-- +nor ever assuredly, if continued in the spirit of the first two volumes, +be quoted as authority on any question or point of the History of +England. + + + + +LOCKHART ON THE AUTHOR OF "VATHEK"[1] + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, June, 1834] + +[1] "Italy: with sketches of Spain and Portugal. In a series of letters + written during a residence in these Countries." By William Beckford, + Esq., author of _Vathek_. London, 1834. + +Vathek is, indeed, without reference to the time of life [before he had +closed his twentieth year] when the author penned it, a very remarkable +performance; but, like most of the works of the great poet (Byron) who +has eloquently praised it, it is stained with poison-spots--its +inspiration is too often such as might have been inhaled in the "Hall of +Eblis." We do not allude so much to its audacious licentiousness, as to +the diabolical levity of its contempt for mankind. The boy-author +appears to have already rubbed all the bloom off his heart; and, in the +midst of his dazzling genius, one trembles to think that a stripling of +years so tender should have attained the cool cynicism of a _Candide_. +How different is the effect of that Eastern tale of our own days, which +Lord Byron ought not to have forgotten when he was criticising his +favourite romance. How perfectly does _Thalaba_ realize the ideal +demanded in the Welsh Triad, of "fulness of erudition, simplicity of +language, and purity of manners." But the critic was repelled by the +purity of that delicious creation, more than attracted by the erudition +which he must have respected, and the diction which he could not but +admire-- + + The low sweet voice so musical, + That with such deep and undefined delight + Fills the surrender'd soul. + +It has long been known that Mr. Beckford prepared, shortly after the +publication of his _Vathek_, some other tales in the same vein--the +histories, it is supposed, of the princes in his "Hall of Eblis." A +rumour had also prevailed, that the author drew up, early in life, some +account of his travels in various parts of the world; nay, that he had +printed a few copies of this account, and that its private perusal had +been eminently serviceable to more than one of the most popular poets of +the present age. But these were only vague reports; and Mr. Beckford, +after achieving, on the verge of manhood, a literary reputation, which, +however brilliant, could not satisfy the natural ambition of such an +intellect--seemed, for more than fifty years, to have wholly withdrawn +himself from the only field of his permanent distinction. The world +heard enough of his gorgeous palace at Cintra (described in _Childe +Harold_), afterwards of the unsubstantial pageant of his splendour at +Fonthill, and latterly of his architectural caprices at Bath. But his +literary name seemed to have belonged to another age; and, perhaps, in +this point of view, it may not have been unnatural for Lord Byron, when +comparing _Vathek_ with other Eastern tales, to think rather of _Zadig_ +and _Rasselas_, than + + Of Thalaba--the wild and wondrous song. + +The preface to the present volumes informs us that they include a +reprint of the book of travels, of which a small private edition passed +through the press forty years ago, and of the existence of which--though +many of our readers must have heard some hints--few could have had any +_knowledge_. Mr. Beckford has at length been induced to publish his +letters, in order to vindicate his own original claim to certain +thoughts, images, and expressions, which had been adopted by other +authors whom he had from time to time received beneath his roof, and +indulged with a perusal of his secret lucubrations. The mere fact that +such a work has lain for near half-a-century, printed but unpublished, +would be enough to stamp the author's personal character as not less +extraordinary than his genius. It is, indeed, sufficiently obvious that +Mr. Rogers had read it before he wrote his "Italy "--a poem, however, +which possesses so many exquisite beauties entirely its own, that it may +easily afford to drop the honour of some, perhaps unconsciously, +appropriated ones; and we are also satisfied that this book had passed +through Mr. Moore's hands before he gave us his light and graceful +"Rhymes on the Road," though the traces of his imitation are rarer than +those which must strike everyone who is familiar with the "Italy." We +are not so sure as to Lord Byron; but, although we have not been able to +lay our finger on any one passage in which he has evidently followed Mr. +Beckford's vein, it will certainly rather surprise us should it +hereafter be made manifest that he had not seen, or at least heard an +account of, this performance, before he conceived the general plan of +his "Childe Harold." Mr. Beckford's book is entirely unlike any book of +travel _in prose_ that exists in any European language; and if we could +fancy Lord Byron to have written the "Harold" in the measure of "Don +Juan," and to have availed himself of the facilities which the _ottima +rima_ affords for intermingling high poetry with merriment of all sorts, +and especially with sarcastic sketches of living manners, we believe the +result would have been a work more nearly akin to that now before us +than any other in the library. + +Mr. Beckford, like "Harold," passes through various regions of the +world, and, disdaining to follow the guide-book, presents his reader +with a series of detached, or very slenderly connected sketches of _the +scenes that had made the deepest impression upon himself_. He, when it +suits him, puts the passage of the Alps into a parenthesis. On one +occasion, he really treats Rome as if it had been nothing more than a +post station on the road from Florence to Naples; but, again, if the +scenery and people take his fancy, "he has a royal reluctance to move +on, as his own hero showed when his eye glanced on the grands caractères +rouges, tracĂ©s par la main de Carathis?... _Qui me donnera des loix_?-- +s'Ă©cria le Caliphe." + +"England's wealthiest son" performs his travels, of course, in a style +of great external splendour. + + Conspictuus longĂ© cunctisque notabilis intrat-- + +Courts and palaces, as well as convents and churches, and galleries of +all sorts, fly open at his approach: he is caressed in every capital--he +is _fĂªtĂ©_ in every chĂ¢teau. But though he appears amidst such +accompaniments with all the airiness of a Juan, he has a thread of the +blackest of Harold in his texture; and every now and then seems willing +to draw a veil between him and the world of vanities. He is a poet, and +a great one too, though we know not that he ever wrote a line of verse. +His rapture amidst the sublime scenery of mountains and forests--in the +Tyrol especially, and in Spain--is that of a spirit cast originally in +one of nature's finest moulds; and he fixes it in language which can +scarcely be praised beyond its deserts--simple, massive, nervous, +apparently little laboured, yet revealing, in its effect, the perfection +of art. Some immortal passages in Gray's letters and Byron's diaries, +are the only things, in our tongue, that seem to us to come near the +profound melancholy, blended with a picturesqueness of description at +once true and startling, of many of these extraordinary pages. Nor is +his sense for the _highest_ beauty of art less exquisite. He seems to +describe classical architecture, and the pictures of the great Italian +schools, with a most passionate feeling of the grand, and with an +inimitable grace of expression. On the other hand, he betrays, in a +thousand places, a settled voluptuousness of temperament, and a +capricious recklessness of self-indulgence, which will lead the world to +identify him henceforth with his _Vathek_, as inextricably as it has +long since connected Harold with the poet that drew him; and then, that +there may be no limit to the inconsistencies of such a strange genius, +this spirit, at once so capable of the noblest enthusiasm, and so dashed +with the gloom of over-pampered luxury, can stoop to chairs and china, +ever and anon, with the zeal of an auctioneer--revel in the design of a +clock or a candlestick, and be as ecstatic about a fiddler or a soprano +as the fools in Hogarth's _concert_. On such occasions he reminds us, +and will, we think, remind everyone, of the Lord of Strawberry Hill. But +even here all we have is on a grander scale. The oriental prodigality of +his magnificence shines out even in trifles. He buys a library where the +other would have cheapened a missal. He is at least a male Horace +Walpole; as superior to the "silken Baron," as Fonthill, with its +York-like tower embosomed among hoary forests, was to that silly band-box +which may still be admired on the road to Twickenham ... + +We have no discussions of any consequence in these volumes: even the +ultra-aristocratical opinions and feelings of the author--who is, we +presume, a Whig--are rather hinted than avowed. From a thousand passing +sneers, we may doubt whether he has any religion at all; but still he +_may_ be only thinking of the outward and visible absurdities of +popery--therefore we have hardly a pretext for treating these matters +seriously. In short, this is meant to be, as he says in his preface, +nothing but a "book of light reading"; and though no one can read it +without having many grave enough feelings roused and agitated within +him, there are really no passages to provoke or justify any detailed +criticism either as to morals or politics ... + +We risk nothing in predicting that Mr. Beckford's _Travels_ will +henceforth be classed among the most elegant productions of modern +literature: they will be forthwith translated into every language of the +Continent--and will keep his name alive, centuries after all the brass +and marble he ever piled together have ceased to vibrate with the echoes +of _Modenhas_. + + + + +ON COLERIDGE + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, August, 1834] + +_The Poetical Works of S.T. Coleridge_. 3 vols. 12mo. London, 1834. + + +Let us be indulged, in the mean time, in this opportunity of making a +few remarks on the genius of the extraordinary man whose poems, now for +the first time completely collected, are named at the head of this +article. The larger part of this publication is, of course, of old date, +and the author still lives; yet, besides the considerable amount of new +matter in this edition, which might of itself, in the present dearth of +anything eminently original in verse, justify our notice, we think the +great, and yet somewhat hazy, celebrity of Coleridge, and the +ill-understood character of his poetry, will be, in the opinion of a +majority of our readers, more than an excuse for a few elucidatory +remarks upon the subject. Idolized by many, and used without scruple by +more, the poet of "Christabel" and the "Ancient Mariner" is but little +truly known in that common literary world, which, without the +prerogative of conferring fame hereafter, can most surely give or +prevent popularity for the present. In that circle he commonly passes +for a man of genius, who has written some very beautiful verses, but +whose original powers, whatever they were, have been long since lost or +confounded in the pursuit of metaphysic dreams. We ourselves venture to +think very differently of Mr. Coleridge, both as a poet and a +philosopher, although we are well enough aware that nothing which we can +say will, as matters now stand, much advance his chance of becoming a +fashionable author. Indeed, as we rather believe, we should earn small +thanks from him for our happiest exertions in such a cause; for +certainly, of all the men of letters whom it has been our fortune to +know, we never met any one who was so utterly regardless of the +reputation of the mere author as Mr. Coleridge--one so lavish and +indiscriminate in the exhibition of his own intellectual wealth before +any and every person, no matter who--one so reckless who might reap +where he had most prodigally sown and watered. "God knows,"--as we once +heard him exclaim upon the subject of his unpublished system of +philosophy,--"God knows, I have no author's vanity about it. I should be +absolutely glad if I could hear that the _thing_ had been done before +me." It is somewhere told of Virgil, that he took more pleasure in the +good verses of Varius and Horace than in his own. We would not answer +for that; but the story has always occurred to us, when we have seen Mr. +Coleridge criticising and amending the work of a contemporary author +with much more zeal and hilarity than we ever perceived him to display +about anything of his own. + +Perhaps our readers may have heard repeated a saying of Mr. Wordsworth, +that many men of this age had done wonderful _things_, as Davy, Scott, +Cuvier, &c.; but that Coleridge was the only wonderful _man_ he ever +knew. Something, of course, must be allowed in this as in all other such +cases for the antithesis; but we believe the fact really to be, that the +greater part of those who have occasionally visited Mr. Coleridge have +left him with a feeling akin to the judgment indicated in the above +remark. They admire the man more than his works, or they forget the +works in the absorbing impression made by the living author. And no +wonder. Those who remember him in his more vigorous days can bear +witness to the peculiarity and transcendant power of his conversational +eloquence. It was unlike anything that could be heard elsewhere; the +kind was different, the degree was different, the manner was different. +The boundless range of scientific knowledge, the brilliancy and +exquisite nicety of illustration, the deep and ready reasoning, the +strangeness and immensity of bookish lore--were not all; the dramatic +story, the joke, the pun, the festivity, must be added--and with these +the clerical-looking dress, the thick waving silver hair, the +youthful-coloured cheek, the indefinable mouth and lips, the quick yet +steady and penetrating greenish grey eye, the slow and continuous +enunciation, and the everlasting music of his tones,--all went to make +up +the image and constitute the living presence of the man. He is now no +longer young, and bodily infirmities, we regret to know, have pressed +heavily upon him. His natural force is indeed abated; but his eye is not +dim, neither is his mind yet enfeebled. "O youth!" he says in one of the +most exquisitely finished of his later poems-- + + O youth! for years so many and sweet, + 'Tis known that thou and I were one, + I'll think it but a fond conceit-- + It cannot be that thou art gone! + Thy vesper bell hath not yet tolled:-- + And thou wert aye a masker bold! + What strange disguise hast now put on, + To make believe that thou art gone? + I see these locks in silvery slips, + This drooping gait, this altered size;-- + But springtide blossoms on thy lips, + And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! + Life is but thought: so think I will + That Youth and I are house-mates still. + +Mr. Coleridge's conversation, it is true, has not now all the brilliant +versatility of his former years; yet we know not whether the contrast +between his bodily weakness and his mental power does not leave a deeper +and more solemnly affecting impression, than his most triumphant +displays in youth could ever have done. To see the pain-stricken +countenance relax, and the contracted frame dilate under the kindling of +intellectual fire alone--to watch the infirmities of the flesh shrinking +out of sight, or glorified and transfigured in the brightness of the +awakening spirit--is an awful object of contemplation; and in no other +person did we ever witness such a distinction,--nay, alienation of mind +from body,--such a mastery of the purely intellectual over the purely +corporeal, as in the instance of this remarkable man. Even now his +conversation is characterized by all the essentials of its former +excellence; there is the same individuality, the same _unexpectedness_, +the same universal grasp; nothing is too high, nothing too low for it: +it glances from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, with a speed and +a splendour, an ease and a power, which almost seem inspired: yet its +universality is not of the same kind with the superficial ranging of the +clever talkers whose criticism and whose information are called forth +by, and spent upon, the particular topics in hand. No; in this more, +perhaps, than in anything else is Mr. Coleridge's discourse +distinguished: that it springs from an inner centre, and illustrates by +light from the soul. His thoughts are, if we may so say, as the radii of +a circle, the centre of which may be in the petals of a rose, and the +circumference as wide as the boundary of things visible and invisible. +In this it was that we always thought another eminent light of our time, +recently lost to us, an exact contrast to Mr. Coleridge as to quality +and style of conversation. You could not in all London or England hear a +more fluent, a more brilliant, a more exquisitely elegant converser than +Sir James Mackintosh; nor could you ever find him unprovided. But, +somehow or other, it always seemed as if all the sharp and brilliant +things he said were poured out of so many vials filled and labelled for +the particular occasion; it struck us, to use a figure, as if his mind +were an ample and well-arranged _hortus siccus_, from which you might +have specimens of every kind of plant, but all of them cut and dried for +store. You rarely saw nature working at the very moment in him. With +Coleridge it was and still is otherwise. He may be slower, more +rambling, less pertinent; he may not strike at the instant as so +eloquent; but then, what he brings forth is fresh coined; his flowers +are newly gathered, they are wet with dew, and, if you please, you may +almost see them growing in the rich garden of his mind. The projection +is visible; the enchantment is done before your eyes. To listen to +Mackintosh was to inhale perfume; it pleased, but did not satisfy. The +effect of an hour with Coleridge is to set you thinking; his words haunt +you for a week afterwards; they are spells, brightenings, revelations. +In short, it is, if we may venture to draw so bold a line, the whole +difference between talent and genius. + +A very experienced short-hand writer was employed to take down Mr. +Coleridge's lectures on Shakespeare, but the manuscript was almost +entirely unintelligible. Yet the lecturer was, as he always is, slow and +measured. The writer--we have some notion it was no worse an artist than +Mr. Gurney himself--gave this account of the difficulty: that with +regard to every other speaker whom he had ever heard, however rapid or +involved, he could almost always, by long experience in his art, guess +the form of the latter part, or apodosis, of the sentence by the form of +the beginning; but that the conclusion of every one of Coleridge's +sentences was a _surprise_ upon him. He was obliged to listen to the +last word. Yet this unexpectedness, as we termed it before, is not the +effect of quaintness or confusion of construction; so far from it, that +we believe foreigners of different nations, especially Germans and +Italians, have often borne very remarkable testimony to the grammatical +purity and simplicity of his language, and have declared that they +generally understood what he said much better than the sustained +conversation of any other Englishman whom they had met. It is the +uncommonness of the thoughts or the image which prevents your +anticipating the end. + +We owe, perhaps, an apology to our readers for the length of the +preceding remarks; but the fact is, so very much of the intellectual +life and influence of Mr. Coleridge has consisted in the oral +communication of his opinions, that no sketch could be reasonably +complete without a distinct notice of the peculiar character of his +powers in this particular. We believe it has not been the lot of any +other literary man in England, since Dr. Johnson, to command the devoted +admiration and steady zeal of so many and such widely differing +disciples--some of them having become, and others being likely to +become, fresh and independent sources of light and moral action in +themselves upon the principles of their common master. One half of these +affectionate disciples have learned their lessons of philosophy from the +teacher's mouth. He has been to them as an old oracle of the Academy or +Lyceum. The fulness, the inwardness, the ultimate scope of his doctrines +has never yet been published in print, and if disclosed, it has been +from time to time in the higher moments of conversation, when occasion, +and mood, and person begot an exalted crisis. More than once has Mr. +Coleridge said, that with pen in hand, he felt a thousand checks and +difficulties in the expression of his meaning; but that--authorship +aside--he never found the smallest hitch or impediment in the fullest +utterance of his most subtle fancies by word of mouth. His abstrusest +thoughts became rhythmical and clear when chaunted to their own music. +But let us proceed now to the publication before us. + +This is the first complete collection of the poems of Samuel Taylor +Coleridge. The addition to the last edition is not less than a fourth of +the whole, and the greatest part of this matter has never been printed +before. It consists of many juvenile pieces, a few of the productions of +the poet's middle life, and more of his later years. With regard to the +additions of the first class, we should not be surprised to hear +friendly doubts expressed as to the judgment shown in their publication. +We ourselves think otherwise; and we are very glad to have had an +opportunity of perusing them. There may be nothing in these earlier +pieces upon which a poet's reputation could be built; yet they are +interesting now as measuring the boyish powers of a great author. We +never read any juvenile poems that so distinctly foretokened the +character of all that the poet has since done; in particular, the very +earliest and loosest of these little pieces indicate that unintermitting +thoughtfulness, and that fine ear for verbal harmony in which we must +venture to think that not one of our modern poets approaches to +Coleridge. + + * * * * * + +We, of course, cite these lines for little besides their luxurious +smoothness; and it is very observable, that although the indications of +the more strictly intellectual qualities of a great poet are very often +extremely faint, as in Byron's case, in early youth,--it is universally +otherwise with regard to high excellence in _versification_ considered +apart and by itself. Like the ear for music, the sense of metrical +melody is always a natural gift; both indeed are evidently connected +with the physical arrangement of the organs, and never to be acquired by +any effort of art. When possessed, they by no means necessarily lead on +to the achievement of consummate harmony in music or in verse; and yet +consummate harmony in either has never been found where the natural gift +has not made itself conspicuous long before. Spenser's Hymns, and +Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," and "Rape of Lucrece," are striking +instances of the overbalance of mere sweetness of sound. Even "Comus" is +what we should, in this sense, call luxurious; and all four gratify the +outward ear much more than that inner and severer sense which is +associated with the reason, and requires a meaning even in the very +music for its full satisfaction. Compare the versification of the +youthful pieces mentioned above with that of the maturer works of those +great poets, and you will recognize how possible it is for verses to be +exquisitely melodious, and yet to fall far short of that exalted +excellence of numbers of which language is in itself capable. You will +feel the simple truth, that melody is a part only of harmony. Those +early flashes were indeed auspicious tokens of the coming glory, and +involved some of the conditions and elements of its existence; but the +rhythm of the "Faerie Queene" and of "Paradise Lost" was also the fruit +of a distinct effort of uncommon care and skill. The endless variety of +the pauses in the versification of these poems could not have been the +work of chance, and the adaptation of words with reference to their +asperity, or smoothness, or strength, is equally refined and scientific. +Unless we make a partial exception of the "Castle of Indolence," we do +not remember a single instance of the reproduction of the exact rhythm +of the Spenserian stanza, especially of the concluding line. The precise +Miltonic movement in blank verse has never, to our knowledge, been +caught by any later poet. It is Mr. Coleridge's own strong remark, that +you might as well think of pushing a brick out of a wall with your +forefinger, as attempt to remove a word out of the finished passages in +Shakespeare or Milton. The motion or transposition will alter the +thought, or the feeling, or at least the tone. They are as pieces of +Mosaic work, from which you cannot strike the smallest block without +making a hole in the picture. + +And so it is--in due proportion--with Coleridge's best poems. They are +distinguished in a remarkable degree by the perfection of their rhythm +and metrical arrangement. The labour bestowed upon this point must have +been very great; the tone and quantity of words seem weighed in scales +of gold. It will, no doubt, be considered ridiculous by the Fannii and +Fanniae of our day to talk of varying the trochee with the iambus, or of +resolving either into the tribrach. Yet it is evident to us that these, +and even minuter points of accentual scansion, have been regarded by Mr. +Coleridge as worthy of study and observation. We do not, of course, mean +that rules of this kind were always in his mind while composing, any +more than that an expert disputant is always thinking of the +distinctions of mood and figure, whilst arguing; but we certainly +believe that Mr. Coleridge has almost from the commencement of his +poetic life looked upon versification as constituting in and by itself a +much more important branch of the art poetic than most of his eminent +contemporaries appear to have done. And this more careful study shows +itself in him in no technical peculiarities or fantastic whims, against +which the genius of our language revolts; but in a more exact adaptation +of the movement to the feeling, and in a finer selection of particular +words with reference to their local fitness for sense and sound. Some of +his poems are complete models of versification, exquisitely easy to all +appearance, and subservient to the meaning, and yet so subtle in the +links and transitions of the parts as to make it impossible to produce +the same effect merely by imitating the syllabic metre as it stands on +the surface. The secret of the sweetness lies within, and is involved in +the feeling. It is this remarkable power of making his verse musical +that gives a peculiar character to Mr. Coleridge's lyric poems. In some +of the smaller pieces, as the conclusion of the "Kubla Khan," for +example, not only the lines by themselves are musical, but the whole +passage sounds all at once as an outburst or crash of harps in the still +air of autumn. The verses seem as if _played_ to the ear upon some +unseen instrument. And the poet's manner of reciting verse is similar. +It is not rhetorical, but musical: so very near recitative, that for any +one else to attempt it would be ridiculous; and yet it is perfectly +miraculous with what exquisite searching he elicits and makes sensible +every particle of the meaning, not leaving a shadow of a shade of the +feeling, the mood, the degree, untouched. We doubt if a finer rhapsode +ever recited at the Panathenaic festival; and the yet unforgotten Doric +of his native Devon is not altogether without a mellowing effect in his +utterance of Greek. He would repeat the + + [Greek: autar Achilleus dakrusas, etaron aphar ezeto. k. t. l.] + +with such an interpreting accompaniment of look, and tone and gesture, +that we believe any commonly-educated person might understand the import +of the passage without knowing alpha from omega. A chapter of Isaiah +from his mouth involves the listener in an act of exalted devotion. We +have mentioned this, to show how the whole man is made up of music; and +yet Mr. Coleridge has no _ear_ for music, as it is technically called. +Master as he is of the intellectual recitative, he could not _sing_ an +air to save his life. But his delight in music is intense and +unweariable, and he can detect good from bad with unerring +discrimination. Poor Naldi, whom most of us remember, and all who +remember must respect, said to our poet once at a concert--"That he did +not seem much interested with a piece of Rossini's which had just been +performed." Coleridge answered, "It sounded to me exactly like _nonsense +verses_. But this thing of Beethoven's that they have begun--stop, let +us listen to this, I beg!" ... + +The minute study of the laws and properties of metre is observable in +almost every piece in these volumes. Every kind of lyric measure, rhymed +and unrhymed, is attempted with success; and we doubt whether, upon the +whole, there are many specimens of the heroic couplet or blank verse +superior in construction to what Mr. Coleridge has given us. We mention +this the rather, because it was at one time, although that time is past, +the fashion to say that the Lake school--as two or three poets, +essentially unlike to each other, were foolishly called--had abandoned +the old and established measures of the English poetry for new conceits +of their own. There was no truth in that charge; but we will say this, +that, notwithstanding the prevalent opinion to the contrary, we are not +sure, after perusing _some passages_ in Mr. Southey's "Vision of +Judgment," and the entire "Hymn to the Earth," in hexameters, in the +second of the volumes now before us, that the question of the total +inadmissibility of that measure in English verse can be considered as +finally settled; the true point not being whether such lines are as good +as, or even like, the Homeric or Virgilian models, but whether they are +not in themselves a pleasing variety, and on that account alone, if for +nothing else, not to be rejected as wholly barbarous ... + +We should not have dwelt so long upon this point of versification, +unless we had conceived it to be one distinguishing excellence of Mr. +Coleridge's poetry, and very closely connected with another, namely, +fulness and individuality of thought. It seems to be a fact, although we +do not pretend to explain it, that condensation of meaning is generally +found in poetry of a high import in proportion to perfection in metrical +harmony. Petrarch, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton are obvious +instances. Goethe and Coleridge are almost equally so. Indeed, whether +in verse, or prose, or conversation, Mr. Coleridge's mind may be fitly +characterized as an energetic mind--a mind always at work, always in a +course of reasoning. He cares little for anything, merely because it was +or is; it must be referred, or be capable of being referred, to some law +or principle, in order to attract his attention. This is not from +ignorance of the facts of natural history or science. His written and +published works alone sufficiently show how constantly and accurately he +has been in the habit of noting all the phenomena of the material world +around us; and the great philosophical system now at length in +preparation for the press demonstrates, we are told, his masterly +acquaintance with almost all the sciences, and with not a few of the +higher and more genial of the arts. Yet his vast acquirements of this +sort are never put forward by or for themselves; it is in his apt and +novel illustrations, his indications of analogies, his explanation of +anomalies, that he enables the hearer or reader to get a glimpse of the +extent of his practical knowledge. He is always reasoning out from an +inner point, and it is the inner point, the principle, the law which he +labours to bring forward into light. If he can convince you or himself +of the principle _Ă priori_, he generally leaves the facts to take care +of themselves. He leads us into the laboratories of art or nature as a +showman guides you through a caravan crusted with spar and stalactites, +all cold, and dim, and motionless, till he lifts his torch aloft, and on +a sudden you gaze in admiration on walls and roof of flaming crystals +and stars of eternal diamond. + +All this, whether for praise or for blame, is perceptible enough in Mr. +Coleridge's verse, but perceptible, of course, in such degree and mode +as the law of poetry in general, and the nature of the specific poem in +particular, may require. But the main result from this frame and habit +of his mind is very distinctly traceable in the uniform subjectivity of +almost all his works. He does not belong to that grand division of +poetry and poets which corresponds with painting and painters; or which +Pindar and Dante are the chief;--those masters of the picturesque, who, +by a felicity inborn, view and present everything in the completeness of +actual objectivity--and who have a class derived from and congenial +with them, presenting few pictures indeed, but always full of +picturesque matter; of which secondary class Spenser and Southey may be +mentioned as eminent instances. To neither of these does Mr. Coleridge +belong; in his "Christabel," there certainly are several _distinct +pictures_ of great beauty; but he, as a poet, clearly comes within the +other division which answers to music and the musician, in which you +have a magnificent mirage of words with the subjective associations of +the poet curling, and twisting, and creeping round, and through, and +above every part of it. This is the class to which Milton belongs, in +whose poems we have heard Mr. Coleridge say that he remembered but two +proper pictures--Adam bending over the sleeping Eve at the beginning of +the fifth book of the "Paradise Lost," and Delilah approaching Samson +towards the end of the "Agonistes." But when we point out the intense +personal feeling, the self-projection, as it were, which characterizes +Mr. Coleridge's poems, we mean that such feeling is the soul and spirit, +not the whole body and form, of his poetry. For surely no one has ever +more earnestly and constantly borne in mind the maxim of Milton, that +poetry ought to be _simple, sensuous, and impassioned_. The poems in +these volumes are no authority for that dreamy, half-swooning style of +verse which was criticized by Lord Byron (in language too strong for +print) as the fatal sin of Mr. John Keats, and which, unless abjured +betimes, must prove fatal to several younger aspirants--male and female-- +who for the moment enjoy some popularity. The poetry before us is +distinct and clear, and accurate in its imagery; but the imagery is +rarely or never exhibited for description's sake alone; it is rarely or +never exclusively objective; that is to say, put forward as a spectacle, +a picture on which the mind's eye is to rest and terminate. You may if +your sight is short, or your imagination cold, regard the imagery in +itself and go no farther; but the poet's intention is that you should +feel and imagine a great deal more than you see. His aim is to awaken in +the reader the same mood of mind, the same cast of imagination and fancy +whence issued the associations which animate and enlighten his pictures. +You must think with him, must sympathize with him, must suffer yourself +to be lifted out of your own school of opinion or faith, and fall back +upon your own consciousness, an unsophisticated man. If you decline +this, _non tibi spirat_. From his earliest youth to this day, Mr. +Coleridge's poetry has been a faithful mirror reflecting the images of +his mind. Hence he is so original, so individual. With a little trouble, +the zealous reader of the "Biographia Literaria" may trace in these +volumes the whole course of mental struggle and self-evolvement narrated +in that odd but interesting work; but he will see the track marked in +light; the notions become images, the images glorified, and not +unfrequently the abstruse position stamped clearer by the poet than by +the psychologist. No student of Coleridge's philosophy can fully +understand it without a perusal of the illumining, and if we may so say, +_popularizing_ commentary of his poetry. It is the Greek put into the +vulgar tongue. And we must say, it is somewhat strange to hear any one +condemn those philosophical principles as altogether unintelligible, +which are inextricably interwoven in every page of a volume of poetry +which he professes to admire.... + +To this habit of intellectual introversion we are very much inclined to +attribute Mr. Coleridge's never having seriously undertaken a great +heroic poem. The "Paradise Lost" may be thought to stand in the way of +our laying down any general rule on the subject; yet that poem is as +peculiar as Milton himself, and does not materially affect our opinion, +that the pure epic can hardly be achieved by the poet in whose mind the +reflecting turn _greatly_ predominates. The extent of the action in such +a poem requires a free and fluent stream of narrative verse; +description, purely objective, must fill a large space in it, and its +permanent success depends on a rapidity, or at least a liveliness, of +movement which is scarcely compatible with much of what Bacon calls +_inwardness_ of meaning. The reader's attention could not be preserved; +his journey being long, he expects his road to be smooth and +unembarrassed. The condensed passion of the ode is out of place in +heroic song. Few persons will dispute that the two great Homeric poems +are the most delightful of epics; they may not have the sublimity of the +"Paradise Lost," nor the picturesqueness of the "Divine Comedy," nor the +etherial brilliancy of the "Orlando"; but, dead as they are in language, +metre, accent,--obsolete in religion, manners, costume, and country,-- +they nevertheless even now _please_ all those who can read them beyond +all other narrative poems. There is a salt in them which keeps them +sweet and incorruptible throughout every change. They are the most +popular of all the remains of ancient genius, and translations of them +for the twentieth time are amongst the very latest productions of our +contemporary literature. From beginning to end, these marvellous poems +are exclusively objective; everything is in them, except the poet +himself. It is not to Vico or Wolfe that we refer, when we say that +_Homer_ is _vox et praeterea nihil_; as musical as the nightingale, and +as invisible.... + +The "Remorse" and "Zapolya" strikingly illustrate the predominance of +the meditative, pausing habit of Mr. Coleridge's mind. The first of +these beautiful dramas was acted with success, although worse acting was +never seen. Indeed, Kelly's sweet music was the only part of the +theatrical apparatus in any respect worthy of the play. The late Mr. +Kean made some progress in the study of Ordonio, with a view of +reproducing the piece; and we think that Mr. Macready, either as Ordonio +or Alvar, might, with some attention to music, costume, and scenery, +make the representation attractive even in the present day. But in +truth, taken absolutely and in itself, the "Remorse" is more fitted for +the study than the stage; its character is romantic and pastoral in a +high degree, and there is a profusion of poetry in the minor parts, the +effect of which could never be preserved in the common routine of +representation. What this play wants is dramatic movement; there is +energetic dialogue and a crisis of great interest, but the action does +not sufficiently grow on the stage itself. Perhaps, also, the purpose of +Alvar to waken remorse in Ordonio's mind is put forward too prominently, +and has too much the look of a mere moral experiment to be probable +under the circumstances in which the brothers stand to each other. +Nevertheless, there is a calmness as well as superiority of intellect in +Alvar which seem to justify, in some measure, the sort of attempt on his +part, which, in fact, constitutes the theme of the play; and it must be +admitted that the whole underplot of Isidore and Alhadra is lively and +affecting in the highest degree. We particularly refer to the last scene +between Ordonio and Isidore in the cavern, which we think genuine +Shakespeare; and Alhadra's narrative of her discovery of her husband's +murder is not surpassed in truth and force by anything of the kind that +we know.... + +We have not yet referred to the "Ancient Mariner," "Christabel," the +"Odes on France," and the "Departing Year," or the "Love Poems." All +these are well known by those who know no other parts of Coleridge's +poetry, and the length of our preceding remarks compels us to be brief +in our notice. Mrs. Barbauld, meaning to be complimentary, told our +poet, that she thought the "Ancient Mariner" very beautiful, but that it +had the fault of containing no moral. "Nay, madam," replied the poet, +"if I may be permitted to say so, the only fault in the poem is that +there is _too much_ In a work of such pure imagination I ought not to +have stopped to give reasons for things, or inculcate humanity to +beasts. 'The Arabian Nights' might have taught me better." They might-- +the tale of the merchant's son who puts out the eyes of a genii by +flinging his date-shells down a well, and is therefore ordered to +prepare for death--might have taught this law of imagination; but the +fault is small indeed; and the "Ancient Mariner" is, and will ever be, +one of the most perfect pieces of imaginative poetry, not only in our +language, but in the literature of all Europe. We have, certainly, +sometimes doubted whether the miraculous destruction of the vessel in +the presence of the pilot and hermit, was not an error, in respect of +its bringing the purely preternatural into too close contact with the +actual frame-work of the poem. The only link between those scenes of +out-of-the-world wonders, and the wedding guest, should, we rather +suspect, have been the blasted, unknown being himself who described +them. There should have been no other witnesses of the truth of any part +of the tale, but the "Ancient Mariner" himself. This is by the way: but +take the work altogether, there is nothing else like it; it is a poem by +itself; between it and other compositions, in _pari materia_, there is a +chasm which you cannot overpass; the sensitive reader feels himself +insulated, and a sea of wonder and mystery flows round him as round the +spell-stricken ship itself. It was a sad mistake in the ablest artist-- +Mr. Scott, we believe--who in his engravings has made the ancient +mariner an old decrepit man. That is not the true image; no! he should +have been a growthless, decayless being, impassive to time or season, a +silent cloud--the wandering Jew. The curse of the dead men's eyes should +not have passed away. But this was, perhaps, too much for any pencil, +even if the artist had fully entered into the poet's idea. Indeed, it is +no subject for painting. The "Ancient Mariner" displays Mr. Coleridge's +peculiar mastery over the wild and preternatural in a brilliant manner; +but in his next poem, "Christabel," the exercise of his power in this +line is still more skilful and singular. The thing attempted in +"Christabel" is the most difficult of execution in the whole field of +romance--witchery by daylight; and the success is complete. Geraldine, +so far as she goes, is perfect. She is _sui generis_. The reader feels +the same terror and perplexity that Christabel in vain struggles to +express, and the same spell that fascinates her eyes. Who and what is +Geraldine--whence come, whither going, and what designing? What did the +poet mean to make of her? What could he have made of her? Could he have +gone on much farther without having had recourse to some of the ordinary +shifts of witch tales? Was she really the daughter of Roland de Vaux, +and would the friends have met again and embraced?... + +We are not amongst those who wish to have "Christabel" finished. It +cannot be finished. The poet has spun all he could without snapping. The +theme is too fine and subtle to bear much extension. It is better as it +is, imperfect as a story, but complete as an exquisite production of the +imagination, differing in form and colour from the "Ancient Mariner," +yet differing in effect from it only so as the same powerful faculty is +directed to the feudal or the mundane phases of the preternatural.... + +It has been impossible to express, in the few pages to which we are +necessarily limited, even a brief opinion upon all those pieces which +might seem to call for notice in an estimate of this author's poetical +genius. We know no writer of modern times whom it would not be easier to +characterize in one page than Coleridge in two. The volumes before us +contain so many integral efforts of imagination, that a distinct notice +of each is indispensable, if we would form a just conclusion upon the +total powers of the man. Wordsworth, Scott, Moore, Byron, Southey, are +incomparably more uniform in the direction of their poetic mind. But if +you look over these volumes for indications of their author's poetic +powers, you find him appearing in at least half a dozen shapes, so +different from each other, that it is in vain to attempt to mass them +together. It cannot indeed be said, that he has ever composed what is +popularly termed a _great_ poem; but he is great in several lines, and +the union of such powers is an essential term in a fair estimate of his +genius. The romantic witchery of the "Christabel," and "Ancient +Mariner," the subtle passion of the love-strains, the lyrical splendour +of the three great odes, the affectionate dignity, thoughtfulness, and +delicacy of the blank verse poems--especially the "Lover's Resolution," +"Frost at Midnight," and that most noble and interesting "Address to Mr. +Wordsworth"--the dramas, the satires, the epigrams--these are so +distinct and so whole in themselves, that they might seem to proceed +from different authors, were it not for that same individualizing power, +that "shaping spirit of imagination" which more or less sensibly runs +through them all. It is the _predominance_ of this power, which, in our +judgment, constitutes the essential difference between Coleridge and any +other of his great contemporaries. He is the most imaginative of the +English poets since Milton. Whatever he writes, be it on the most +trivial subject, be it in the most simple strain, his imagination, _in +spite of himself_, affects it. There never was a better illustrator of +the dogma of the Schoolmen--_in omnem actum intellectualem imaginatio +influit_. We believe we might affirm, that throughout all the mature +original poems in these volumes, there is not one image, the +_expression_ of which does not, in a greater or less degree, +individualize it and appropriate it to the poet's feelings. Tear the +passage out of its place, and nail it down at the head of a chapter of a +modern novel, and it will be like hanging up in a London exhibition-room +a picture painted for the dim light of a cathedral. Sometimes a single +word--an epithet--has the effect to the reader of a Claude Lorraine +glass; it tints without obscuring or disguising the object. The poet has +the same power in conversation. We remember him once settling an +elaborate discussion carried on in his presence, upon the respective +sublimity of Shakespeare and Schiller in Othello and the Robbers, by +saying, "Both are sublime; only Schiller's is the _material_ sublime-- +that's all!" _All_ to be sure; but more than enough to show the whole +difference. And upon another occasion, where the doctrine of the +Sacramentaries and the Roman Catholics on the subject of the Eucharist +was in question, the poet said, "They are both equally wrong; the first +have volatilized the Eucharist into a metaphor--the last have condensed +it into an idol." Such utterance as this flashes light; it supersedes +all argument--it abolishes proof by proving itself. + +We speak of Coleridge, then, as the poet of imagination; and we add, +that he is likewise the poet of thought and verbal harmony. That his +thoughts are sometimes hard and sometimes even obscure, we think must be +admitted; it is an obscurity of which all very subtle thinkers are +occasionally guilty, either by attempting to express evanescent feelings +for which human language is an inadequate vehicle, or by expressing, +however adequately, thoughts and distinctions to which the common reader +is unused. As to the first kind of obscurity, the words serving only as +hieroglyphics to denote a once existing state of mind in the poet, but +not logically inferring what that state was, the reader can only guess +for himself by the context, whether he ever has or not experienced in +himself a corresponding feeling; and, therefore, undoubtedly this is an +obscurity which strict criticism cannot but condemn. But, if an author +be obscure, merely because this or that reader is unaccustomed to the +mode or direction of thinking in which such author's genius makes him +take delight--such a writer must indeed bear the consequence as to +immediate popularity; but he cannot help the consequence, and if he be +worth anything for posterity, he will disregard it. In this sense almost +every great writer, whose natural bent has been to turn the mind upon +itself, is--must be--obscure; for no writer, with such a direction of +intellect, will be great, unless he is individual and original; and if +he is individual and original, then he must, in most cases, himself make +the readers who shall be competent to sympathize with him. + +The English flatter themselves by a pretence that Shakespeare and Milton +are popular in England. It is good taste, indeed, to wish to have it +believed that those poets are popular. Their names are so; but if it be +said that the works of Shakespeare and Milton are popular--that is, +liked and studied--amongst the wide circle whom it is now the fashion to +talk of as enlightened, we are obliged to express our doubts whether a +grosser delusion was ever promulgated. Not a play of Shakespeare's can +be ventured on the London stage without mutilation--and without the most +revolting balderdash foisted into the rents made by managers in his +divine dramas; nay, it is only some three or four of his pieces that can +be borne at all by our all-intelligent public, unless the burthen be +lightened by dancing, singing, or processioning. This for the stage. But +is it otherwise with "the _reading_ public"? We believe it is worse; we +think, verily, that the apprentice or his master who sits out Othello or +Richard at the theatres, does get a sort of glimpse, a touch, an +atmosphere of intellectual grandeur; but he could not keep himself awake +during the perusal of that which he admires--or fancies he admires--in +scenic representation. As to understanding Shakespeare--as to entering +into all Shakespeare's thoughts and feelings--as to seeing the idea of +Hamlet, or Lear, or Othello, as Shakespeare saw it--this we believe +falls, and can only fall, to the lot of the really cultivated few, and +of those who may have so much of the temperament of genius in +themselves, as to comprehend and sympathize with the criticism of men of +genius. Shakespeare is now popular by name, because, in the first place, +great men, more on a level with the rest of mankind, have said that he +is admirable, and also because, in the absolute universality of his +genius, he has presented points to all. Every man, woman, and child, may +pick at least one flower from his garden, the name and scent of which +are familiar. To all which must of course be added, the effect of +theatrical representation, be that representation what it may. There are +tens of thousands of persons in this country whose only acquaintance +with Shakespeare, such as it is, is through the stage. + +We have been talking of the contemporary mass; but this is not all; a +great original writer _of a philosophic turn_--especially a poet--will +almost always have the fashionable world also against him at first, +because he does not give the sort of pleasure expected of him at the +time, and because, not contented with that, he is sure, by precept or +example, to show a contempt for the taste and judgment of the +expectants. He is always, and by the law of his being, an idoloclast. By +and by, after years of abuse or neglect, the aggregate of the single +minds who think for themselves, and have seen the truth and force of his +genius, becomes important; the merits of the poet by degrees constitute +a question for discussion; his works are one by one read; men recognize +a superiority in the abstract, and learn to be modest where before they +had been scornful; the coterie becomes a sect; the sect dilates into a +party; and lo! after a season, no one knows how, the poet's fame is +universal. All this, to the very life, has taken place in this country +within the last twenty years. The noblest philosophical poem since the +time of Lucretius was, within time of short memory, declared to be +intolerable, by one of the most brilliant writers in one of the most +brilliant publications of the day. It always puts us in mind of Waller-- +no mean parallel--who, upon the coming out of the "Paradise Lost," wrote +to the duke of Buckingham, amongst other pretty things, as follows:-- +"Milton, the old blind schoolmaster, has lately written a poem on the +Fall of Man--_remarkable for nothing but its extreme length!_" Our +divine poet asked a fit audience, although it should be but few. His +prayer was heard; a fit audience for the "Paradise Lost" has ever been, +and at this moment must be, a small one, and we cannot affect to believe +that it is destined to be much increased by what is called the march of +intellect. + +Can we lay down the pen without remembering that Coleridge the poet is +but half the name of Coleridge? This, however, is not the place, nor the +time, to discuss in detail his qualities or his exertions as a +psychologist, moralist, and general philosopher. That time may come, +when his system, as a whole, shall be fairly placed before the world, as +we have reason to hope it will soon be; and when the preliminary works-- +the "Friend," the "Lay Sermons," the "Aids to Reflection," and the +"Church and State,"--especially the last two--shall be seen in their +proper relations as preparatory exercises for the reader. His "Church +and State, according to the Idea of Each"--a little book--we cannot help +recommending as a storehouse of grand and immovable principles, bearing +upon some of the most vehemently disputed topics of constitutional +interest in these momentous times. Assuredly this period has not +produced a profounder and more luminous essay. We have heard it asked, +what was the proposed object of Mr. Coleridge's labours as a +metaphysical philosopher? He once answered that question himself, in +language never to be forgotten by those who heard it, and which, +whatever may be conjectured of the probability or even possibility of +its being fully realized, must be allowed to express the completest idea +of a system of philosophy ever yet made public. + +"My system," said he, "if I may venture to give it so fine a name, is +the only attempt that I know, ever made, to reduce all knowledge into +harmony. It opposes no other system, but shows what was true in each; +and how that which was true in the particular in each of them, became +error, _because_ it was only half the truth. I have endeavoured to unite +the insulated fragments of truth, and therewith to frame a perfect +mirror. I show to each system that I fully understand and rightfully +appreciate what that system means; but then I lift up that system to a +higher point of view, from which I enable it to see its former position, +where it was indeed, but under another light and with different +relations,--so that the fragment of truth is not only acknowledged, but +explained. So the old astronomers discovered and maintained much that +was true; but because they were placed on a false ground, and looked +from a wrong point of view, they never did--they never could--discover +the truth--that is, the whole truth. As soon as they left the earth, +their false centre, and took their stand in the sun, immediately they +saw the whole system in its true light, and the former station +remaining--but remaining _as a part_ of the prospect. I wish, in short, +to connect a moral copula, natural history with political history; or, +in other words, to make history scientific, and science historical:--to +take from history its accidentality, and from science its fatalism." + +Whether we shall ever, hereafter, have occasion to advert to any new +poetical efforts of Mr. Coleridge, or not, we cannot say. We wish we had +a reasonable cause to expect it. If not, then this hail and farewell +will have been well made. We conclude with, we believe, the last verses +he has written-- + + _My Baptismal Birth-Day._ + + God's child in Christ adopted,--Christ my all,-- + What that earth boasts were not lost cheaply, rather + Than forfeit the blest name, by which I call + The Holy One, the Almighty God, my Father? + Father! in Christ we live, and Christ in Thee; + Eternal Thou, and everlasting we. + The heir of heaven, henceforth I fear not death: + In Christ I live: in Christ I draw the breath + Of the true life:--Let then earth, sea, and sky + Make war against me! On my heart I show + Their mighty Master's seal. In vain they try + To end my life, that can but end its woe. + Is that a death-bed where a Christian lies? + Yes! but not his--'tis Death itself there dies.--Vol. ii, p. 151. + + + + +SIR WALTER SCOTT ON JANE AUSTEN + + +[From. _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1815] + +_Emma; a Novel_. By the Author of _Sense and Sensibility, Pride and +Prejudice_, etc. 3 vols. 12mo. London. 1815. + +There are some vices in civilized society so common that they are hardly +acknowledged as stains upon the moral character, the propensity to which +is nevertheless carefully concealed, even by those who most frequently +give way to them; since no man of pleasure would willingly assume the +gross epithet of a debauchee or a drunkard. One would almost think that +novel-reading fell under this class of frailties, since among the crowds +who read little else, it is not common to find an individual of +hardihood sufficient to avow his taste for these frivolous studies. A +novel, therefore, is frequently "bread eaten in secret"; and it is not +upon Lydia Languish's toilet alone that Tom Jones and Peregrine Pickle +are to be found ambushed behind works of a more grave and instructive +character. And hence it has happened, that in no branch of composition, +not even in poetry itself, have so many writers, and of such varied +talents, exerted their powers. It may perhaps be added, that although +the composition of these works admits of being exalted and decorated by +the higher exertions of genius; yet such is the universal charm of +narrative, that the worst novel ever written will find some gentle +reader content to yawn over it, rather than to open the page of the +historian, moralist, or poet. We have heard, indeed, of one work of +fiction so unutterably stupid, that the proprietor, diverted by the +rarity of the incident, offered the book, which consisted of two volumes +in duodecimo, handsomely bound, to any person who would declare, upon +his honour, that he had read the whole from beginning to end. But +although this offer was made to the passengers on board an Indiaman, +during a tedious outward-bound voyage, the _Memoirs of Clegg the +Clergyman_ (such was the title of this unhappy composition) completely +baffled the most dull and determined student on board, and bid fair for +an exception to the general rule above-mentioned,--when the love of +glory prevailed with the boatswain, a man of strong and solid parts, to +hazard the attempt, and he actually conquered and carried off the prize! + +The judicious reader will see at once that we have been pleading our own +cause while stating the universal practice, and preparing him for a +display of more general acquaintance with this fascinating department of +literature, than at first sight may seem consistent with the graver +studies to which we are compelled by duty: but in truth, when we +consider how many hours of languor and anxiety, of deserted age and +solitary celibacy, of pain even and poverty, are beguiled by the perusal +of these light volumes, we cannot austerely condemn the source from +which is drawn the alleviation of such a portion of human misery, or +consider the regulation of this department as beneath the sober +consideration of the critic. + +If such apologies may be admitted in judging the labours of ordinary +novelists, it becomes doubly the duty of the critic to treat with +kindness as well as candour works which, like this before us, proclaim a +knowledge of the human heart, with the power and resolution to bring +that knowledge to the service of honour and virtue. The author is +already known to the public by the two novels announced in her title-page, +and both, the last especially, attracted, with justice, an +attention from the public far superior to what is granted to the +ephemeral productions which supply the regular demand of watering-places +and circulating libraries. They belong to a class of fictions which has +arisen almost in our own times, and which draws the characters and +incidents introduced more immediately from the current of ordinary life +than was permitted by the former rules of the novel. In its first +appearance, the novel was the legitimate child of the romance; and +though the manners and general turn of the composition were altered so +as to suit modern times, the author remained fettered by many +peculiarities derived from the original style of romantic fiction. These +may be chiefly traced in the conduct of the narrative, and the tone of +sentiment attributed to the fictitious personages. On the first point, +although + + The talisman and magic wand were broke, + Knights, dwarfs, and genii vanish'd into smoke, + +still the reader expected to peruse a course of adventures of a nature +more interesting and extraordinary than those which occur in his own +life, or that of his next-door neighbours. + +The hero no longer defeated armies by his single sword, clove giants to +the chine, or gained kingdoms. But he was expected to go through perils +by sea and land, to be steeped in poverty, to be tried by temptation, to +be exposed to the alternate vicissitudes of adversity and prosperity, +and his life was a troubled scene of suffering and achievement. Few +novelists, indeed, adventured to deny to the hero his final hour of +tranquillity and happiness, though it was the prevailing fashion never +to relieve him out of his last and most dreadful distress until the +finishing chapters of his history; so that although his prosperity in +the record of his life was short, we were bound to believe it was long +and uninterrupted when the author had done with him. The heroine was +usually condemned to equal hardships and hazards. She was regularly +exposed to being forcibly carried off like a Sabine virgin by some +frantic admirer. And even if she escaped the terrors of masked ruffians, +an insidious ravisher, a cloak wrapped forcibly around her head, and a +coach with the blinds up driving she could not conjecture whither, she +had still her share of wandering, of poverty, of obloquy, of seclusion, +and of imprisonment, and was frequently extended upon a bed of sickness, +and reduced to her last shilling before the author condescended to +shield her from persecution. In all these dread contingencies the mind +of the reader was expected to sympathize, since by incidents so much +beyond the bounds of his ordinary experience, his wonder and interest +ought at once to be excited. But gradually he became familiar with the +land of fiction, the adventures of which he assimilated not with those +of real life, but with each other. Let the distress of the hero or +heroine be ever so great, the reader reposed an imperturbable confidence +in the talents of the author, who, as he had plunged them into distress, +would in his own good time, and when things, as Tony Lumkin says, were +in a concatenation accordingly, bring his favourites out of all their +troubles. Mr. Crabbe has expressed his own and our feelings excellently +on this subject. + + For should we grant these beauties all endure + Severest pangs, they've still the speediest cure; + Before one charm be withered from the face, + Except the bloom which shall again have place, + In wedlock ends each wish, in triumph all disgrace. + And life to come, we fairly may suppose, + One light bright contrast to these wild dark woes. + +In short, the author of novels was, in former times, expected to tread +pretty much in the limits between the concentric circles of probability +and possibility; and as he was not permitted to transgress the latter, +his narrative, to make amends, almost always went beyond the bounds of +the former. Now, although it may be urged that the vicissitudes of human +life have occasionally led an individual through as many scenes of +singular fortune as are represented in the most extravagant of these +fictions, still the causes and personages acting on these changes have +varied with the progress of the adventurer's fortune, and do not present +that combined plot, (the object of every skilful novelist), in which all +the more interesting individuals of the dramatis personae have their +appropriate share in the action and in bringing about the catastrophe. +Here, even more than in its various and violent changes of fortune, +rests the improbability of the novel. The life of man rolls forth like a +stream from the fountain, or it spreads out into tranquillity like a +placid or stagnant lake. In the latter case, the individual grows old +among the characters with whom he was born, and is contemporary,--shares +precisely the sort of weal and woe to which his birth destined him,-- +moves in the same circle,--and, allowing for the change of seasons, is +influenced by, and influences the same class of persons by which he was +originally surrounded. The man of mark and of adventure, on the +contrary, resembles, in the course of his life, the river whose +mid-current and discharge into the ocean are widely removed from each +other, as well as from the rocks and wild flowers which its fountains +first reflected; violent changes of time, of place, and of circumstances, +hurry him forward from one scene to another, and his adventures will +usually be found only connected with each other because they have +happened to the same individual. Such a history resembles an ingenious, +fictitious narrative, exactly in the degree in which an old dramatic +chronicle of the life and death of some distinguished character, where +all the various agents appear and disappear as in the page of history, +approaches a regular drama, in which every person introduced plays an +appropriate part, and every point of the action tends to one common +catastrophe. + +We return to the second broad line of distinction between the novel, as +formerly composed, and real life,--the difference, namely, of the +sentiments. The novelist professed to give an imitation of nature, but +it was, as the French say, _la belle nature_. Human beings, indeed, were +presented, but in the most sentimental mood, and with minds purified by +a sensibility which often verged on extravagance. In the serious class +of novels, the hero was usually + + A knight of love, who never broke a vow. + +And although, in those of a more humorous cast, he was permitted a +licence, borrowed either from real life or from the libertinism of the +drama, still a distinction was demanded even from Peregrine Pickle, or +Tom Jones; and the hero, in every folly of which he might be guilty, was +studiously vindicated from the charge of infidelity of the heart. The +heroine was, of course, still more immaculate; and to have conferred her +affections upon any other than the lover to whom the reader had destined +her from their first meeting, would have been a crime against sentiment +which no author, of moderate prudence, would have hazarded, under the +old _rĂ©gime_. + +Here, therefore, we have two essentials and important circumstances, in +which the earlier novels differed from those now in fashion, and were +more nearly assimilated to the old romances. And there can be no doubt +that, by the studied involution and extrication of the story, by the +combination of incidents new, striking and wonderful beyond the course +of ordinary life, the former authors opened that obvious and strong +sense of interest which arises from curiosity; as by the pure, elevated, +and romantic cast of the sentiment, they conciliated those better +propensities of our nature which loves to contemplate the picture of +virtue, even when confessedly unable to imitate its excellences. + +But strong and powerful as these sources of emotion and interest may be, +they are, like all others, capable of being exhausted by habit. The +imitators who rushed in crowds upon each path in which the great masters +of the art had successively led the way, produced upon the public mind +the usual effect of satiety. The first writer of a new class is, as it +were, placed on a pinnacle of excellence, to which, at the earliest +glance of a surprised admirer, his ascent seems little less than +miraculous. Time and imitation speedily diminish the wonder, and each +successive attempt establishes a kind of progressive scale of ascent +between the lately deified author, and the reader, who had deemed his +excellence inaccessible. The stupidity, the mediocrity, the merit of his +imitators, are alike fatal to the first inventor, by showing how +possible it is to exaggerate his faults and to come within a certain +point of his beauties. + +Materials also (and the man of genius as well as his wretched imitator +must work with the same) become stale and familiar. Social life, in our +civilized days, affords few instances capable of being painted in the +strong dark colours which excite surprise and horror; and robbers, +smugglers, bailiffs, caverns, dungeons, and mad-houses, have been all +introduced until they ceased to interest. And thus in the novel, as in +every style of composition which appeals to the public taste, the more +rich and easily worked mines being exhausted, the adventurous author +must, if he is desirous of success, have recourse to those which were +disdained by his predecessors as unproductive, or avoided as only +capable of being turned to profit by great skill and labour. + +Accordingly a style of novel has arisen, within the last fifteen or +twenty years, differing from the former in the points upon which the +interest hinges; neither alarming our credulity nor amusing our +imagination by wild variety of incident, or by those pictures of +romantic affection and sensibility, which were formerly as certain +attributes of fictitious characters as they are of rare occurrence among +those who actually live and die. The substitute for these excitements, +which had lost much of their poignancy by the repeated and injudicious +use of them, was the art of copying from nature as she really exists in +the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the +splendid scenes of an imaginary world, a correct and striking +representation of that which is daily taking place around him. + +In adventuring upon this task, the author makes obvious sacrifices, and +encounters peculiar difficulty. He who paints from _le beau idĂ©al_, if +his scenes and sentiments are striking and interesting, is in a great +measure exempted from the difficult task of reconciling them with the +ordinary probabilities of life: but he who paints a scene of common +occurrence, places his composition within that extensive range of +criticism which general experience offers to every reader. The +resemblance of a statue of Hercules we must take on the artist's +judgment; but every one can criticize that which is presented as the +portrait of a friend, or neighbour. Something more than a mere sign-post +likeness is also demanded. The portrait must have spirit and character, +as well as resemblance; and being deprived of all that, according to +Bayes, goes "to elevate and surprize," it must make amends by displaying +depth of knowledge and dexterity of execution. We, therefore, bestow no +mean compliment upon the author of _Emma_, when we say that, keeping +close to common incidents, and to such characters as occupy the ordinary +walks of life, she has produced sketches of such spirit and originality, +that we never miss the excitation which depends upon a narrative of +uncommon events, arising from the consideration of minds, manners and +sentiments, greatly above our own. In this class she stands almost +alone; for the scenes of Miss Edgeworth are laid in higher life, varied +by more romantic incident, and by her remarkable power of embodying and +illustrating national character. But the author of _Emma_ confines +herself chiefly to the middling classes of society; her most +distinguished characters do not rise greatly above well-bred country +gentlemen and ladies; and those which are sketched with most originality +and precision, belong to a class rather below that standard. The +narrative of all her novels is composed of such common occurrences as +may have fallen under the observation of most folks; and her dramatis +personae conduct themselves upon the motives and principles which the +readers may recognize as ruling their own and that of most of their +acquaintances. The kind of moral, also, which these novels inculcate, +applies equally to the paths of common life, as will best appear from a +short notice of the author's former works, with a more full abstract of +that which we at present have under consideration. + +_Sense and Sensibility_, the first of these compositions, contains the +history of two sisters. The elder, a young lady of prudence and +regulated feelings, becomes gradually attached to a man of an excellent +heart and limited talents, who happens unfortunately to be fettered by a +rash and ill-assorted engagement. In the younger sister, the influence +of sensibility and imagination predominates; and she, as was to be +expected, also falls in love, but with more unbridled and wilful +passion. Her lover, gifted with all the qualities of exterior polish and +vivacity, proves faithless, and marries a woman of large fortune. The +interest and merit of the piece depend altogether upon the behaviour of +the elder sister, while obliged at once to sustain her own +disappointment with fortitude, and to support her sister, who abandons +herself, with unsuppressed feelings, to the indulgence of grief. The +marriage of the unworthy rival at length relieves her own lover from his +imprudent engagement, while her sister, turned wise by precept, example, +and experience, transfers her affection to a very respectable and +somewhat too serious admirer, who had nourished an unsuccessful passion +through the three volumes. + +In _Pride and Prejudice_ the author presents us with a family of young +women, bred up under a foolish and vulgar mother, and a father whose +good abilities lay hid under such a load of indolence and insensibility, +that he had become contented to make the foibles and follies of his wife +and daughters the subject of dry and humorous sarcasm, rather than of +admonition, or restraint. This is one of the portraits from ordinary +life which shews our author's talents in a very strong point of view. A +friend of ours, whom the author never saw or heard of, was at once +recognized by his own family as the original of Mr. Bennet, and we do +not know if he has yet got rid of the nickname. A Mr. Collins, too, a +formal, conceited, yet servile young sprig of divinity, is drawn with +the same force and precision. The story of the piece consists chiefly in +the fates of the second sister, to whom a man of high birth, large +fortune, but haughty and reserved manners, becomes attached, in spite of +the discredit thrown upon the object of his affection by the vulgarity +and ill-conduct of her relations. The lady, on the contrary, hurt at the +contempt of her connections, which the lover does not even attempt to +suppress, and prejudiced against him on other accounts, refuses the hand +which he ungraciously offers, and does not perceive that she has done a +foolish thing until she accidentally visits a very handsome seat and +grounds belonging to her admirer. They chance to meet exactly as her +prudence had begun to subdue her prejudice; and after some essential +services rendered to her family, the lover becomes encouraged to renew +his addresses, and the novel ends happily. + +_Emma_ has even less story than either of the preceding novels. Miss +Emma Woodhouse, from whom the book takes its name, is the daughter of a +gentleman of wealth and consequence residing at his seat in the +immediate vicinage of a country village called Highbury. The father, a +good-natured, silly valetudinary, abandons the management of his +household to Emma, he himself being only occupied by his summer and +winter walk, his apothecary, his gruel, and his whist table. The latter +is supplied from the neighbouring village of Highbury with precisely the +sort of persons who occupy the vacant corners of a regular whist table, +when a village is in the neighbourhood, and better cannot be found +within the family. We have the smiling and courteous vicar, who +nourishes the ambitious hope of obtaining Miss Woodhouse's hand. We have +Mrs. Bates, the wife of a former rector, past everything but tea and +whist; her daughter, Miss Bates, a good-natured, vulgar, and foolish old +maid; Mr. Weston, a gentleman of a frank disposition and moderate +fortune, in the vicinity, and his wife an amiable and accomplished +person, who had been Emma's governess, and is devotedly attached to her. +Amongst all these personages, Miss Woodhouse walks forth, the princess +paramount, superior to all her companions in wit, beauty, fortune, and +accomplishments, doated upon by her father and the Westons, admired, and +almost worshipped by the more humble companions of the whist table. The +object of most young ladies is, or at least is usually supposed to be, a +desirable connection in marriage. But Emma Woodhouse, either +anticipating the taste of a later period of life, or, like a good +sovereign, preferring the weal of her subjects of Highbury to her own +private interest, sets generously about making matches for her friends +without thinking of matrimony on her own account. We are informed that +she had been eminently successful in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Weston; +and when the novel commences she is exerting her influence in favour of +Miss Harriet Smith, a boarding-school girl without family or fortune, +very good humoured, very pretty, very silly, and, what suited Miss +Woodhouse's purpose best of all, very much disposed to be married. + +In these conjugal machinations Emma is frequently interrupted, not only +by the cautions of her father, who had a particular objection to any +body committing the rash act of matrimony, but also by the sturdy +reproof and remonstrances of Mr. Knightley, the elder brother of her +sister's husband, a sensible country gentleman of thirty-five, who had +known Emma from her cradle, and was the only person who ventured to find +fault with her. In spite, however, of his censure and warning, Emma lays +a plan of marrying Harriet Smith to the vicar; and though she succeeds +perfectly in diverting her simple friend's thoughts from an honest +farmer who had made her a very suitable offer, and in flattering her +into a passion for Mr. Elton, yet, on the other hand, that conceited +divine totally mistakes the nature of the encouragement held out to him, +and attributes the favour which he found in Miss Woodhouse's eyes to a +lurking affection on her own part. This at length encourages him to a +presumptuous declaration of his sentiments; upon receiving a repulse, he +looks abroad elsewhere, and enriches the Highbury society by uniting +himself to a dashing young woman with as many thousands as are usually +called ten, and a corresponding quantity of presumption and ill +breeding. + +While Emma is thus vainly engaged in forging wedlock-fetters for others, +her friends have views of the same kind upon her, in favour of a son of +Mr. Weston by a former marriage, who bears the name, lives under the +patronage, and is to inherit the fortune of a rich uncle. Unfortunately +Mr. Frank Churchill had already settled his affections on Miss Jane +Fairfax, a young lady of reduced fortune; but as this was a concealed +affair, Emma, when Mr. Churchill first appears on the stage, has some +thoughts of being in love with him herself; speedily, however, +recovering from that dangerous propensity, she is disposed to confer him +upon her deserted friend Harriet Smith. Harriet has in the interim, +fallen desperately in love with Mr. Knightley, the sturdy, advice-giving +bachelor; and, as all the village supposes Frank Churchill and Emma to +be attached to each other, there are cross purposes enough (were the +novel of a more romantic cast) for cutting half the men's throats and +breaking all the women's hearts. But at Highbury Cupid walks decorously, +and with good discretion, bearing his torch under a lanthorn, instead of +flourishing it around to set the house on fire. All these entanglements +bring on only a train of mistakes and embarrassing situations, and +dialogues at balls and parties of pleasure, in which the author displays +her peculiar powers of humour and knowledge of human life. The plot is +extricated with great simplicity. The aunt of Frank Churchill dies; his +uncle, no longer under her baneful influence, consents to his marriage +with Jane Fairfax. Mr. Knightley and Emma are led, by this unexpected +incident, to discover that they had been in love with each other all +along. Mr. Woodhouse's objections to the marriage of his daughter are +overpowered by the fears of house-breakers, and the comfort which he +hopes to derive from having a stout son-in-law resident in the family; +and the facile affections of Harriet Smith are transferred, like a bank +bill by indorsation, to her former suitor, the honest farmer, who had +obtained a favourable opportunity of renewing his addresses. Such is the +simple plan of a story which we peruse with pleasure, if not with deep +interest, and which perhaps we might more willingly resume than one of +those narratives where the attention is strongly riveted, during the +first perusal, by the powerful excitement of curiosity. + +The author's knowledge of the world, and the peculiar tact with which +she presents characters that the reader cannot fail to recognize, +reminds us something of the merits of the Flemish school of painting. +The subjects are not often elegant, and certainly never grand; but they +are finished up to nature, and with a precision which delights the +reader. This is a merit which it is very difficult to illustrate by +extracts, because it pervades the whole work, and is not to be +comprehended from a single passage. The following is a dialogue between +Mr. Woodhouse, and his elder daughter Isabella, who shares his anxiety +about health, and has, like her father, a favourite apothecary. The +reader must be informed that this lady, with her husband, a sensible, +peremptory sort of person, had come to spend a week with her father. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps the reader may collect from the preceding specimen both the +merits and faults of the author. The former consists much in the force +of a narrative conducted with much neatness and point, and a quiet yet +comic dialogue, in which the characters of the speakers evolve +themselves with dramatic effect. The faults, on the contrary, arise from +the minute detail which the author's plan comprehends. Characters of +folly or simplicity, such as those of old Woodhouse and Miss Bates, are +ridiculous when first presented, but if too often brought forward or too +long dwelt upon, their prosing is apt to become as tiresome in fiction +as in real society. Upon the whole, the turn of this author's novels +bears the same relation to that of the sentimental and romantic cast, +that cornfields and cottages and meadows bear to the highly adorned +grounds of a show mansion, or the rugged sublimities of a mountain +landscape. It is neither so captivating as the one, nor so grand as the +other, but it affords to those who frequent it a pleasure nearly allied +with the experience of their own social habits; and what is of some +importance, the youthful wanderer may return from his promenade to the +ordinary business of life, without any chance of having his head turned +by the recollection of the scene through which he has been wandering. + +One word, however, we must say in behalf of that once powerful divinity, +Cupid, king of gods and men, who in these times of revolution, has been +assailed, even in his own kingdom of romance, by the authors who were +formerly his devoted priests. We are quite aware that there are few +instances of first attachment being brought to a happy conclusion, and +that it seldom can be so in a state of society so highly advanced as to +render early marriages among the better class, acts, generally speaking, +of imprudence. But the youth of this realm need not at present be taught +the doctrine of selfishness. It is by no means their error to give the +world or the good things of the world all for love; and before the +authors of moral fiction couple Cupid indivisibly with calculating +prudence, we would have them reflect, that they may sometimes lend their +aid to substitute more mean, more sordid, and more selfish motives of +conduct, for the romantic feelings which their predecessors perhaps +fanned into too powerful a flame. Who is it, that in his youth has felt +a virtuous attachment, however romantic or however unfortunate, but can +trace back to its influence much that his character may possess of what +is honourable, dignified, and disinterested? If he recollects hours +wasted in unavailing hope, or saddened by doubt and disappointment; he +may also dwell on many which have been snatched from folly or +libertinism, and dedicated to studies which might render him worthy of +the object of his affection, or pave the way perhaps to that distinction +necessary to raise him to an equality with her. Even the habitual +indulgence of feelings totally unconnected with ourself and our own +immediate interest, softens, graces, and amends the human mind; and +after the pain of disappointment is past, those who survive (and by good +fortune those are the greater number) are neither less wise nor less +worthy members of society for having felt, for a time, the influence of +a passion which has been well qualified as the "tenderest, noblest and +best." + + + + +ARCHBISHOP WHATELY ON +JANE AUSTEN + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1821] + +_Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion_. By the Author of _Sense and +Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park_, and _Emma_. 4 vols. +New Edition. + +The times seem to be past when an apology was requisite from reviewers +for condescending to notice a novel; when they felt themselves bound in +dignity to deprecate the suspicion of paying much regard to such +trifles, and pleaded the necessity of occasionally stooping to humour +the taste of their fair readers. The delights of fiction, if not more +keenly or more generally relished, are at least more readily +acknowledged by men of sense and taste; and we have lived to hear the +merits of the best of this class of writings earnestly discussed by some +of the ablest scholars and soundest reasoners of the present day. + +We are inclined to attribute this change, not so much to an alteration +in the public taste, as in the character of the productions in question. +Novels may not, perhaps, display more genius now than formerly, but they +contain more solid sense; they may not afford higher gratification, but +it is of a nature which men are less disposed to be ashamed of avowing. +We remarked, in a former Number, in reviewing a work of the author now +before us, that "a new style of novel has arisen, within the last +fifteen or twenty years, differing from the former in the points upon +which the interest hinges; neither alarming our credulity nor amusing +our imagination by wild variety of incident, or by those pictures of +romantic affection and sensibility, which were formerly as certain +attributes of fictitious characters as they are of rare occurrence among +those who actually live and die. The substitute for these excitements, +which had lost much of their poignancy by the repeated and injudicious +use of them, was the art of copying from nature as she really exists in +the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the +splendid scenes of an imaginary world, a correct and striking +representation of that which is daily taking place around him." + +Now, though the origin of this new school of fiction may probably be +traced, as we there suggested, to the exhaustion of the mines from which +materials for entertainment had been hitherto extracted, and the +necessity of gratifying the natural craving of the reader for variety, +by striking into an untrodden path; the consequences resulting from this +change have been far greater than the mere supply of this demand. When +this Flemish painting, as it were, is introduced--this accurate and +unexaggerated delineation of events and characters--it necessarily +follows, that a novel, which makes good its pretensions of giving a +perfectly correct picture of common life, becomes a far more +_instructive_ work than one of equal or superior merit of the other +class; it guides the judgment, and supplies a kind of artificial +experience. It is a remark of the great father of criticism, that poetry +(_i.e._, narrative, and dramatic poetry) is of a more philosophical +character than history; inasmuch as the latter details what has actually +happened, of which many parts may chance to be exceptions to the general +rules of probability, and consequently illustrate no general principles; +whereas the former shews us what must naturally, or would probably, +happen under given circumstances; and thus displays to us a +comprehensive view of human nature, and furnishes general rules of +practical wisdom. It is evident, that this will apply only to such +fictions as are quite _perfect_ in respect of the probability of their +story; and that he, therefore, who resorts to the fabulist rather than +the historian, for instruction in human character and conduct, must +throw himself entirely on the judgment and skill of his teacher, and +give him credit for talents much more rare than the accuracy and +veracity which are the chief requisites in history. We fear, therefore, +that the exultation which we can conceive some of our gentle readers to +feel, at having Aristotle's warrant for (what probably they had never +dreamed of) the _philosophical character_ of their studies, must, in +practice, be somewhat qualified, by those sundry little violations of +probability which are to be met with in most novels; and which so far +lower their value, as models of real life, that a person who had no +other preparation for the world than is afforded by them, would form, +probably, a less accurate idea of things as they are, than he would of a +lion from studying merely the representations on China tea-pots. + +Accordingly, a heavy complaint has long lain against works of fiction, +as giving a false picture of what they profess to imitate, and +disqualifying their readers for the ordinary scenes and everyday duties +of life. And this charge applies, we apprehend, to the generality of +what are strictly called novels, with even more justice than to +romances. When all the characters and events are very far removed from +what we see around us,--when, perhaps, even supernatural agents are +introduced, the reader may indulge, indeed, in occasional day-dreams, +but will be so little reminded by what he has been reading, of anything +that occurs in actual life, that though he may perhaps feel some +disrelish for the tameness of the scene before him, compared with the +fairy-land he has been visiting, yet at least his judgment will not be +depraved, nor his expectations misled; he will not apprehend a meeting +with Algerine banditti on English shores, nor regard the old woman who +shews him about an antique country seat, as either an enchantress or the +keeper of an imprisoned damsel. But it is otherwise with those fictions +which differ from common life in little or nothing but the improbability +of the occurrences: the reader is insensibly led to calculate upon some +of those lucky incidents and opportune coincidences of which he has been +so much accustomed to read, and which, it is undeniable, _may_ take +place in real life; and to feel a sort of confidence, that however +romantic his conduct may be, and in whatever difficulties it may involve +him, all will be sure to come right at last, as is invariably the case +with the hero of a novel. + +On the other hand, so far as these pernicious effects fail to be +produced, so far does the example lose its influence, and the exercise +of poetical justice is rendered vain. The reward of virtuous conduct +being brought about by fortunate accidents, he who abstains (taught, +perhaps, by bitter disappointments) from reckoning on such accidents, +wants that encouragement to virtue, which alone has been held out to +him. "If I were _a man in a novel_," we remember to have heard an +ingenious friend observe, "I should certainly act so and so, because I +should be sure of being no loser by the most heroic self-devotion and of +ultimately succeeding in the most daring enterprises." + +It may be said, in answer, that these objections apply only to the +_unskilful_ novelist, who, from ignorance of the world, gives an +unnatural representation of what he professes to delineate. This is +partly true, and partly not; for there is a distinction to be made +between the _unnatural_ and the merely _improbable_: a fiction is +unnatural when there is some assignable reason against the events taking +place as described,--when men are represented as acting contrary to the +character assigned them, or to human nature in general; as when a young +lady of seventeen, brought up in ease, luxury and retirement, with no +companions but the narrow-minded and illiterate, displays (as a heroine +usually does) under the most trying circumstances, such wisdom, +fortitude, and knowledge of the world, as the best instructors and the +best examples can rarely produce without the aid of more mature age and +longer experience.--On the other hand, a fiction is still _improbable_, +though _not unnatural_, when there is no reason to be assigned why +things should not take place as represented, except that the +_overbalance of chances is_ against it; the hero meets, in his utmost +distress, most opportunely, with the very person to whom he had formerly +done a signal service, and who happens to communicate to him a piece of +intelligence which sets all to rights. Why should he not meet him as +well as any one else? all that can be said is, that there is no reason +why he should. The infant who is saved from a wreck, and who afterwards +becomes such a constellation of virtues and accomplishments, turns out +to be no other than the nephew of the very gentleman, on whose estate +the waves had cast him, and whose lovely daughter he had so long sighed +for in vain: there is no reason to be given, except from the calculation +of chances, why he should not have been thrown on one part of the coast +as well as another. Nay, it would be nothing unnatural, though the most +determined novel-reader would be shocked at its improbability, if all +the hero's enemies, while they were conspiring his ruin were to be +struck dead together by a lucky flash of lightning: yet many denouements +which _are_ decidedly unnatural, are better tolerated than this would +be. We shall, perhaps, best explain our meaning by examples, taken from +a novel of great merit in many respects. When Lord Glenthorn, in whom a +most unfavourable education has acted on a most unfavourable +disposition, after a life of torpor, broken only by short sallies of +forced exertion, on a sudden reverse of fortune, displays at once the +most persevering diligence in the most repulsive studies, and in middle +life, without any previous habits of exertion, any hope of early +business, or the example of friends, or the stimulus of actual want, to +urge him, outstrips every competitor, though every competitor has every +advantage against him; this is unnatural.--When Lord Glenthorn, the +instant he is stripped of his estates, meets, falls in love with, and is +conditionally accepted by the very lady who is remotely intitled to +those estates; when, the instant he has fulfilled the conditions of +their marriage, the family of the person possessed of the estates +becomes extinct, and by the concurrence of circumstances, against every +one of which the chances were enormous, the hero is re-instated in all +his old domains; this is merely improbable. The distinction which we +have been pointing out may be plainly perceived in the events of real +life; when any thing takes place of such a nature as we should call, in +a fiction, merely improbable, because there are many chances against it, +we call it a lucky or unlucky accident, a singular coincidence, +something very extraordinary, odd, curious, etc.; whereas any thing +which, in a fiction, would be called unnatural, when it actually occurs +(and such things do occur), is still called unnatural, inexplicable, +unaccountable, inconceivable, etc., epithets which are not applied to +events that have merely the balance of chances against them. + +Now, though an author who understands human nature is not likely to +introduce into his fictions any thing that is unnatural, he will often +have much that is improbable: he may place his personages, by the +intervention of accident, in striking situations, and lead them through +a course of extraordinary adventures; and yet, in the midst of all this, +he will keep up the most perfect consistency of character, and make them +act as it would be natural for men to act in such situations and +circumstances. Fielding's novels are a good illustration of this: they +display great knowledge of mankind; the characters are well preserved; +the persons introduced all act as one would naturally expect they +should, in the circumstances in which they are placed; but these +circumstances are such as it is incalculably improbable should ever +exist: several of the events, taken singly, are much against the chances +of probability; but the combination of the whole in a connected series, +is next to impossible. Even the romances which admit a mixture of +supernatural agency, are not more unfit to prepare men for real life, +than such novels as these; since one might just as reasonably calculate +on the intervention of a fairy, as on the train of lucky chances which +combine first to involve Tom Jones in his difficulties, and afterwards +to extricate him. Perhaps, indeed, the supernatural fable is of the two +not only (as we before remarked) the less mischievous in its moral +effects, but also the more correct kind of composition in point of +taste: the author lays down a kind of hypothesis of the existence of +ghosts, witches, or fairies, and professes to describe what would take +place under that hypothesis; the novelist, on the contrary, makes no +demand of extraordinary machinery, but professes to describe what may +actually take place, according to the existing laws of human affairs: if +he therefore present us with a series of events quite unlike any which +ever do take place, we have reason to complain that he has not made good +his professions. + +When, therefore, the generality, even of the most approved novels, were +of this character (to say nothing of the heavier charges brought, of +inflaming the passions of young persons by warm descriptions, weakening +their abhorrence of profligacy by exhibiting it in combination with the +most engaging qualities, and presenting vice in all its allurements, +while setting forth the triumphs of "virtue rewarded") it is not to be +wondered that the grave guardians of youth should have generally +stigmatized the whole class, as "serving only to fill young people's +heads with romantic love-stories, and rendering them unfit to mind +anything else." That this censure and caution should in many instances +be indiscriminate, can surprize no one, who recollects how rare a +quality discrimination is; and how much better it suits indolence, as +well as ignorance, to lay down a rule, than to ascertain the exceptions +to it: we are acquainted with a careful mother whose daughters while +they never in their lives read a _novel_ of any kind, are permitted to +peruse, without reserve, any _plays_ that happen to fall in their way; +and with another, from whom no lessons, however excellent, of wisdom and +piety, contained in a _prose-fiction,_ can obtain quarter; but who, on +the other hand, is no less indiscriminately indulgent to her children in +the article of tales in _verse_, of whatever character. + +The change, however, which we have already noticed, as having taken +place in the character of several modern novels, has operated in a +considerable degree to do away this prejudice; and has elevated this +species of composition, in some respects at least, into a much higher +class. For most of that instruction which used to be presented to the +world in the shape of formal dissertations, or shorter and more +desultory moral essays, such as those of the _Spectator_ and _Rambler_, +we may now resort to the pages of the acute and judicious, but not less +amusing, novelists who have lately appeared. If their views of men and +manners are no less just than those of the essayists who preceded them, +are they to be rated lower because they present to us these views, not +in the language of general description, but in the form of +well-constructed fictitious narrative? If the practical lessons they +inculcate are no less sound and useful, it is surely no diminution of +their merit that they are conveyed by example instead of precept: nor, +if their remarks are neither less wise nor less important, are they the +less valuable for being represented as thrown out in the course of +conversations suggested by the circumstances of the speakers, and +perfectly in character. The praise and blame of the moralist are surely +not the less effectual for being bestowed, not in general declamation, +on classes of men, but on individuals representing those classes, who +are so clearly delineated and brought into action before us, that we +seem to be acquainted with them, and feel an interest in their fate. + +Biography is allowed, on all hands, to be one of the most attractive and +profitable kinds of reading: now such novels as we have been speaking +of, being a kind of fictitious biography, bear the same relation to the +real, that epic and tragic poetry, according to Aristotle, bear to +history: they present us (supposing, of course, each perfect in its +kind) with the general, instead of the particular,--the probable, +instead of the true; and, by leaving out those accidental +irregularities, and exceptions to general rules, which constitute the +many improbabilities of real narrative, present us with a clear and +_abstracted_ view of the general rules themselves; and thus concentrate, +as it were, into a small compass, the net result of wide experience. + +Among the authors of this school there is no one superior, if equal, to +the lady whose last production is now before us, and whom we have much +regret in finally taking leave of: her death (in the prime of life, +considered as a writer) being announced in this the first publication to +which her name is prefixed. We regret the failure not only of a source +of innocent amusement, but also of that supply of practical good sense +and instructive example, which she would probably have continued to +furnish better than any of her contemporaries:--Miss Edgeworth, indeed, +draws characters and details conversations, such as they occur in real +life, with a spirit and fidelity not to be surpassed; but her stories +are most romantically improbable (in the sense above explained), almost +all the important events of them being brought about by most +_providential_ coincidences; and this, as we have already remarked, is +not merely faulty, inasmuch as it evinces a want of skill in the writer, +and gives an air of clumsiness to the fiction, but is a very +considerable drawback on its practical utility: the personages either of +fiction or history being then only profitable examples, when their good +or ill conduct meets its appropriate reward, not from a sort of +independent machinery of accidents, but as a necessary or probable +result, according to the ordinary course of affairs. Miss Edgeworth also +is somewhat too avowedly didactic: that seems to be true of her, which +the French critics, in the extravagance of their conceits, attributed to +Homer and Virgil; viz., that they first thought of a moral, and then +framed a fable to illustrate it; she would, we think, instruct more +successfully, and she would, we are sure, please more frequently, if she +kept the design of teaching more out of sight, and did not so glaringly +press every circumstance of her story, principal or subordinate, into +the service of a principle to be inculcated, or information to be given. +A certain portion of moral instruction must accompany every +well-invented narrative. Virtue must be represented as producing, at the +long run, happiness; and vice, misery; and the accidental events, that +in +real life interrupt this tendency, are anomalies which, though true +individually, are as false generally as the accidental deformities which +vary the average outline of the human figure. They would be as much out +of place in a fictitious narrative, as a wen in an academic model. But +any _direct_ attempt at moral teaching, and any attempt whatever to give +scientific information will, we fear, unless managed with the utmost +discretion, interfere with what, after all, is the immediate and +peculiar object of the novelist, as of the poet, _to please_. If +instruction do not join as a volunteer, she will do no good service. +Miss Edgeworth's novels put us in mind of those clocks and watches which +are condemned "a double or a treble debt to pay": which, besides their +legitimate object, to show the hour, tell you the day of the month or +the week, give you a landscape for a dial-plate, with the second hand +forming the sails of a windmill, or have a barrel to play a tune, or an +alarum to remind you of an engagement: all very good things in their +way; but so it is that these watches never tell the time so well as +those in which that is the exclusive object of the maker. Every +additional movement is an obstacle to the original design. We do not +deny that we have learned much physic, and much law, from _Patronage_, +particularly the latter, for Miss Edgeworth's law is of a very original +kind; but it was not to learn law and physic that we took up the book, +and we suspect we should have been more pleased if we had been less +taught. With regard to the influence of religion, which is scarcely, if +at all, alluded to in Miss Edgeworth's novels, we would abstain from +pronouncing any decision which should apply to her personally. She may, +for aught we know, entertain opinions which would not permit her, with +consistency, to attribute more to it than she has done; in that case she +stands acquitted, in _foro conscientiae_, of wilfully suppressing any +thing which she acknowledges to be true and important; but, as a writer, +it must still be considered as a blemish, in the eyes at least of those +who think differently, that virtue should be studiously inculcated with +scarcely any reference to what they regard as the main spring of it; +that vice should be traced to every other source except the want of +religious principle; that the most radical change from worthlessness to +excellence should be represented as wholly independent of that agent +which they consider as the only one that can accomplish it; and that +consolation under affliction should be represented as derived from every +source except the one which they look to as the only true and sure one: +"is it not because there is no God in Israel that ye have sent to +inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron?" + +Miss Austin has the merit (in our judgment most essential) of being +evidently a Christian writer: a merit which is much enhanced, both on +the score of good taste, and of practical utility, by her religion being +not at all obtrusive. She might defy the most fastidious critic to call +any of her novels (as _Caelebs_ was designated, we will not say +altogether without reason), a "dramatic sermon." The subject is rather +alluded to, and that incidentally, than studiously brought forward and +dwelt upon. In fact she is more sparing of it than would be thought +desirable by some persons; perhaps even by herself, had she consulted +merely her own sentiments; but she probably introduced it as far as she +thought would be generally acceptable and profitable: for when the +purpose of inculcating a religious principle is made too palpably +prominent, many readers, if they do not throw aside the book with +disgust, are apt to fortify themselves with that respectful kind of +apathy with which they undergo a regular sermon, and prepare themselves +as they do to swallow a dose of medicine, endeavouring to _get it down_ +in large gulps, without tasting it more than is necessary. + +The moral lessons also of this lady's novels, though clearly and +impressively conveyed, are not offensively put forward, but spring +incidentally from the circumstances of the story; they are not forced +upon the reader, but he is left to collect them (though without any +difficulty) for himself: hers is that unpretending kind of instruction +which is furnished by real life; and certainly no author has ever +conformed more closely to real life, as well in the incidents, as in the +characters and descriptions. Her fables appear to us to be, in their own +way, nearly faultless; they do not consist (like those of some of the +writers who have attempted this kind of common-life novel writing) of a +string of unconnected events which have little or no bearing on one main +plot, and are introduced evidently for the sole purpose of bringing in +characters and conversations; but have all that compactness of plan and +unity of action which is generally produced by a sacrifice of +probability: yet they have little or nothing that is not probable; the +story proceeds without the aid of extraordinary accidents; the events +which take place are the necessary or natural consequences of what has +preceded; and yet (which is a very rare merit indeed) the final +catastrophe is scarcely ever clearly foreseen from the beginning, and +very often comes, upon the generality of readers at least, quite +unexpected. We know not whether Miss Austin ever had access to the +precepts of Aristotle; but there are few, if any, writers of fiction who +have illustrated them more successfully. + +The vivid distinctness of description, the minute fidelity of detail, +and air of unstudied ease in the scenes represented, which are no less +necessary than probability of incident, to carry the reader's +imagination along with the story, and give fiction the perfect +appearance of reality, she possesses in a high degree; and the object is +accomplished without resorting to those deviations from the ordinary +plan of narrative in the third person, which have been patronized by +some eminent masters. We allude to the two other methods of conducting a +fictitious story, viz., either by narrative in the first person, when +the hero is made to tell his own tale, or by a series of letters; both +of which we conceive have been adopted with a view of heightening the +resemblance of the fiction to reality. At first sight, indeed, there +might appear no reason why a story told in the first person should have +more the air of a real history than in the third; especially as the +majority of real histories actually are in the third person; +nevertheless, experience seems to show that such is the case: provided +there be no want of skill in the writer, the resemblance to real life, +of a fiction thus conducted, will approach much the nearest (other +points being equal) to a deception, and the interest felt in it, to that +which we feel in real transactions. We need only instance Defoe's +Novels, which, in spite of much improbability, we believe have been +oftener mistaken for true narratives, than any fictions that ever were +composed. Colonel Newport is well known to have been cited as an +historical authority; and we have ourselves found great difficulty in +convincing many of our friends that Defoe was not himself the citizen, +who relates the plague of London. The reason probably is, that in the +ordinary form of narrative, the writer is not content to exhibit, like a +real historian, a bare detail of such circumstances as might actually +have come under his knowledge; but presents us with a description of +what is passing in the minds of the parties, and gives an account of +their feelings and motives, as well as their most private conversations +in various places at once. All this is very amusing, but perfectly +unnatural: the merest simpleton could hardly mistake a fiction of _this_ +kind for a true history, unless he believed the writer to be endued with +omniscience and omnipresence, or to be aided by familiar spirits, doing +the office of Homer's Muses, whom he invokes to tell him all that could +not otherwise be known; + + [Greek: _Umeis gar theoi eote pareote te, iote te panta._] + +Let the events, therefore, which are detailed, and the characters +described, be ever so natural, the way in which they are presented to us +is of a kind of supernatural cast, perfectly unlike any real history +that ever was or can be written, and thus requiring a greater stretch of +imagination in the reader. On the other hand, the supposed narrator of +his own history never pretends to dive into the thoughts and feelings of +the other parties; he merely describes his own, and gives his +conjectures as to those of the rest, just as a real autobiographer might +do; and thus an author is enabled to assimilate his fiction to reality, +without withholding that delineation of the inward workings of the human +heart, which is so much coveted. Nevertheless novels in the first person +have not succeeded so well as to make that mode of writing become very +general. It is objected to them, not without reason, that they want a +_hero_: the person intended to occupy that post being the narrator +himself, who of course cannot so describe his own conduct and character +as to make the reader thoroughly acquainted with him; though the attempt +frequently produces an offensive appearance of egotism. + +The plan of a fictitious correspondence seems calculated in some measure +to combine the advantages of the other two; since, by allowing each +personage to be the speaker in turn, the feelings of each may be +described by himself, and his character and conduct by another. But +these novels are apt to become excessively tedious; since, to give the +letters the appearance of reality (without which the main object +proposed would be defeated), they must contain a very large proportion +of matter which has no bearing at all upon the story. There is also +generally a sort of awkward disjointed appearance in a novel which +proceeds entirely in letters, and holds together, as it were, by +continual splicing. + +Miss Austin, though she has in a few places introduced letters with +great effect, has on the whole conducted her novels on the ordinary +plan, describing, without scruple, private conversations and +uncommunicated feelings: but she has not been forgetful of the important +maxim, so long ago illustrated by Homer, and afterwards enforced by +Aristotle,[1] of saying as little as possible in her own person, and +giving a dramatic air to the narrative, by introducing frequent +conversations; which she conducts with a regard to character hardly +exceeded even by Shakespeare himself. Like him, she shows as admirable a +discrimination in the characters of fools as of people of sense; a merit +which is far from common. To invent, indeed, a conversation full of +wisdom or of wit, requires that the writer should himself possess +ability; but the converse does not hold good: it is no fool that can +describe fools well; and many who have succeeded pretty well in painting +superior characters, have failed in giving individuality to those weaker +ones, which it is necessary to introduce in order to give a faithful +representation of real life: they exhibit to us mere folly in the +abstract, forgetting that to the eye of a skilful naturalist the insects +on a leaf present as wide differences as exist between the elephant and +the lion. Slender, and Shallow, and Aguecheek, as Shakespeare has +painted them, though equally fools, resemble one another no more than +"Richard," and "Macbeth," and "Julius Caesar"; and Miss Austin's "Mrs. +Bennet," "Mr. Rushworth," and "Miss Bates," are no more alike than her +"Darcy," "Knightley," and "Edmund Bertram." Some have complained, +indeed, of finding her fools too much like nature, and consequently +tiresome; there is no disputing about tastes; all we can say is, that +such critics must (whatever deference they may outwardly pay to received +opinions) find the "Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Twelfth Night" very +tiresome; and that those who look with pleasure at Wilkie's pictures, or +those of the Dutch school, must admit that excellence of imitation may +confer attraction on that which would be insipid or disagreeable in the +reality. + +[1] [Greek: _ouden anthes_] Arist. Poet. + +Her minuteness of detail has also been found fault with; but even where +it produces, at the time, a degree of tediousness, we know not whether +that can justly be reckoned a blemish, which is absolutely essential to +a very high excellence. Now, it is absolutely impossible, without this, +to produce that thorough acquaintance with the characters, which is +necessary to make the reader heartily interested in them. Let any one +cut out from the _Iliad_ or from Shakespeare's plays every thing (we are +far from saying that either might not lose some parts with advantage, +but let him reject every thing) which is absolutely devoid of importance +and of interest _in itself_; and he will find that what is left will +have lost more than half its charms. We are convinced that some writers +have diminished the effect of their works by being scrupulous to admit +nothing into them which had not some absolute, intrinsic, and +independent merit. They have acted like those who strip off the leaves +of a fruit tree, as being of themselves good for nothing, with the view +of securing more nourishment to the fruit, which in fact cannot attain +its full maturity and flavour without them. + + * * * * * + +To say the truth, we suspect one of Miss Austin's great merits in our +eyes to be, the insight she gives us into the peculiarities of female +character. Authoresses can scarcely ever forget the _esprit de corps_-- +can scarcely ever forget that they _are authoresses_. They seem to feel +a sympathetic shudder at exposing naked a female mind. _Elles se +peignent en buste_, and leave the mysteries of womanhood to be described +by some interloping male, like Richardson or Marivaux, who is turned out +before he has seen half the rites, and is forced to spin from his own +conjectures the rest. Now from this fault Miss Austin is free. Her +heroines are what one knows women must be, though one never can get them +to acknowledge it. As liable to "fall in love first," as anxious to +attract the attention of agreeable men, as much taken with a striking +manner, or a handsome face, as unequally gifted with constancy and +firmness, as liable to have their affections biassed by convenience or +fashion, as we, on our part, will admit men to be. As some illustration +of what we mean, we refer our readers to the conversation between Miss +Crawford and Fanny, vol. iii, p. 102. Fanny's meeting with her father, +p. 199; her reflections after reading Edmund's letter, 246; her +happiness (good, and heroine though she be) in the midst of the misery +of all her friends, when she finds that Edmund has decidedly broken with +her rival; feelings, all of them, which, under the influence of strong +passion, must alloy the purest mind, but with which scarcely any +_authoress_ but Miss Austin would have ventured to temper the aetherial +materials of a heroine. + +But we must proceed to the publication of which the title is prefixed to +this article. It contains, it seems, the earliest and the latest +productions of the author; the first of them having been purchased, we +are told, many years back by a bookseller, who, for some reason +unexplained, thought proper to alter his mind and withhold it. We do not +much applaud his taste; for though it is decidedly inferior to her other +works, having less plot, and what there is, less artificially wrought +up, and also less exquisite nicety of moral painting; yet the same kind +of excellences which characterise the other novels may be perceived in +this, in a degree which would have been highly creditable to most other +writers of the same school, and which would have entitled the author to +considerable praise, had she written nothing better. + +We already begin to fear, that we have indulged too much in extracts, +and we must save some room for _Persuasion_, or we could not resist +giving a specimen of John Thorpe, with his horse that _cannot_ go less +than 10 miles an hour, his refusal to drive his sister "because she has +such thick ankles," and his sober consumption of five pints of port a +day; altogether the best portrait of a species, which, though almost +extinct, cannot yet be quite classed among the Palaeotheria, the Bang-up +Oxonian. Miss Thorpe, the jilt of middling life, is, in her way, quite +as good, though she has not the advantage of being the representative of +a rare or a diminishing species. We fear few of our readers, however +they may admire the naĂ¯vetĂ©, will admit the truth of poor John Morland's +postscript, "I can never expect to know such another woman." + +The latter of these novels, however, _Persuasion_, which is more +strictly to be considered as a posthumous work, possesses that +superiority which might be expected from the more mature age at which it +was written, and is second, we think, to none of the former ones, if not +superior to all. In the humorous delineation of character it does not +abound quite so much as some of the others, though it has great merit +even on that score; but it has more of that tender and yet elevated kind +of interest which is aimed at by the generality of novels, and in +pursuit of which they seldom fail of running into romantic extravagance: +on the whole, it is one of the most elegant fictions of common life we +ever remember to have met with. + +Sir Walter Elliot, a silly and conceited baronet, has three daughters, +the eldest two, unmarried, and the third, Mary, the wife of a +neighbouring gentleman, Mr. Charles Musgrove, heir to a considerable +fortune, and living in a genteel cottage in the neighbourhood of the +Great house which he is hereafter to inherit. The second daughter, Anne, +who is the heroine, and the only one of the family possessed of good +sense (a quality which Miss Austin is as sparing of in her novels, as we +fear her great mistress, Nature, has been in real life), when on a visit +to her sister, is, by that sort of instinct which generally points out +to all parties the person on whose judgment and temper they may rely, +appealed to in all the little family differences which arise, and which +are described with infinite spirit and detail. + + * * * * * + +We ventured, in a former article, to remonstrate against the +dethronement of the once powerful God of Love, in his own most especial +domain, the novel; and to suggest that, in shunning the ordinary fault +of recommending by examples a romantic and uncalculating extravagance of +passion, Miss Austin had rather fallen into the opposite extreme of +exclusively patronizing what are called prudent matches, and too much +disparaging sentimental enthusiasm. We urged, that, mischievous as is +the extreme on this side, it is not the one into which the young folks +of the present day are the most likely to run: the prevailing fault is +not now, whatever it may have been, to sacrifice all for love: + + Venit enim magnum donandi parca juventus, + Nec tantum Veneris quantum studiosa culinae. + +We may now, without retracting our opinion, bestow unqualified +approbation; for the distresses of the present heroine all arise from +her prudent refusal to listen to the suggestions of her heart. The +catastrophe, however, is happy, and we are left in doubt whether it +would have been better for her or not, to accept the first proposal; and +this we conceive is precisely the proper medium; for, though we would +not have prudential calculations the sole principle to be regarded in +marriage, we are far from advocating their exclusion. To disregard the +advice of sober-minded friends on an important point of conduct, is an +imprudence we would by no means recommend; indeed, it is a species of +selfishness, if, in listening only to the dictates of passion, a man +sacrifices to its gratification the happiness of those most dear to him +as well as his own; though it is not now-a-days the most prevalent form +of selfishness. But it is no condemnation of a sentiment to say, that it +becomes blameable when it interferes with duty, and is uncontrolled by +conscience: the desire of riches, power, or distinction--the taste for +ease and comfort--are to be condemned when they transgress these bounds; +and love, if it keep within them, even though it be somewhat tinged with +enthusiasm, and a little at variance with what the worldly call +prudence, _i.e._, regard for pecuniary advantage, may afford a better +moral discipline to the mind than most other passions. It will not at +least be denied, that it has often proved a powerful stimulus to +exertion where others have failed, and has called forth talents unknown +before even to the possessor. What, though the pursuit may be fruitless, +and the hopes visionary? The result may be a real and substantial +benefit, though of another kind; the vineyard may have been cultivated +by digging in it for the treasure which is never to be found. What +though the perfections with which imagination has decorated the beloved +object, may, in fact, exist but in a slender degree? still they are +believed in and admired as real; if not, the love is such as does not +merit the name; and it is proverbially true that men become assimilated +to the character (_i.e._, what they _think_ the character) of the being +they fervently adore: thus, as in the noblest exhibitions of the stage, +though that which is contemplated be but a fiction, it may be realized +in the mind of the beholder; and, though grasping at a cloud, he may +become worthy of possessing a real goddess. Many a generous sentiment, +and many a virtuous resolution, have been called forth and matured by +admiration of one, who may herself perhaps have been incapable of +either. It matters not what the object is that a man aspires to be +worthy of, and proposes as a model for imitation, if he does but +_believe_ it to be excellent. Moreover, all doubts of success (and they +are seldom, if ever, entirely wanting) must either produce or exercise +humility; and the endeavour to study another's interests and +inclinations, and prefer them to one's own, may promote a habit of +general benevolence which may outlast the present occasion. Every thing, +in short, which tends to abstract a man in any degree, or in any way, +from self,--from self-admiration and self-interest, has, so far at +least, a beneficial influence in forming the character. + +On the whole, Miss Austin's works may safely be recommended, not only as +among the most unexceptionable of their class, but as combining, in an +eminent degree, instruction with amusement, though without the direct +effort at the former, of which we have complained, as sometimes +defeating its object. For those who cannot, or will not, _learn_ +anything from productions of this kind, she has provided entertainment +which entitles her to thanks; for mere innocent amusement is in itself a +good, when it interferes with no greater: especially as it may occupy +the place of some other that may _not_ be innocent. The Eastern monarch +who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure, would +have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be +blameless. Those, again, who delight in the study of human nature, may +improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of +that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions as those before us. + + + +W. E. GLADSTONE ON TENNYSON + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1859] + +1. _Tennyson's Poems_. In Two Volumes. London, 1842. +2. _The Princess: a Medley_. London, 1847. +3. _In Memoriam_. London, 1850. +4. _Maud, and other Poems_. London, 1855. +5. _Idylls of the King_. London, 1859. + +Mr. Tennyson published his first volume, under the title of "Poems +Chiefly Lyrical," in 1830, and his second, with the name simply of +"Poems," in 1833. In 1842 he reappeared before the world in two volumes, +partly made up from the _dĂ©bris_ of his earlier pieces; and from this +time forward he came into the enjoyment of a popularity at once great, +growing, and select. With a manly resolution, which gave promise of the +rare excellence he was progressively to attain, he had at this time +amputated altogether from the collection about one-half of the contents +of his earliest work, with some considerable portion of the second; he +had almost rewritten or carefully corrected other important pieces, and +had added a volume of new compositions. + +The latter handiwork showed a great advance upon the earlier; as, +indeed, 1833 had shown upon 1830. From the very first, however, he had +been noteworthy in performance as well as in promise, and it was plain +that, whatever else might happen, at least neglect was not to be his +lot. But, in the natural heat of youth he had at the outset certainly +mixed up some trivial with a greater number of worthy productions, and +had shown an impatience of criticism by which, however excusable, he was +sure to be himself the chief sufferer. His higher gifts, too, were of +the quality which, by the changeless law of nature, cannot ripen fast; +and there was, accordingly, some portion both of obscurity and of +crudity in the results of his youthful labours. Men of slighter +materials would have come more quickly to their maturity, and might have +given less occasion not only for cavil but for animadversion. It was yet +more creditable to him, than it could be even to the just among his +critics, that he should, and while yet young, have applied himself with +so resolute a hand to the work of castigation. He thus gave a remarkable +proof alike of his reverence for his art, of his insight into its +powers, of the superiority he had acquired to all the more commonplace +illusions of self-love, and perhaps of his presaging consciousness that +the great, if they mean to fulfil the measure of their greatness, should +always be fastidious against themselves. + +It would be superfluous to enter upon any general criticism of this +collection, which was examined when still recent in this Review, and a +large portion of which is established in the familiar recollection and +favour of the public. We may, however, say that what may be termed at +large the classical idea (though it is not that of Troas nor of the +Homeric period) has, perhaps, never been grasped with greater force and +justice than in "Oenone," nor exhibited in a form of more consummate +polish. "Ulysses" is likewise a highly finished poem; but it is open to +the remark that it exhibits (so to speak) a corner-view of a character +which was in itself a _cosmos_. Never has political philosophy been +wedded to the poetic form more happily than in the three short pieces on +England and her institutions, unhappily without title, and only to be +cited, like writs of law and papal bulls, by their first words. Even +among the rejected pieces there are specimens of a deep metaphysical +insight; and this power reappears with an increasing growth of ethical +and social wisdom in "Locksley Hall" and elsewhere. The Wordsworthian +poem of "Dora" is admirable in its kind. From the firmness of its +drawing, and the depth and singular purity of its colour, "Godiva" +stood, if we judge aright, as at once a great performance and a great +pledge. But, above all, the fragmentary piece on the Death of Arthur was +a fit prelude to that lordly music which is now sounding in our ears. If +we pass onward from these volumes, it is only because space forbids a +further enumeration. + +The "Princess" was published in 1847. The author has termed it "a +medley": why, we know not. It approaches more nearly to the character of +a regular drama, with the stage directions written into verse, than any +other of his works, and it is composed consecutively throughout on the +basis of one idea. It exhibits an effort to amalgamate the place and +function of woman with that of man, and the failure of that effort, +which duly winds up with the surrender and marriage of the fairest and +chief enthusiast. It may be doubted whether the idea is one well suited +to exhibition in a quasi-dramatic form. Certainly the mode of embodying +it, so far as it is dramatic, is not successful; for here again the +persons are little better than mere _personae_. They are _media_, and +weak _media_, for the conveyance of the ideas. The poem is, +nevertheless, one of high interest, on account of the force, purity and +nobleness of the main streams of thought, which are clothed in language +full of all Mr. Tennyson's excellences; and also because it marks the +earliest effort of his mind in the direction of his latest and greatest +achievements. + + * * * * * + +With passages like these still upon the mind and ear, and likewise +having in view many others in the "Princess" and elsewhere, we may +confidently assert it as one of Mr. Tennyson's brightest distinctions +that he is now what from the very first he strove to be, and what when +he wrote "Godiva" he gave ample promise of becoming--the poet of woman. +We do not mean, nor do we know, that his hold over women as his readers +is greater than his command or influence over men; but that he has +studied, sounded, painted woman in form, in motion, in character, in +office, in capability, with rare devotion, power, and skill; and the +poet who best achieves this end does also most and best for man. + +In 1850 Mr. Tennyson gave to the world, under the title of "In +Memoriam," perhaps the richest oblation ever offered by the affection of +friendship at the tomb of the departed. The memory of Arthur Henry +Hallam, who died suddenly in 1833, at the age of twenty-two, will +doubtless live chiefly in connection with this volume; but he is well +known to have been one who, if the term of his days had been prolonged, +would have needed no aid from a friendly hand, would have built for +himself an enduring monument, and would have bequeathed to his country a +name in all likelihood greater than that of his very distinguished +father. There was no one among those who were blessed with his +friendship, nay, as we see, not even Mr. Tennyson,[1] who did not feel +at once bound closely to him by commanding affection, and left far +behind by the rapid, full, and rich development of his ever-searching +mind; by his + + All comprehensive tenderness, + All subtilising intellect. + +[1] See "In Memoriam," pp. 64, 84. + +It would be easy to show what, in the varied forms of human excellence, +he might, had life been granted him, have accomplished; much more +difficult to point the finger and to say, "This he never could have +done." Enough remains from among his early efforts to accredit whatever +mournful witness may now be borne of him. But what can be a nobler +tribute than this, that for seventeen years after his death a poet, fast +rising towards the lofty summits of his art, found that young fading +image the richest source of his inspiration, and of thoughts that gave +him buoyancy for a flight such as he had not hitherto attained? + +It would be very difficult to convey a just idea of this volume either +by narrative or by quotation. In the series of monodies or meditations +which compose it, and which follow in long series without weariness or +sameness, the poet never moves away a step from the grave of his friend, +but, while circling round it, has always a new point of view. Strength +of love, depth of grief, aching sense of loss, have driven him forth as +it were on a quest of consolation, and he asks it of nature, thought, +religion, in a hundred forms which a rich and varied imagination +continually suggests, but all of them connected by one central point, +the recollection of the dead. This work he prosecutes, not in vain +effeminate complaint, but in a manly recognition of the fruit and profit +even of baffled love, in noble suggestions of the future, in +heart-soothing and heart-chastening thoughts of what the dead was and of +what he is, and of what one who has been, and therefore still is, in +near contact with him is bound to be. The whole movement of the poem is +between the mourner and the mourned: it may be called one long +soliloquy; but it has this mark of greatness, that, though the singer is +himself a large part of the subject, it never degenerates into egotism-- +for he speaks typically on behalf of humanity at large, and in his own +name, like Dante on his mystic journey, teaches deep lessons of life and +conscience to us all. + + * * * * * + +By the time "In Memoriam" had sunk into the public mind, Mr. Tennyson +had taken his rank as our first then living poet. Over the fresh hearts +and understandings of the young, notwithstanding his obscurities, his +metaphysics, his contempt of gewgaws, he had established an +extraordinary sway. We ourselves, with some thousands of other +spectators, saw him receive in that noble structure of Wren, the theatre +of Oxford, the decoration of D.C.L., which we perceive he always wears +on his title-page. Among his colleagues in the honour were Sir De Lacy +Evans and Sir John Burgoyne, fresh from the stirring exploits of the +Crimea; but even patriotism, at the fever heat of war, could not command +a more fervent enthusiasm for the old and gallant warriors than was +evoked by the presence of Mr. Tennyson. + +In the year 1855 Mr. Tennyson proceeded to publish his "Maud," the least +popular, and probably the least worthy of popularity, among his more +considerable works. A somewhat heavy dreaminess, and a great deal of +obscurity, hang about this poem; and the effort required to dispel the +darkness of the general scheme is not repaid when we discover what it +hides. The main thread of "Maud" seems to be this:--A love once +accepted, then disappointed, leads to blood-shedding, and onward to +madness with lucid alternations. The insanity expresses itself in the +ravings of the homicide lover, who even imagines himself among the dead, +in a clamour and confusion closely resembling an ill-regulated Bedlam, +but which, if the description be a faithful one, would for ever deprive +the grave of its title to the epithet of silent. It may be good frenzy, +but we doubt its being as good poetry. Of all this there may, we admit, +be an esoteric view: but we speak of the work as it offers itself to the +common eye. Both Maud and the lover are too nebulous by far; and they +remind us of the boneless and pulpy personages by whom, as Dr. Whewell +assures us, the planet Jupiter is inhabited, if inhabited at all. But +the most doubtful part of the poem is its climax. A vision of the +beloved image (p. 97) "spoke of a hope for the world in the coming +wars," righteous wars, of course, and the madman begins to receive light +and comfort; but, strangely enough, it seems to be the wars, and not the +image, in which the source of consolation lies (p. 98). + + No more shall Commerce be all in all, and Peace + Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, + And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase. + ... a peace that was full of wrongs and shames, + Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told ... + For the long long canker of peace is over and done: + And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, + And deathful grinning mouths of the fortress, names + The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire! + +What interpretation are we meant to give to all this sound and fury? We +would fain have put it down as intended to be the finishing-stroke in +the picture of a mania which has reached its zenith. We might call in +aid of this construction more happy and refreshing passages from other +poems, as when Mr. Tennyson is + + Certain, if knowledge brings the sword, + That knowledge takes the sword away.[1] + +[1] "Poems," p. 182, ed. 1853. See also "Locksley Hall," p. 278. + +And again in "The Golden Dream,"-- + + When shall all men's good + Be each man's rule, and universal peace + Lie like a shaft of light across the land? + +And yet once more in a noble piece of "In Memoriam,"-- + + Ring out old shapes of foul disease, + Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; + Ring out the thousand wars of old, + Ring in the thousand years of peace. + +But on the other hand we must recollect that very long ago, when the +apparition of invasion from across the Channel had as yet spoiled no +man's slumbers, Mr. Tennyson's blood was already up:[2]-- + + For the French, the Pope may shrive them ... + And the merry devil drive them + Through the water and the fire. + +[2] "Poems chiefly Lyrical," 1830, p. 142. + +And unhappily in the beginning of "Maud," when still in the best use of +such wits as he possesses, its hero deals largely in kindred +extravagances (p. 7):-- + + When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, + And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones, + Is it peace or war? better war! loud war by land and by sea, + War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. + +He then anticipates that, upon an enemy's attacking this country, "the +smooth-faced, snub-nosed rogue," who typifies the bulk of the British +people, "the nation of shopkeepers," as it has been emasculated and +corrupted by excess of peace, will leap from his counter and till to +charge the enemy; and thus it is to be reasonably hoped that we shall +attain to the effectual renovation of society. + +We frankly own that our divining rod does not enable us to say whether +the poet intends to be in any and what degree sponsor to these +sentiments, or whether he has put them forth in the exercise of his +undoubted right to make vivid and suggestive representations of even the +partial and narrow aspects of some endangered truth. This is at best, +indeed, a perilous business, for out of such fervid partial +representations nearly all grave human error springs; and it should only +be pursued with caution and in season. But we do not recollect that 1855 +was a season of serious danger from a mania for peace and its pursuits; +and even if it had been so, we fear that the passages we have quoted far +overpass all the bounds of moderation and good sense. It is, indeed, +true that peace has its moral perils and temptations for degenerate man, +as has every other blessing, without exception, that he can receive from +the hand of God. It is moreover not less true that, amidst the clash of +arms, the noblest forms of character may be reared, and the highest acts +of duty done; that these great and precious results may be due to war as +their cause; and that one high form of sentiment in particular, the love +of country, receives a powerful and general stimulus from the bloody +strife. But this is as the furious cruelty of Pharaoh made place for the +benign virtue of his daughter; as the butchering sentence of Herod +raised without doubt many a mother's love into heroic sublimity; as +plague, as famine, as fire, as flood, as every curse and every scourge +that is wielded by an angry Providence for the chastisement of man, is +an appointed instrument for tempering human souls in the seven-times +heated furnace of affliction, up to the standard of angelic and +archangelic virtue. War, indeed, has the property of exciting much +generous and noble feeling on a large scale; but with this special +recommendation it has, in its modern forms especially, peculiar and +unequalled evils. As it has a wider sweep of desolating power than the +rest, so it has the peculiar quality that it is more susceptible of +being decked in gaudy trappings, and of fascinating the imagination of +those whose passions it inflames. But it is on this very account a +perilous delusion to teach that war is a cure for moral evil in any +other sense than as the sister tribulations are. The eulogies of the +frantic hero in "Maud," however, deviate into grosser folly. It is +natural that such vagaries should overlook the fixed laws of Providence; +and under these laws the mass of mankind is composed of men, women, and +children who can but just ward off hunger, cold, and nakedness; whose +whole ideas of Mammon-worship are comprised in the search for their +daily food, clothing, shelter, fuel; whom any casualty reduces to +positive want; and whose already low estimate is yet further lowered and +ground down when "the blood-red blossom of war flames with its heart of +fire." But what is a little strange is, that war should be recommended +as a specific for the particular evil of Mammon-worship. Such it never +was, even in the days when the Greek heroes longed for the booty of +Troy, and anticipated lying by the wives of its princes and its +citizens. Still it had, in times now gone by, ennobling elements and +tendencies of the less sordid kind. But one inevitable characteristic of +modern war is, that it is associated throughout, in all its particulars, +with a vast and most irregular formation of commercial enterprise. There +is no incentive to Mammon-worship so remarkable as that which it +affords. The political economy of war is now one of its most commanding +aspects. Every farthing, with the smallest exceptions conceivable, of +the scores or hundreds of millions which a war may cost, goes directly +to stimulate production, though it is intended ultimately for waste or +for destruction. Apart from the fact that war destroys every rule of +public thrift, and saps honesty itself in the use of the public treasure +for which it makes such unbounded calls, it therefore is the greatest +feeder of that lust of gold which we are told is the essence of +commerce, though we had hoped it was only its occasional besetting sin. +It is, however, more than this; for the regular commerce of peace is +tameness itself compared with the gambling spirit which war, through the +rapid shiftings and high prices which it brings, always introduces into +trade. In its moral operation it more resembles, perhaps, the finding of +a new gold-field, than anything else. Meantime, as the most wicked +mothers do not kill their offspring from a taste for the practice in the +abstract, but under the pressure of want, and as war always brings home +want to a larger circle of the people than feel it in peace, we ask the +hero of "Maud" to let us know whether war is more likely to reduce or to +multiply the horrors which he denounces? Will more babies be poisoned +amidst comparative ease and plenty, or when, as before the fall of +Napoleon, provisions were twice as dear as they now are, and wages not +much more than half as high? Romans and Carthaginians were pretty much +given to war: but no nations were more sedulous in the cult of Mammon. +Again, the Scriptures are pretty strong against Mammon-worship, but they +do not recommend this original and peculiar cure. Nay, once more: what +sad errors must have crept into the text of the prophet Isaiah when he +is made to desire that our swords shall be converted into ploughshares, +and our spears into pruning-hooks! But we have this solid consolation +after all, that Mr. Tennyson's war poetry is not comparable to his +poetry of peace. Indeed he is not here successful at all: the work, of a +lower order than his, demands the abrupt force and the lyric fire which +do not seem to be among his varied and brilliant gifts. We say more. Mr. +Tennyson is too intimately and essentially the poet of the nineteenth +century to separate himself from its leading characteristics, the +progress of physical science and a vast commercial, mechanical, and +industrial development. Whatever he may say or do in an occasional fit, +he cannot long either cross or lose its sympathies; for while he +elevates as well as adorns it, he is flesh of its flesh and bone of its +bone. We fondly believe it is his business to do much towards the +solution of that problem, so fearful from its magnitude, how to +harmonise this new draught of external power and activity with the old +and more mellow wine of faith, self devotion, loyalty, reverence, and +discipline. And all that we have said is aimed, not at Mr. Tennyson, but +at a lay-figure which he has set up, and into the mouth of which he has +put words that cannot be his words. + +We return to our proper task, "Maud," if an unintelligible or even, for +Mr. Tennyson, an inferior work, is still a work which no inferior man +could have produced; nor would it be difficult to extract abundance of +lines, and even passages, obviously worthy of their author. And if this +poem would have made while alone a volume too light for his fame, the +defect is supplied by the minor pieces, some of which are admirable. +"The Brook," with its charming interstitial soliloquy, and the "Letters" +will, we are persuaded, always rank among Mr. Tennyson's happy efforts; +while the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," written from the +heart and sealed by the conscience of the poet, is worthy of that great +and genuine piece of manhood, its immortal subject. + +We must touch for a moment upon what has already been mentioned as a +separate subject of interest in the "Princess." We venture to describe +it as in substance a drama, with a plot imperfectly worked and with +characters insufficiently chiselled and relieved. Its author began by +presenting, and for many years continued to present, personal as well as +natural pictures of individual attitude or movement; and, as in "Oenone" +and "Godiva," he carried them to a very high pitch of perfection. But he +scarcely attempted, unless in his more homely narrations, anything like +grouping or combination. It now appears that for the higher effort he +has been gradually accumulating and preparing his resources. In the +sections of the prolonged soliloquy of "Maud" we see a crude attempt at +representing combined interests and characters with heroic elevation, +under the special difficulty of appearing, like Mathews, in one person +only; in the "Princess" we had a happier effort, though one that still +left more to be desired. Each, however, in its own stage was a +preparation for an enterprise at once bolder and more mature. + +We now come to the recent work of the poet--the "Idylls of the King." +The field, which Mr. Tennyson has chosen for this his recent and far +greatest exploit, is one of so deep and wide-reaching an interest as to +demand some previous notice of a special kind. + +Lofty example in comprehensive forms is, without doubt, one of the great +standing needs of our race. To this want it has been from the first one +main purpose of the highest poetry to answer. The quest of Beauty leads +all those who engage in it to the ideal or normal man as the summit of +attainable excellence. By no arbitrary choice, but in obedience to +unchanging laws, the painter and the sculptor must found their art upon +the study of the human form, and must reckon its successful reproduction +as their noblest and most consummate exploit. The concern of Poetry with +corporal beauty is, though important, yet secondary: this art uses form +as an auxiliary, as a subordinate though proper part in the delineation +of mind and character, of which it is appointed to be a visible organ. +But with mind and character themselves lies the highest occupation of +the Muse. Homer, the patriarch of poets, has founded his two immortal +works upon two of these ideal developments in Achilles and Ulysses; and +has adorned them with others, such as Penelope and Helen, Hector and +Diomed, every one an immortal product, though as compared with the +others either less consummate or less conspicuous. Though deformed by +the mire of after-tradition, all the great characters of Homer have +become models and standards, each in its own kind, for what was, or was +supposed to be, its distinguishing gift. + +At length, after many generations and great revolutions of mind and of +events, another age arrived, like, if not equal, in creative power to +that of Homer. The Gospel had given to the whole life of man a real +resurrection, and its second birth was followed by its second youth. +This rejuvenescence was allotted to those wonderful centuries which +popular ignorance confounds with the dark ages properly so called--an +identification about as rational as if we were to compare the life +within the womb to the life of intelligent though early childhood. +Awakened to aspirations at once fresh and ancient, the mind of man took +hold of the venerable ideals bequeathed to us by the Greeks as a +precious part of its inheritance, and gave them again to the light, +appropriated but also renewed. The old materials came forth, but not +alone; for the types which human genius had formerly conceived were now +submitted to the transfiguring action of a law from on high. Nature +herself prompted the effort to bring the old patterns of worldly +excellence and greatness--or rather the copies of those patterns still +legible, though depraved, and still rich with living suggestion--into +harmony with that higher Pattern, once seen by the eyes and handled by +the hands of men, and faithfully delineated in the Gospels for the +profit of all generations. The life of our Saviour, in its external +aspect, was that of a teacher. It was in principle a model for all, but +it left space and scope for adaptations to the lay life of Christians in +general, such as those by whom the every-day business of the world is to +be carried on. It remained for man to make his best endeavour to exhibit +the great model on its terrestrial side, in its contact with the world. +Here is the true source of that new and noble cycle which the middle +ages have handed down to us in duality of form, but with a nearly +identical substance, under the royal sceptres of Arthur in England and +of Charlemagne in France. + +Of the two great systems of Romance, one has Lancelot, the other has +Orlando for its culminating point; these heroes being exhibited as the +respective specimens in whose characters the fullest development of man, +such as he was then conceived, was to be recognised. The one put forward +Arthur for the visible head of Christendom, signifying and asserting its +social unity; the other had Charlemagne. Each arrays about the Sovereign +a fellowship of knights. In them Valour is the servant of Honour; in an +age of which violence is the besetting danger, the protection of the +weak is elevated into a first principle of action; and they betoken an +order of things in which Force should be only known as allied with +Virtue, while they historically foreshadow the magnificent aristocracy +of mediaeval Europe. The one had Guinevere for the rarest gem of beauty, +the other had Angelica. Each of them contained figures of approximation +to the knightly model, and in each these figures, though on the whole +secondary, yet in certain aspects surpassed it: such were Sir Tristram, +Sir Galahad, Sir Lamoracke, Sir Gawain, Sir Geraint, in the Arthurian +cycle; Rinaldo and Ruggiero, with others, in the Carlovingian. They were +not twin systems, but they were rather twin investitures of the same +scheme of ideals and feelings. Their consanguinity to the primitive +Homeric types is proved by a multitude of analogies of character and by +the commanding place which they assign to Hector as the flower of human +excellence. Without doubt, this preference was founded on his supposed +moral superiority to all his fellows in Homer; and the secondary prizes +of strength, valour, and the like, were naturally allowed to group +themselves around what, under the Christian scheme, had become the +primary ornament of man. The near relation of the two cycles to one +another may be sufficiently seen in the leading references we have made, +and it runs into a multitude of details both great and small, of which +we can only note a few. In both the chief hero passes through a +prolonged term of madness. Judas, in the College of Apostles, is +represented under Charlemagne in Gano di Maganza and his house, who +appear, without any development in action, in the Arthurian romance as +"the traitours of Magouns," and who are likewise reflected in Sir +Modred, Sir Agravain, and others; while the Mahometan element, which has +a natural place ready made in a history that acknowledges Charlemagne +and France, for its centres, finds its way sympathetically into one +which is bound for the most part by the shores of Albion. Both schemes +cling to the tradition of the unity of the Empire as well as of +Christendom; and accordingly, what was historical in Charlemagne is +represented in the case of Arthur by an imaginary conquest reaching as +far as Rome, the capital of the West: even the sword _Durindana_ has its +counterpart in the sword _Excalibur_. + +The moral systems of the two cycles are essentially allied: and perhaps +the differences between them may be due in greater or in less part to +the fact that they come to us through different _media_. We of the +nineteenth century read the Carlovingian romance in the pages of Ariosto +and Bojardo, who gave to their materials the colour of their times, and +of a civilization rank in some respects, while still unripe in some +others. The genius of poetry was not at the same period applying its +transmuting force to the Romance of the Round Table. The date of Sir +Thomas Mallory, who lived under Edward IV, is something earlier than +that of the great Italian romances; he appears, too, to have been on the +whole content with the humble offices of a compiler and a chronicler, +and we may conceive that his spirit and diction are still older than his +date. The consequence is, that we are brought into more immediate and +fresher contact with the original forms of this romance. So that, as +they present themselves to us, the Carlovingian cycle is the child of +the latest middle age, while the Arthurian represents the earlier. Much +might be said on the differences which have thus arisen, and on those +which may be due to a more northern and more southern extraction +respectively. Suffice it to say that the Romance of the Round Table, far +less vivid and brilliant, far ruder as a work of skill and art, has more +of the innocence, the emotion, the transparency, the inconsistency of +childhood. Its political action is less specifically Christian than that +of the rival scheme, its individual more so. It is more directly and +seriously aimed at the perfection of man. It is more free from gloss and +varnish; it tells its own tale with more entire simplicity. The ascetic +element is more strongly, and at the same time more quaintly, developed. +It has a higher conception of the nature of woman; and like the Homeric +poems, appears to eschew exhibiting her perfections in alliance with +warlike force and exploits. So also love, while largely infused into the +story, is more subordinate to the exhibition of other qualities. Again, +the Romance of the Round Table bears witness to a more distinct and +keener sense of sin: and on the whole, a deeper, broader, and more manly +view of human character, life, and duty. It is in effect more like what +the Carlovingian cycle might have been had Dante moulded it. It hardly +needs to be added that it is more mythical, inasmuch as Arthur of the +Round Table is a personage, we fear, wholly doubtful, though not +impossible; while the broad back of the historic Charlemagne, like +another Atlas, may well sustain a world of mythical accretions. This +slight comparison, be it remarked, refers exclusively to what may be +termed the latest "redactions" of the two cycles of romance. Their early +forms, in the lays of troubadours, and in the pages of the oldest +chroniclers, offer a subject of profound interest, and one still +unexhausted, although it has been examined by Mr. Panizzi and M. +Fauriel,[1] but one which is quite beyond the scope of our present +subject. + +[1] Essay on the Romantic Narrative Poetry of the Italians: London, + 1830. Histoire de la PoĂ©sie Provençale: Paris, 1846. + +It is to this rich repository that Mr. Tennyson has resorted for his +material. He has shown, as we think, rare judgment in the choice. The +Arthurian Romance has every recommendation that should win its way to +the homage of a great poet. It is national: it is Christian. It is also +human in the largest and deepest sense; and, therefore, though highly +national, it is universal; for it rests upon those depths and breadths +of our nature to which all its truly great developments in all nations +are alike essentially and closely related. The distance is enough for +atmosphere, not too much for detail; enough for romance, not too much +for sympathy. A poet of the nineteenth century, the Laureate has adopted +characters, incidents, and even language in the main, instead of +attempting to project them on a basis of his own in the region of +illimitable fancy. But he has done much more than this. Evidently by +reading and by deep meditation, as well as by sheer force of genius, he +has penetrated himself down to the very core of his being, with all that +is deepest and best in the spirit of the time, or the representation, +with which he deals; and as others, using old materials, have been free +to alter them in the sense of vulgarity or licence, so he has claimed +and used the right to sever and recombine, to enlarge, retrench, and +modify, for the purposes at once of a more powerful and elaborate art +than his original presents, and of a yet more elevated, or at least of a +far more sustained, ethical and Christian strain. + +We are rather disposed to quarrel with the title of Idylls: for no +diminutive ([Greek: _eidullion_]) can be adequate to the breadth, +vigour, and majesty which belong to the subjects, as well as to the +execution, of the volume. The poet used the name once before; but he +then applied it to pieces generally small in the scale of their +delineations, whereas these, even if broken away one from the other, are +yet like the disjoined figures from the pediment of the Parthenon in +their dignity and force. One indeed among Mr. Tennyson's merits is, that +he does not think it necessary to keep himself aloft by artificial +effort, but undulates with his matter, and flies high or low as it +requires. But even in the humblest parts of these poems--as where the +little Novice describes the miniature sorrows and discipline of +childhood--the whole receives its tone from an atmosphere which is +heroic, and which, even in its extremest simplicity, by no means parts +company with grandeur, or ceases to shine in the reflected light of the +surrounding objects. Following the example which the poet has set us in +a former volume, we would fain have been permitted, at least +provisionally, to call these Idylls by the name of Books. Term them what +we may, there are four of them--arranged, as we think, in an ascending +scale. + +The simplicity and grace of the principal character in Enid, with which +the volume opens, touches, but does not too strongly agitate, the deeper +springs of feeling. She is the beautiful daughter of Earl Yniol, who, by +his refusal of a turbulent neighbour as a suitor, has drawn upon himself +the ruin of his fortunes, and is visited in his depressed condition by +(p. 1)-- + + The brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur's court, + A tributary prince of Devon, one + Of that great order of the Table Round.... + +Geraint wins her against the detested cousin. They wed, and she becomes +the purest gem of the court of Guinevere, her place in which is +described in the beautiful exordium of the poem. An accident, slight +perhaps for the weight it is made to carry, arouses his jealousy, and he +tries her severely by isolation and rude offices on one of his tours; +but her gentleness, purity, and patience are proof against all, and we +part from the pair in a full and happy reconciliation, which is +described in lines of a beauty that leaves nothing to be desired. + +The treatment of Enid by her husband has appeared to some of Mr. +Tennyson's readers to be unnatural. It is no doubt both in itself +repulsive, and foreign to our age and country. But the brutal element in +man, which now only invades the conjugal relation in cases where it is +highly concentrated, was then far more widely diffused, and not yet +dissociated from alternations and even habits of attachment. Something +of what we now call Eastern manners at one time marked the treatment +even of the women of the West. Unnatural means contrary to nature, +irrespectively of time or place; but time and place explain and warrant +the treatment of Enid by Geraint. + +Vivien, which follows Enid, is perhaps the least popular of the four +Books. No pleasure, we grant, can be felt from the character either of +the wily woman, between elf and fiend, or of the aged magician, whose +love is allowed to travel whither none of his esteem or regard can +follow it: and in reading this poem we miss the pleasure of those +profound moral harmonies, with which the rest are charged. But we must +not on these grounds proceed to the conclusion that the poet has in this +case been untrue to his aims. For he has neither failed in power, nor +has he led our sympathies astray; and if we ask why he should introduce +us to those we cannot love, there is something in the reply that Poetry, +the mirror of the world, cannot deal with its attractions only, but must +present some of its repulsions also, and avail herself of the powerful +assistance of its contrasts. The example of Homer, who allows Thersites +to thrust himself upon the scene in the debates of heroes, gives a +sanction to what reason and all experience teach, namely, the actual +force of negatives in heightening effect; and the gentle and noble +characters and beautiful combinations, which largely predominate in the +other poems, stand in far clearer and bolder relief when we perceive the +dark and baleful shadow of Vivien lowering from between them. + +Vivien exhibits a well-sustained conflict between the wizard and, in +another sense, the witch; on one side is the wit of woman, on the other +are the endowments of the prophet and magician, at once more and less +than those of nature. She has heard from him of a charm, a charm of +"woven paces, and of waving hands," which paralyses its victim for ever +and without deliverance, and her object is to extract from him the +knowledge of it as a proof of some return for the fervid and boundless +love that she pretends. We cannot but estimate very highly the skill +with which Mr. Tennyson has secured to what seemed the weaker vessel the +ultimate mastery in the fight. Out of the eater comes forth meat. When +she seems to lose ground with him by her slander against the Round Table +which he loved, she recovers it by making him believe that she saw all +other men, "the knights, the Court, the King, dark in his light": and +when in answer to her imprecation on herself a fearful thunderbolt +descends and storm rages, then, nestling in his bosom, part in fear but +more in craft, she overcomes the last remnant of his resolution, wins +the secret she has so indefatigably wooed, and that instant uses it to +close in gloom the famous career of the over-mastered sage. + + * * * * * + +Nowhere could we more opportunely than at this point call attention to +Mr. Tennyson's extraordinary felicity and force in the use of metaphor +and simile. This gift appears to have grown with his years, alike in +abundance, truth, and grace. As the showers descend from heaven to +return to it in vapour, so Mr. Tennyson's loving observation of Nature, +and his Muse, seem to have had a compact of reciprocity well kept on +both sides. When he was young, and when "Oenone" was first published, he +almost boasted of putting a particular kind of grasshopper into Troas, +which, as he told us in a note, was probably not to be found there. It +is a small but yet an interesting and significant indication that, when +some years after he retouched the poem, he omitted the note, and +generalised the grasshopper. Whether we are right or not in taking this +for a sign of the movement of his mind, there can be no doubt that his +present use of figures is both the sign and the result of a reverence +for Nature alike active, intelligent, and refined. Sometimes applying +the metaphors of Art to Nature, he more frequently draws the materials +of his analogies from her unexhausted book, and, however often he may +call for some new and beautiful vehicle of illustration, she seems never +to withhold an answer. With regard to this particular and very critical +gift, it seems to us that he may challenge comparison with almost any +poet either of ancient or modern times. We have always been accustomed +to look upon Ariosto as one of the greatest among the masters of the art +of metaphor and simile; and it would be easy to quote from him instances +which in tenderness, grace, force, or all combined, can never be +surpassed. But we have rarely seen the power subjected to a greater +trial than in the passages just quoted from Mr. Tennyson, where metaphor +lies by metaphor as thick as shells upon their bed; yet each +individually with its outline as well drawn, its separateness as clear, +its form as true to nature, and with the most full and harmonious +contribution to the general effect. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tennyson practises largely, and with an extraordinary skill and +power, the art of designed and limited repetitions. They bear a +considerable resemblance to those Homeric _formulae_ which have been so +usefully remarked by Colonel Mure--not the formulae of constant +recurrence, which tells us who spoke and who answered, but those which +are connected with pointing moral effects, and with ulterior purpose. +These repetitions tend at once to give more definite impressions of +character, and to make firmer and closer the whole tissue of the poem. +Thus, in the last speech of Guinevere, she echoes back, with other ideas +and expressions, the sentiment of Arthur's affection, which becomes in +her mouth sublime:-- + + I must not scorn myself: he loves me still: + Let no one dream but that he loves me still. + +She prays admission among the nuns, that she may follow the pious and +peaceful tenor of their life (p. 260):-- + + And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer + The sombre close of that voluptuous day + Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King. + +And it is but a debt of justice to the Guinevere of the romancers to +observe, that she loses considerably by the marked transposition which +Mr. Tennyson has effected in the order of greatness between Lancelot and +Arthur. With him there is an original error in her estimate, +independently of the breach of a positive and sacred obligation. She +prefers the inferior man; and this preference implies a rooted ethical +defect in her nature. In the romance of Sir T. Mallory the preference +she gives to Lancelot would have been signally just, had she been free +to choose. For Lancelot is of an indescribable grandeur; but the limit +of Arthur's character is thus shown in certain words that he uses, and +that Lancelot never could have spoken. "Much more I am sorrier for my +good knight's loss than for the loss of my queen; for queens might I +have enough, but, such a fellowship of good knights shall never be +together in company." + +We began with the exordium of this great work: we must not withhold the +conclusion. We left her praying admission to the convent-- + + She said. They took her to themselves; and she, + Still hoping, fearing, "is it yet too late?" + Dwelt with them, till in time their Abbess died. + Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life, + And for the power of ministration in her, + And likewise for the high rank she had borne, + Was chosen Abbess: there, an Abbess, lived + For three brief years; and there, an Abbess, pass'd + To where beyond these voices there is peace. + +No one, we are persuaded, can read this poem without feeling, when it +ends, what may be termed the pangs of vacancy--of that void in heart and +mind for want of its continuance of which we are conscious when some +noble strain of music ceases, when some great work of Raphael passes +from the view, when we lose sight of some spot connected with high +associations, or when some transcendent character upon the page of +history disappears, and the withdrawal of it is like the withdrawal of +the vital air. We have followed the Guinevere of Mr. Tennyson through +its detail, and have extracted largely from its pages, and yet have not +a hope of having conveyed an idea of what it really is; still we have +thought that in this way we should do it the least injustice, and we are +also convinced that even what we have shown will tend to rouse an +appetite, and that any of our readers, who may not yet have been also +Mr. Tennyson's, will become more eager to learn and admire it at first +hand. + +We have no doubt that Mr. Tennyson has carefully considered how far his +subject is capable of fulfilling the conditions of an epic structure. +The history of Arthur is not an epic as it stands, but neither was the +Cyclic song, of which the greatest of all epics, the "Iliad," handles a +part. The poem of Ariosto is scarcely an epic, nor is that of Bojardo; +but it is not this because each is too promiscuous and crowded in its +brilliant phantasmagoria to conform to the severe laws of that lofty and +inexorable class of poem? Though the Arthurian romance be no epic, it +does not follow that no epic can be made from out of it. It is grounded +in certain leading characters, men and women, conceived upon models of +extraordinary grandeur; and as the Laureate has evidently grasped the +genuine law which makes man and not the acts of man the base of epic +song, we should not be surprised were he hereafter to realize the great +achievement towards which he seems to be feeling his way. There is a +moral unity and a living relationship between the four poems before us, +and the first effort of 1842 as a fifth, which, though some considerable +part of their contents would necessarily rank as episode, establishes +the first and most essential condition of their cohesion. The +achievement of Vivien bears directly on the state of Arthur by +withdrawing his chief councillor--the brain, as Lancelot was the right +arm, of his court; the love of Elaine is directly associated with the +final catastrophe of the passion of Lancelot for Guinevere. Enid lies +somewhat further off the path, nor is it for profane feet to intrude +into the sanctuary, for reviewers to advise poets in these high matters; +but while we presume nothing, we do not despair of seeing Mr. Tennyson +achieve on the basis he has chosen the structure of a full-formed epic. + +In any case we have a cheerful hope that, if he continues to advance +upon himself as he has advanced heretofore, nay, if he can keep the +level he has gained, such a work will be the greatest, and by far the +greatest poetical creation, that, whether in our own or in foreign +poetry, the nineteenth century has produced. In the face of all critics, +the Laureate of England has now reached a position which at once imposes +and instils respect. They are self-constituted; but he has won his way +through the long dedication of his manful energies, accepted and crowned +by deliberate, and, we rejoice to think, by continually growing, public +favour. He has after all, and it is not the least nor lowest item in his +praise, been the severest of his own critics, and has not been too proud +either to learn or to unlearn in the work of maturing his genius and +building up his fame. + +From his very first appearance he has had the form and fashion of a true +poet: the insight into beauty, the perception of harmony, the faculty of +suggestion, the eye both in the physical and moral world for motion, +light, and colour, the sympathetic and close observation of nature, the +dominance of the constructive faculty, and that rare gift the thorough +mastery and loving use of his native tongue. Many of us, the common +crowd, made of the common clay, may be lovers of Nature, some as sincere +or even as ardent as Mr. Tennyson; but it does not follow that even +these favoured few possess the privilege that he enjoys. To them she +speaks through vague and indeterminate impressions: for him she has a +voice of the most delicate articulation; all her images to him are clear +and definite, and he translates them for us into that language of +suggestion, emphasis, and refined analogy which links the manifold to +the simple and the infinite to the finite. He accomplishes for us what +we should in vain attempt for ourselves, enables the puny hand to lay +hold on what is vast, and brings even coarseness of grasp into a real +contact with what is subtle and ethereal. His turn for metaphysical +analysis is closely associated with a deep ethical insight: and many of +his verses form sayings of so high a class that we trust they are +destined to form a permanent part of the household-words of England. + +Considering the quantity of power that Mr. Tennyson can make available, +it is a great proof of self-discipline that he is not given to a wanton +or tyrannous use of it. An extraordinary master of diction, he has +confined himself to its severe and simple forms. In establishing this +rule of practice his natural gift has evidently been aided by the fine +English of the old romances, and we might count upon the fingers the +cases in which he has lately deviated into the employment of any stilted +phrase, or given sanction to a word not of the best fabric. Profuse in +the power of graphic[1] representation, he has chastened some of his +earlier groups of imagery, which were occasionally overloaded with +particulars; and in his later works, as has been well remarked, he has +shown himself thoroughly aware that in poetry half is greater than the +whole. That the chastity of style he has attained is not from exhaustion +of power may easily be shown. No poet has evinced a more despotic +mastery over intractable materials, or has been more successful in +clothing what is common with the dignity of his art. The Downs are not +the best subjects in the world for verse; but they will be remembered +with and by his descriptive line in the "Idylls"-- + + Far o'er the long backs of the bushless downs. + +[1] We use the word in what we conceive to be its only legitimate + meaning; namely, after the manner and with the effect of painting. + It signifies the _quid_, not the _quale_. + +How becoming is the appearance of what we familiarly term the "clod" in +the "Princess"! (p. 37)-- + + Nor those horn-handled breakers of the glebe. + +Of all imaginable subjects, mathematics might seem the most hopeless to +make mention of in verse; but they are with him + + The hard-grained Muses of the cube and square. + +Thus at a single stroke he gives an image alike simple, true, and +poetical to boot, because suited to its place and object in his verse, +like the heavy Caryatides well placed in architecture. After this, we +may less esteem the feat by which in "Godiva" he describes the clock +striking mid-day:-- + + All at once, + With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon + Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers. + + +But even the contents of a pigeon-pie are not beneath his notice, nor +yet beyond his powers of embellishment, in "Audley Court":-- + + A pasty, costly made, + Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay + Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks + Imbedded and injellied. + +What excites more surprise is that he can, without any offence against +good taste, venture to deal with these contents even after they have +entered the mouth of the eater ("Enid," p. 79):-- + + The brawny spearman let his cheek + Bulge with the unswallowed piece, and turning, stared. + +The delicate insight of fine taste appears to show him with wonderful +precision up to what point his art can control and compel his materials, +and from what point the materials are in hopeless rebellion and must be +let alone. So in the "Princess" (p. 89) we are introduced to-- + + Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men, + Huge women _blowzed_ with health, and wind, and rain, + And labour. + +It was absolutely necessary for him to heighten, nay, to coarsen, the +description of these masses of animated beef, who formed the standing +army of the woman-commonwealth. Few would have obeyed this law without +violating another; but Mr. Tennyson saw that the verb was admissible, +while the adjective would have been intolerable. + +In 1842 his purging process made it evident that he did not mean to +allow his faults or weaknesses to stint the growth and mar the +exhibition of his genius. When he published "In Memoriam" in 1850, all +readers were conscious of the progressive widening and strengthening, +but, above all, deepening of his mind. We cannot hesitate to mark the +present volume as exhibiting another forward and upward stride, and that +by perhaps the greatest of all, in his career. If we are required to +show cause for this opinion under any special head, we would at once +point to that which is, after all, the first among the poet's gifts--the +gift of conceiving and representing human character. + +Mr. Tennyson's Arthurian essays continually suggest to us comparisons +not so much with any one poet as a whole, but rather with many or most +of the highest poets. The music and the just and pure modulation of his +verse carry us back not only to the fine ear of Shelley, but to Milton +and to Shakespeare: and his powers of fancy and of expression have +produced passages which, if they are excelled by that one transcendent +and ethereal poet of our nation whom we have last named, yet could have +been produced by no other English minstrel. Our author has a right to +regard his own blank verse as highly characteristic and original: but +yet Milton has contributed to its formation, and occasionally there is a +striking resemblance in turn and diction, while Mr. Tennyson is the more +idiomatic of the two. The chastity and moral elevation of this volume, +its essential and profound though not didactic Christianity, are such as +perhaps cannot be matched throughout the circle of English literature in +conjunction with an equal power: and such as to recall a pattern which +we know not whether Mr. Tennyson has studied, the celestial strain of +Dante.[1] This is the more remarkable, because he has had to tread upon +the ground which must have been slippery for any foot but his. We are +far from knowing that either Lancelot or Guinevere would have been safe +even for mature readers, were it not for the instinctive purity of his +mind and the high skill of his management. We do not know that in other +times they have had their noble victims, whose names have become +immortal as their own. + + Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto + Di Lancilotto, e come amor lo strinse. + * * * * * + Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse.[2] + +[1] It is no reproach to say that neither Dante nor Homer could have + been studied by Mr. Tennyson at the time--a very early period of his + life--when he wrote the lines which are allotted to them + respectively in "The Palace of Art." +[2] "Inferno," c. V, v. 127. + +How difficult it is to sustain the elevation of such a subject, may be +seen in the well-meant and long popular "Jane Shore" of Rowe. How easily +this very theme may be vulgarised, is shown in the _"Chevaliers de la +Table Ronde"_ of M. CreuzĂ© de Lesser, who nevertheless has aimed at a +peculiar delicacy of treatment. + +But the grand poetical quality in which this volume gives to its author +a new rank and standing is the dramatic power: the power of drawing +character and of representing action. These faculties have not been +precocious in Mr. Tennyson: but what is more material, they have come +out in great force. He has always been fond of personal delineations, +from Claribel and Lilian down to his Ida, his Psyche, and his Maud; but +they have been of shadowy quality, doubtful as to flesh and blood, and +with eyes having little or no speculation in them. But he is far greater +and far better when he has, as he now has, a good raw material ready to +his hand, than when he draws only on the airy or chaotic regions of what +Carlyle calls unconditioned possibility. He is made not so much to +convert the moor into the field, as the field into the rich and gorgeous +garden. The imperfect _nisus_ which might be remarked in some former +works has at length reached the fulness of dramatic energy: in the +Idylls we have nothing vague or dreamy to complain of: everything lives +and moves, in the royal strength of nature: the fire of Prometheus has +fairly caught the clay: every figure stands clear, broad, and sharp +before us, as if it had sky for its background: and this of small as +well as great, for even the "little novice" is projected on the canvas +with the utmost truth and vigour, and with that admirable effect in +heightening the great figure of Guinevere, which Patroclus produces for +the character of Achilles, and (as some will have it) the modest +structure of Saint Margaret's for the giant proportions of Westminster +Abbey. And this, we repeat, is the crowning gift of the poet: the power +of conceiving and representing man. + +We do not believe that a Milton--or, in other words, the writer of a +"Paradise Lost"--could ever be so great as a Shakespeare or a Homer, +because (setting aside all other questions) his chief characters are +neither human, nor can they be legitimately founded upon humanity; and, +moreover, what he has to represent of man is, by the very law of its +being, limited in scale and development. Here at least the saying is a +true one: _Antiquitas saeculi, juventus mundi;_ rendered by our poet in +"The Day-dream," + + For we are ancients of the earth, + And in the morning of the times. + +The Adam and Eve of Paradise exhibit to us the first inception of our +race; and neither then, nor after their first sad lesson, could they +furnish those materials for representation, which their descendants have +accumulated in the school of their incessant and many-coloured, but on +the whole too gloomy, experience. To the long chapters of that +experience every generation of man makes its own addition. Again we ask +the aid of Mr. Tennyson in "Locksley Hall":-- + + Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, + And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. + +The substitution of law for force has indeed altered the relations of +the strong and the weak; the hardening or cooling down of political +institutions and social traditions, the fixed and legal track instead of +the open pathless field, have removed or neutralised many of those +occasions and passages of life, which were formerly the schools of +individual character. The genius of mechanism has vied, in the arts of +both peace and war, with the strong hand, and has well-nigh robbed it of +its place. But let us not be deceived by that smoothness of superficies, +which the social prospect offers to the distant eye. Nearness dispels +the illusion; life is still as full of deep, of ecstatic, of harrowing +interests as it ever was. The heart of man still beats and bounds, +exults and suffers, from causes which are only less salient and +conspicuous because they are more mixed and diversified. It still +undergoes every phase of emotion, and even, as seems probable, with a +susceptibility which has increased and is increasing, and which has its +index and outer form in the growing delicacy and complexities of the +nervous system. Does any one believe that ever at any time there was a +greater number of deaths referable to that comprehensive cause a broken +heart? Let none fear that this age, or any coming one, will extinguish +the material of poetry. The more reasonable apprehension might be lest +it should sap the vital force necessary to handle that material, and +mould it into appropriate forms. To those especially, who cherish any +such apprehension, we recommend the perusal of this volume. Of it we +will say without fear, what we would not dare to say of any other recent +work; that of itself it raises the character and the hopes of the age +and the country which have produced it, and that its author, by his own +single strength, has made a sensible addition to the permanent wealth of +mankind. + + + +CANON WILBERFORCE ON DARWIN + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1860] + +_On the Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection; or the +Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life._ By CHARLES +DARWIN, M.A., F.R.S. London, 1860. + +Any contribution to our Natural History literature from the pen of Mr. +C. Darwin is certain to command attention. His scientific attainments, +his insight and carefulness as an observer, blended with no scanty +measure of imaginative sagacity, and his clear and lively style, make +all his writings unusually attractive. His present volume on the _Origin +of Species_ is the result of many years of observation, thought, and +speculation; and is manifestly regarded by him as the "opus" upon which +his future fame is to rest. It is true that he announces it modestly +enough as the mere precursor of a mightier volume. But that volume is +only intended to supply the facts which are to support the completed +argument of the present essay. In this we have a specimen-collection of +the vast accumulation; and, working from these as the high analytical +mathematician may work from the admitted results of his conic sections, +he proceeds to deduce all the conclusions to which he wishes to conduct +his readers. + +The essay is full of Mr. Darwin's characteristic excellences. It is a +most readable book; full of facts in natural history, old and new, of +his collecting and of his observing; and all of these are told in his +own perspicuous language, and all thrown into picturesque combinations, +and all sparkle with the colours of fancy and the lights of imagination. +It assumes, too, the grave proportions of a sustained argument upon a +matter of the deepest interest, not to naturalists only, or even to men +of science exclusively, but to every one who is interested in the +history of man and of the relations of nature around him to the history +and plan of creation. + +With Mr. Darwin's "argument" we may say in the outset that we shall have +much and grave fault to find. But this does not make us the less +disposed to admire the singular excellences of his work; and we will +seek _in limine_ to give our readers a few examples of these. Here, for +instance, is a beautiful illustration of the wonderful interdependence +of nature--of the golden chain of unsuspected relations which bind +together all the mighty web which stretches from end to end of this full +and most diversified earth. Who, as he listened to the musical hum of +the great humble-bees, or marked their ponderous flight from flower to +flower, and watched the unpacking of their trunks for their work of +suction, would have supposed that the multiplication or diminution of +their race, or the fruitfulness and sterility of the red clover, depend +as directly on the vigilance of our cats as do those of our well-guarded +game-preserves on the watching of our keepers? Yet this Mr. Darwin has +discovered to be literally the case:-- + + From experiments which I have lately tried, I have found that the + visits of bees are necessary for the fertilisation of some kinds of + clover; but humble-bees alone visit the red clover (Trifolium + pratense), as other bees cannot reach the nectar. Hence I have very + little doubt, that if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or + very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very + rare or wholly disappear. The number of humble-bees in any district + depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice, which destroy + their combs and nests; and Mr. H. Newman, who has long attended to the + habits of humble-bees, believes that "more than two-thirds of them are + thus destroyed all over England." Now the number of mice is largely + dependent, as every one knows, on the number of cats; and Mr. Newman + says, "near villages and small towns I have found the nests of + humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the + number of cats that destroy the mice." Hence, it is quite credible + that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district + might determine, through the intervention, first of mice, and then of + bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district.--p. 74. + + * * * * * + +Now, all this is, we think, really charming writing. We feel as we walk +abroad with Mr. Darwin very much as the favoured object of the attention +of the dervise must have felt when he had rubbed the ointment around his +eye, and had it opened to see all the jewels, and diamonds, and +emeralds, and topazes, and rubies, which were sparkling unregarded +beneath the earth, hidden as yet from all eyes save those which the +dervise had enlightened. But here we are bound to say our pleasure +terminates; for, when we turn with Mr. Darwin to his "argument," we are +almost immediately at variance with him. It is as an "argument" that the +essay is put forward; as an argument we will test it. + +We can perhaps best convey to our readers a clear view of Mr. Darwin's +chain of reasoning, and of our objections to it, if we set before them, +first, the conclusion to which he seeks to bring them; next, the leading +propositions which he must establish in order to make good his final +inference; and then the mode by which he endeavours to support his +propositions. + +The conclusion, then, to which Mr. Darwin would bring us is, that all +the various forms of vegetable and animal life with which the globe is +now peopled, or of which we find the remains preserved in a fossil state +in the great Earth-Museum around us, which the science of geology +unlocks for our instruction, have come down by natural succession of +descent from father to son,--"animals from at most four or five +progenitors, and plants from an equal or less number" (p. 484), as Mr. +Darwin at first somewhat diffidently suggests; or rather, as, growing +bolder when he has once pronounced his theory, he goes on to suggest to +us, from one single head:-- + + Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that ALL + ANIMALS and PLANTS have descended from some one prototype. But analogy + may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless, all living things have much in + common in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their + cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction.... + + Therefore I shall infer from analogy that probably all the organic + beings which have ever lived on this earth (man therefore of course + included) have descended from some one primordial form into which life + was first breathed by the Creator.--p. 484. + +This is the theory which really pervades the whole volume. Man, beast, +creeping thing, and plant of the earth, are all the lineal and direct +descendants of some one individual _ens_, whose various progeny have +been simply modified by the action of natural and ascertainable +conditions into the multiform aspect of life which we see around us. +This is undoubtedly at first sight a somewhat startling conclusion to +arrive at. To find that mosses, grasses, turnips, oaks, worms, and +flies, mites and elephants, infusoria and whales, tadpoles of to-day and +venerable saurians, truffles and men, are all equally the lineal +descendants of the same aboriginal common ancestor, perhaps of the +nucleated cell of some primaeval fungus, which alone possessed the +distinguishing honour of being the "one primordial form into which life +was first breathed by the Creator "--this, to say the least of it, is no +common discovery--no very expected conclusion. But we are too loyal +pupils of inductive philosophy to start back from any conclusion by +reason of its strangeness. Newton's patient philosophy taught him to +find in the falling apple the law which governs the silent movements of +the stars in their courses; and if Mr. Darwin can with the same +correctness of reasoning demonstrate to us our fungular descent, we +shall dismiss our pride, and avow, with the characteristic humility of +philosophy, our unsuspected cousinship with the mushrooms,-- + + Claim kindred there, and have our claim allowed, + +--only we shall ask leave to scrutinise carefully every step of the +argument which has such an ending, and demur if at any point of it we +are invited to substitute unlimited hypothesis for patient observation, +or the spasmodic fluttering flight of fancy for the severe conclusions +to which logical accuracy of reasoning has led the way. + +Now, the main propositions by which Mr. Darwin's conclusion is attained +are these:-- + +1. That observed and admitted variations spring up in the course of +descents from a common progenitor. + +2. That many of these variations tend to an improvement upon the parent +stock. + +3. That, by a continued selection of these improved specimens as the +progenitors of future stock, its powers may be unlimitedly increased. + +4. And, lastly, that there is in nature a power continually and +universally working out this selection, and so fixing and augmenting +these improvements. + +Mr. Darwin's whole theory rests upon the truth of these propositions and +crumbles utterly away if only one of them fail him. These, therefore, we +must closely scrutinise. We will begin with the last in our series, both +because we think it the newest and the most ingenious part of Mr. +Darwin's whole argument, and also because, whilst we absolutely deny the +mode in which he seeks to apply the existence of the power to help him +in his argument, yet we think that he throws great and very interesting +light upon the fact that such self-acting power does actively and +continuously work in all creation around us. + +Mr. Darwin finds then the disseminating and improving power, which he +needs to account for the development of new forms in nature, in the +principle of "Natural Selection," which is evolved in the strife for +room to live and flourish which is evermore maintained between +themselves by all living things. One of the most interesting parts of +Mr. Darwin's volume is that in which he establishes this law of natural +selection; we say establishes, because--repeating that we differ from +him totally in the limits which he would assign to its action--we have +no doubt of the existence or of the importance of the law itself. + + * * * * * + +We come then to these conclusions. All the facts presented to us in the +natural world tend to show that none of the variations produced in the +fixed forms of animal life, when seen in its most plastic condition +under domestication, give any promise of a true transmutation of +species; first, from the difficulty of accumulating and fixing +variations within the same species; secondly, from the fact that these +variations, though most serviceable for man, have no tendency to improve +the individual beyond the standard of his own specific type, and so to +afford matter, even if they were infinitely produced, for the supposed +power of natural selection on which to work; whilst all variations from +the mixture of species are barred by the inexorable law of hybrid +sterility. Further, the embalmed records of 3,000 years show that there +has been no beginning of transmutation in the species of our most +familiar domesticated animals; and beyond this, that in the countless +tribes of animal life around us, down to its lowest and most variable +species, no one has ever discovered a single instance of such +transmutation being now in prospect; no new organ has ever been known to +be developed--no new natural instinct to be formed--whilst, finally, in +the vast museum of departed animal life which the strata of the earth +imbed for our examination, whilst they contain far too complete a +representation of the past to be set aside as a mere imperfect record, +yet afford no one instance of any such change as having ever been in +progress, or give us anywhere the missing links of the assumed chain, or +the remains which would enable now existing variations, by gradual +approximations, to shade off into unity. On what then is the new theory +based? We say it with unfeigned regret, in dealing with such a man as +Mr. Darwin, on the merest hypothesis, supported by the most unbounded +assumptions. These are strong words, but we will give a few instances to +prove their truth:-- + + All physiologists admit that the swim-bladder is homologous or + "ideally similar" in position and structure with the lungs of the + higher vertebrate animals; hence there _seems to me to be no great + difficulty in believing_ that natural selection has actually converted + a swim-bladder into a lung, or organ used exclusively for + respiration.--p. 191. + + _I can indeed hardly doubt_ that all vertebrate animals having true + lungs have descended by ordinary generation from the ancient + prototype, of which we know nothing, furnished with a floating + apparatus or swim-bladder--p. 191. + +We must be cautious + + In concluding that the most different habits of all _could not_ + graduate into each other; that a bat, for instance, _could not_ have + been formed by natural selection from an animal which at first could + only glide through the air.--p. 204. + +Again:-- + + _I see no difficulty in supposing_ that such links formerly existed, + and that each had been formed by the same steps as in the case of the + less perfectly gliding squirrels, and that each grade of structure was + useful to its possessor. Nor _can I see any insuperable difficulty in + further believing_ it possible that the membrane-connected fingers and + forearm of the galeopithecus might be greatly lengthened by natural + selection, and this, as far as the organs of flight are concerned, + would convert it into a bat.--p. 181. + + For instance, a swim-bladder has _apparently_ been converted into an + air-breathing lung.--p. 181. + +And again:-- + + The electric organs of fishes offer another case of special + difficulty: It is impossible to conceive by what steps these wondrous + organs have been produced; but, as Owen and others have remarked, + their intimate structure closely resembles that of common muscle; and + as it has lately been shown that rays have an organ closely analogous + to the electric apparatus, and yet do not, as Matteucci asserts, + discharge any electricity, we must own that we are far too ignorant to + argue that _no transition of any kind is possible._--pp. 192-3. + +Sometimes Mr. Darwin seems for a moment to recoil himself from this +extravagant liberty of speculation, as when he says, concerning the +eye,-- + + To suppose that the eye, with its inimitable contrivances for + adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different + amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic + aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I + freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.--p. 186. + +But he soon returns to his new wantonness of conjecture, and, without +the shadow of a fact, contents himself with saying that-- + + he _suspects_ that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to + light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which + produce sound.--p-187. + +And in the following passage he carries this extravagance to the highest +pitch, requiring a licence for advancing as true any theory which cannot +be demonstrated to be actually impossible:-- + + If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, _which + could not possibly_ have been formed by numerous, successive, slight + modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find + no such case.--p. 189. + +Another of these assumptions is not a little remarkable. It suits his +argument to deduce all our known varieties of pigeons from the +rock-pigeon (the Columba livia), and this parentage is traced out, +though not, we think, to demonstration, yet with great ingenuity and +patience. But another branch of the argument would be greatly +strengthened by establishing the descent of our various breeds of dogs +with their perfect power of fertile inter-breeding from different +natural species. And accordingly, though every fact as to the canine +race is parallel to the facts which have been used before to establish +the common parentage of the pigeons in Columba livia, all these are +thrown over in a moment, and Mr. Darwin, first assuming, without the +shadow of proof, that our domestic breeds are descended from different +species, proceeds calmly to argue from this, as though it were a +demonstrated certainty. + + It _seems to me unlikely_ in the case of the dog-genus, which is + distributed in a wild state throughout the world, that since man first + appeared one species alone should have been domesticated.--p. 18. + + In some cases _I do not doubt_ that the intercrossing of species + aboriginally distinct has played an important part in the origin of + our domestic productions.--p. 43. + +What new words are these for a loyal disciple of the true Baconian +philosophy?--"I can conceive"--"It is not incredible"--"I do not doubt" +--"It is conceivable." + + For myself, _I venture confidently_ to look back thousands on + thousands of generations, and I see an animal striped like a zebra, + but perhaps otherwise very differently constructed, the common parent + of our domestic horse, whether or not it be descended from one or more + wild stocks of the ass, hemionous, quagga, or zebra.--p. 167. + +In the name of all true philosophy we protest against such a mode of +dealing with nature, as utterly dishonourable to all natural science, as +reducing it from its present lofty level of being one of the noblest +trainers of man's intellect and instructors of his mind, to being a mere +idle play of the fancy, without the basis of fact or the discipline of +observation. In the "Arabian Nights" we are not offended as at an +impossibility when Amina sprinkles her husband with water and transforms +him into a dog, but we cannot open the august doors of the venerable +temple of scientific truth to the genii and magicians of romance. We +plead guilty to Mr. Darwin's imputation that + + the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one species + has given birth to other and distinct species is that we are always + slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the + intermediate steps.--p. 481. + +In this tardiness to admit great changes suggested by the imagination, +but the steps of which we cannot see, is the true spirit of philosophy. + + Analysis, says Professor Sedgwick, consists in making experiments and + observations, and in drawing general conclusions from them by + induction, and admitting of no objections against the conclusions but + such as are taken from experiments or other certain truths; for + _hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental philosophy._[1] + +[1] "A Discourse on the Studies of the University," by A. Sedgwick, p. + 102. + +The other solvent which Mr. Darwin most freely and, we think, +unphilosophically employs to get rid of difficulties, is his use of +time. This he shortens or prolongs at will by the mere wave of his +magician's rod. Thus the duration of whole epochs, during which certain +forms of animal life prevailed, is gathered up into a point, whilst an +unlimited expanse of years, "impressing his mind with a sense of +eternity," is suddenly interposed between that and the next series, +though geology proclaims the transition to have been one of gentle and, +it may be, swift accomplishment. All this too is made the more startling +because it is used to meet the objections drawn from facts. "We see none +of your works," says the observer of nature; "we see no beginnings of +the portentous change; we see plainly beings of another order in +creation, but we find amongst them no tendencies to these altered +organisms." "True," says the great magician, with a calmness no +difficulty derived from the obstinacy of facts can disturb; "true, but +remember the effect of time. Throw in a few hundreds of millions of +years more or less, and why should not all these changes be possible, +and, if possible, why may I not assume them to be real?" + +Together with this large licence of assumption we notice in this book +several instances of receiving as facts whatever seems to bear out the +theory upon the slightest evidence, and rejecting summarily others, +merely because they are fatal to it. We grieve to charge upon Mr. Darwin +this freedom in handling facts, but truth extorts it from us. That the +loose statements and unfounded speculations of this book should come +from the author of the monograms on Cirripedes, and the writer, in the +natural history of the Voyage of the "Beagle," of the paper on the Coral +Reefs, is indeed a sad warning how far the love of a theory may seduce +even a first-rate naturalist from the very articles of his creed. + +This treatment of facts is followed up by another favourite line of +argument, namely, that by this hypothesis difficulties otherwise +inextricable are solved. Such passages abound. Take a few, selected +almost at random, to illustrate what we mean:-- + + How inexplicable are these facts on the ordinary view of creation!--p. + 436. + + Such facts as the presence of peculiar species of bats and the absence + of other mammals on oceanic islands are utterly inexplicable on the + theory of independent acts of creation.--pp. 477-8. + + It must be admitted that these facts receive no explanation on the + theory of creation.--p. 478. + + The inhabitants of the Cape de Verde Islands are related to those of + Africa, like those of the Galapagos to America. I believe this grand + fact can receive no sort of explanation on the ordinary view of + independent creation.--pp. 398-9. + +Now what can be more simply reconcilable with that theory than Mr. +Darwin's own account of the mode in which the migration of animal life +from one distant region to another is continually accomplished? + +Take another of these suggestions:-- + + It is inexplicable, on the theory of creation, why a part developed in + a very unusual manner in any one species of a genus, and therefore, as + we may naturally infer, of great importance to the species, should be + eminently liable to variation.--p. 474. + +Why "inexplicable"? Such a liability to variation might most naturally +be expected in the part "unusually developed," because such unusual +development is of the nature of a monstrosity, and monsters are always +tending to relapse into likeness to the normal type. Yet this argument +is one on which he mainly relies to establish his theory, for he sums +all up in this triumphant inference:-- + + I cannot believe that a false theory would explain, as it seems to me + that the theory of natural selection does explain, the several large + classes of facts above specified.--p. 480. + +Now, as to all this, we deny, first, that many of these difficulties are +"inexplicable on any other supposition." Of the greatest of them (128, +194) we shall have to speak before we conclude. We will here touch only +on one of those which are continually reappearing in Mr. Darwin's pages, +in order to illustrate his mode of dealing with them. He finds, then, +one of these "inexplicable difficulties" in the fact, that the young of +the blackbird, instead of resembling the adult in the colour of its +plumage, is like the young of many other birds spotted, and triumphantly +declaring that-- + + No one will suppose that the stripes on the whelp of a lion, or the + spots on the young blackbird, are of any use to these animals, or are + related to the conditions to which they are exposed.--pp. 439-40-- + +he draws from them one of his strongest arguments for this alleged +community of descent. Yet what is more certain to every observant +field-naturalist than that this alleged uselessness of colouring is one +of the greatest protections to the young bird, imperfect in its flight, +perching on every spray, sitting unwarily on every bush through which +the rays of sunshine dapple every bough to the colour of its own +plumage, and so give it a facility of escape which it would utterly want +if it bore the marked and prominent colours, the beauty of which the +adult bird needs to recommend him to his mate, and can safely bear with +his increased habits of vigilance and power of wing? + +But, secondly, as to many of these difficulties, the alleged solving of +which is one great proof of the truth of Mr. Darwin's theory, we are +compelled to join issue with him on another ground, and deny that he +gives us any solution at all. Thus, for instance, Mr. Darwin builds a +most ingenious argument on the tendency of the young of the horse, ass, +zebra, and quagga, to bear on their shoulders and on their legs certain +barred stripes. Up these bars (bars sinister, as we think, as to any +true descent of existing animals from their fancied prototype) he mounts +through his "thousands and thousands of generations," to the existence +of his "common parent, otherwise perhaps very differently constructed, +but striped like a zebra."--(p. 67.) "How inexplicable," he exclaims, +"on the theory of creation, is the occasional appearance of stripes on +the shoulder and legs of several species of the horse genus and in their +hybrids!"--(p. 473.) He tells us that to suppose that each species was +created with a tendency "like this, is to make the works of God a mere +mockery and deception"; and he satisfies himself that all difficulty is +gone when he refers the stripes to his hypothetical thousands on +thousands of years removed progenitor. But how is his difficulty really +affected? for why is the striping of one species a less real difficulty +than the striping of many? + +Another instance of this mode of dealing with his subject, to which we +must call the attention of our readers, because it too often recurs, is +contained in the following question:-- + + Were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created + as eggs, or seed, or as full grown? and, in the case of mammals, were + they created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's + womb?--p. 483. + +The difficulty here glanced at is extreme, but it is one for the +solution of which the transmutation-theory gives no clue. It is inherent +in the idea of the creation of beings, which are to reproduce their like +by natural succession; for, in such a world, place the first beginning +where you will, that beginning _must_ contain the apparent history of a +_past_, which existed only in the mind of the Creator. If, with Mr. +Darwin, to escape the difficulty of supposing the first man at his +creation to possess in that framework of his body "false marks of +nourishment from his mother's womb," with Mr. Darwin you consider him to +have been an improved ape, you only carry the difficulty up from the +first man to the first ape; if, with Mr. Darwin, in violation of all +observation, you break the barrier between the classes of vegetable and +animal life, and suppose every animal to be an "improved" vegetable, you +do but carry your difficulty with you into the vegetable world; for, how +could there be seeds if there had been no plants to seed them? and if +you carry up your thoughts through the vista of the Darwinian eternity +up to the primaeval fungus, still the primaeval fungus must have had a +humus, from which to draw into its venerable vessels the nourishment of +its archetypal existence, and that humus must itself be a "false mark" +of a pre-existing vegetation. + +We have dwelt a little upon this, because it is by such seeming +solutions of difficulties as that which this passage supplies that the +transmutationist endeavours to prop up his utterly rotten fabric of +guess and speculation. + +There are no parts of Mr. Darwin's ingenious book in which he gives the +reins more completely to his fancy than where he deals with the +improvement of instinct by his principle of natural selection. We need +but instance his assumption, without a fact on which to build it, that +the marvellous skill of the honey-bee in constructing its cells is thus +obtained, and the slave-making habits of the Formica Polyerges thus +formed. There seems to be no limit here to the exuberance of his fancy, +and we cannot but think that we detect one of those hints by which Mr. +Darwin indicates the application of his system from the lower animals to +man himself, when he dwells so pointedly upon the fact that it is always +the _black_ ant which is enslaved by his other coloured and more +fortunate brethren. "The slaves are black!" We believe that, if we had +Mr. Darwin in the witness-box, and could subject him to a moderate +cross-examination, we should find that he believed that the tendency of +the lighter-coloured races of mankind to prosecute the negro slave-trade +was really a remains, in their more favoured condition, of the +"extraordinary and odious instinct" which had possessed them before they +had been "improved by natural selection" from Formica Polyerges into +Homo. This at least is very much the way in which (p. 479) he slips in +quite incidentally the true identity of man with the horse, the bat, and +the porpoise:-- + + The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a + bat, fin of a porpoise, and leg of the horse, the same number of + vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and of the elephant, and + innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory + of descent with slow and slight successive modifications.--p. 479. + +Such assumptions as these, we once more repeat, are most dishonourable +and injurious to science; and though, out of respect to Mr. Darwin's +high character and to the tone of his work, we have felt it right to +weigh the "argument" again set by him before us in the simple scales of +logical examination, yet we must remind him that the view is not a new +one, and that it has already been treated with admirable humour when +propounded by another of his name and of his lineage. We do not think +that, with all his matchless ingenuity, Mr. Darwin has found any +instance which so well illustrates his own theory of the improved +descendant under the elevating influences of natural selection +exterminating the progenitor whose specialities he has exaggerated as he +himself affords us in this work. For if we go back two generations we +find the ingenious grandsire of the author of the _Origin of Species_ +speculating on the same subject, and almost in the same manner with his +more daring descendant. + + * * * * * + +Our readers will not have failed to notice that we have objected to the +views with which we have been dealing solely on scientific grounds. We +have done so from our fixed conviction that it is thus that the truth or +falsehood of such arguments should be tried. We have no sympathy with +those who object to any facts or alleged facts in nature, or to any +inference logically deduced from them, because they believe them to +contradict what it appears to them is taught by Revelation. We think +that all such objections savour of a timidity which is really +inconsistent with a firm and well-instructed faith:-- + + "Let us for a moment," profoundly remarks Professor Sedgwick, "suppose + that there are some religious difficulties in the conclusions of + geology. How, then, are we to solve them? Not by making a world after + a pattern of our own--not by shifting and shuffling the solid strata + of the earth, and then dealing them out in such a way as to play the + game of an ignorant or dishonest hypothesis--not by shutting our eyes + to facts, or denying the evidence of our senses--but by patient + investigation, carried on in the sincere love of truth, and by + learning to reject every consequence not warranted by physical + evidence."[1] + +He who is as sure as he is of his own existence that the God of Truth is +at once the God of Nature and the God of Revelation, cannot believe it +to be possible that His voice in either, rightly understood, can differ, +or deceive His creatures. To oppose facts in the natural world because +they seem to oppose Revelation, or to humour them so as to compel them +to speak its voice, is, he knows, but another form of the ever-ready +feebleminded dishonesty of lying for God, and trying by fraud or +falsehood to do the work of the God of truth. It is with another and a +nobler spirit that the true believer walks amongst the works of nature. +The words graven on the everlasting rocks are the words of God, and they +are graven by His hand. No more can they contradict His Word written in +His book, than could the words of the old covenant graven by His hand on +the stony tables contradict the writings of His hand in the volume of +the new dispensation. There may be to man difficulty in reconciling all +the utterances of the two voices. But what of that? He has learned +already that here he knows only in part, and that the day of reconciling +all apparent contradictions between what must agree is nigh at hand. He +rests his mind in perfect quietness on this assurance, and rejoices in +the gift of light without a misgiving as to what it may discover:-- + + "A man of deep thought and great practical wisdom," says Sedgwick,[2] + "one whose piety and benevolence have for many years been shining + before the world, and of whose sincerity no scoffer (of whatever + school) will dare to start a doubt, recorded his opinion in the great + assembly of the men of science who during the past year were gathered + from every corner of the Empire within the walls of this University, + 'that Christianity had everything to hope and nothing to fear from the + advancement of philosophy.'"[3] + +[1] "A Discourse on the Studies of the University," p. 149. +[2] Ibid., p. 153. +[3] Speech of Dr. Chalmers at the Meeting of the British Association + for the Advancement of Science, June, 1833. + +This is as truly the spirit of Christianity as it is that of philosophy. +Few things have more deeply injured the cause of religion than the busy +fussy energy with which men, narrow and feeble alike in faith and in +science, have bustled forth to reconcile all new discoveries in physics +with the word of inspiration. For it continually happens that some +larger collection of facts, or some wider view of the phenomena of +nature, alter the whole philosophic scheme; whilst Revelation has been +committed to declare an absolute agreement with what turns out after all +to have been a misconception or an error. We cannot, therefore, consent +to test the truth of natural science by the Word of Revelation. But this +does not make it the less important to point out on scientific grounds +scientific errors, when those errors tend to limit God's glory in +creation, or to gainsay the revealed relations of that creation to +Himself. To both these classes of error, though, we doubt not, quite +unintentionally on his part, we think that Mr. Darwin's speculations +directly tend. + +Mr. Darwin writes as a Christian, and we doubt not that he is one. We do +not for a moment believe him to be one of those who retain in some +corner of their hearts a secret unbelief which they dare not vent; and +we therefore pray him to consider well the grounds on which we brand his +speculations with the charge of such a tendency. First, then, he not +obscurely declares that he applies his scheme of the action of the +principle of natural selection to MAN himself, as well as to the animals +around him. Now, we must say at once, and openly, that such a notion is +absolutely incompatible not only with single expressions in the word of +God on that subject of natural science with which it is not immediately +concerned, but, which in our judgment is of far more importance, with +the whole representation of that moral and spiritual condition of man +which is its proper subject-matter. Man's derived supremacy over the +earth; man's power of articulate speech; man's gift of reason; man's +free-will and responsibility; man's fall and man's redemption; the +incarnation of the Eternal Son; the indwelling of the Eternal Spirit,-- +all are equally and utterly irreconcilable with the degrading notion of +the brute origin of him who was created in the image of God, and +redeemed by the Eternal Son assuming to himself his nature. Equally +inconsistent, too, not with any passing expressions, but with the whole +scheme of God's dealings with man as recorded in His word, is Mr. +Darwin's daring notion of man's further development into some unknown +extent of powers, and shape, and size, through natural selection acting +through that long vista of ages which he casts mistily over the earth +upon the most favoured individuals of his species. We care not in these +pages to push the argument further. We have done enough for our purpose +in thus succinctly intimating its course. If any of our readers doubt +what must be the result of such speculations carried to their logical +and legitimate conclusion, let them turn to the pages of _Oken_, and see +for themselves the end of that path the opening of which is decked out +in these pages with the bright hues and seemingly innocent deductions of +the transmutation-theory. + +Nor can we doubt, secondly, that this view, which thus contradicts the +revealed relation of creation to its Creator, is equally inconsistent +with the fullness of His glory. It is, in truth, an ingenious theory for +diffusing throughout creation the working and so the personality of the +Creator. And thus, however unconsciously to him who holds them, such +views really tend inevitably to banish from the mind most of the +peculiar attributes of the Almighty. + +How, asks Mr. Darwin, can we possibly account for the manifest plan, +order, and arrangement which pervade creation, except we allow to it +this self-developing power through modified descent? + + As Milne-Edwards has well expressed it, Nature is prodigal in variety, + but niggard in innovation. Why, on the theory of creation, should this + be so? Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, + each supposed to have been separately created for its proper place in + nature, be so commonly linked together by graduated steps? Why should + not Nature have taken a leap from structure to structure?--p. 194. + +And again:-- + + It is a truly wonderful fact--the wonder of which we are apt to + overlook from familiarity--that all animals and plants throughout all + time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to + group, in the manner which we everywhere behold, namely, varieties of + the same species most closely related together, species of the same + genus less closely and unequally related together, forming sections + and sub-genera, species of distinct genera much less closely related, + and genera related in different degrees, forming sub-families, + families, orders, sub-classes, and classes.--pp. 128-9. + +How can we account for all this? By the simplest and yet the most +comprehensive answer. By declaring the stupendous fact that all creation +is the transcript in matter of ideas eternally existing in the mind of +the Most High--that order in the utmost perfectness of its relation +pervades His works, because it exists as in its centre and highest +fountain-head in Him the Lord of all. Here is the true account of the +fact which has so utterly misled shallow observers, that Man himself, +the Prince and Head of this creation, passes in the earlier stages of +his being through phases of existence closely analogous, so far as his +earthly tabernacle is concerned, to those in which the lower animals +ever remain. At that point of being the development of the protozoa is +arrested. Through it the embryo of their chief passes to the perfection +of his earthly frame. But the types of those lower forms of being must +be found in the animals which never advance beyond them--not in man for +whom they are but the foundation for an after-development; whilst he +too, Creation's crown and perfection, thus bears witness in his own +frame to the law of order which pervades the universe. + +In like manner could we answer every other question as to which Mr. +Darwin thinks all oracles are dumb unless they speak his speculation. He +is, for instance, more than once troubled by what he considers +imperfections in Nature's work. "If," he says, "our reason leads us to +admire with enthusiasm a multitude of inimitable contrivances in Nature, +this same reason tells us that some other contrivances are less +perfect." + + Nor ought we to marvel if all the contrivances in nature be not, as + far as we can judge, absolutely perfect; and if some of them be + abhorrent to our idea of fitness. We need not marvel at the sting of + the bee causing the bee's own death; at drones being produced in such + vast numbers for one single act, and with the great majority + slaughtered by their sterile sisters; at the astonishing waste of + pollen by our fir-trees; at the instinctive hatred of the queen-bee + for her own fertile daughters; at ichneumonidae feeding within the + live bodies of caterpillars; and at other such cases. The wonder + indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the + want of absolute perfection have not been observed.--p. 472. + +We think that the real temper of this whole speculation as to nature +itself may be read in these few lines. It is a dishonouring view of +nature. + +That reverence for the work of God's hands with which a true belief in +the All-wise Worker fills the believer's heart is at the root of all +great physical discovery; it is the basis of philosophy. He who would +see the venerable features of Nature must not seek with the rudeness of +a licensed roysterer violently to unmask her countenance; but must wait +as a learner for her willing unveiling. There was more of the true +temper of philosophy in the poetic fiction of the Pan-ic shriek, than in +the atheistic speculations of Lucretius. But this temper must beset +those who do in effect banish God from nature. And so Mr. Darwin not +only finds in it these bungling contrivances which his own greater skill +could amend, but he stands aghast before its mightier phenomena. The +presence of death and famine seems to him inconceivable on the ordinary +idea of creation; and he looks almost aghast at them until reconciled to +their presence by his own theory that "a ratio of increase so high as to +lead to a struggle for life, and as a consequence to natural selection +entailing divergence of character and the extinction of less improved +forms, is decidedly followed by the most exalted object which we are +capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals" (p. +490). But we can give him a simpler solution still for the presence of +these strange forms of imperfection and suffering amongst the works of +God. + +We can tell him of the strong shudder which ran through all this world +when its head and ruler fell. When he asks concerning the infinite +variety of these multiplied works which are set in such an orderly +unity, and run up into man as their reasonable head, we can tell him of +the exuberance of God's goodness and remind him of the deep philosophy +which lies in those simple words--"All thy works praise Thee, O God, and +thy saints give thanks unto Thee." For it is one office of redeemed man +to collect the inarticulate praises of the material creation, and pay +them with conscious homage into the treasury of the supreme Lord. + + * * * * * + +It is by putting restraint upon fancy that science is made the true +trainer of our intellect:-- + + "A study of the Newtonian philosophy," says Sedgwick, "as affecting + our moral powers and capacities, does not terminate in mere negations. + It teaches us to see the finger of God in all things animate and + inaminate [Transcriber's note: sic], and gives us an exalted + conception of His attributes, placing before us the clearest proof of + their reality; and so prepares, or ought to prepare, the mind for the + reception of that higher illumination which brings the rebellious + faculties into obedience to the Divine will."--_Studies of the + University_, p. 14. + +It is by our deep conviction of the truth and importance of this view +for the scientific mind of England that we have been led to treat at so +much length Mr. Darwin's speculation. The contrast between the sober, +patient, philosophical courage of our home philosophy, and the writings +of Lamarck and his followers and predecessors, of MM. Demaillet, Bory de +Saint Vincent, Virey, and Oken,[1] is indeed most wonderful; and it is +greatly owing to the noble tone which has been given by those great men +whose words we have quoted to the school of British science. That Mr. +Darwin should have wandered from this broad highway of nature's works +into the jungle of fanciful assumption is no small evil. We trust that +he is mistaken in believing that he may count Sir C. Lyell as one of his +converts. We know indeed the strength of the temptations which he can +bring to bear upon his geological brother. The Lyellian hypothesis, +itself not free from some of Mr. Darwin's faults, stands eminently in +need for its own support of some such new scheme of physical life as +that propounded here. Yet no man has been more distinct and more logical +in the denial of the transmutation of species than Sir C. Lyell, and +that not in the infancy of his scientific life, but in its full vigour +and maturity. + +[1] It may be worth while to exhibit to our readers a few of Dr. Oken's + postulates or arguments as specimens of his views:-- + I wrote the first edition of 1810 in a kind of inspiration. + 4. Spirit is the motion of mathematical ideas. + 10. Physio-philosphy [Transcriber's note: sic] has to ... pourtray + the first period of the world's development from nothing; how the + elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method by + self-evolution into higher and manifold forms they separated into + minerals, became finally organic, and in man attained + self-consciousness. + 42. The mathematical monad is eternal. + 43. The eternal is one and the same with the zero of mathematics. + + +Sir C. Lyell devotes the 33rd to the 36th chapter of his "Principles of +Geology" to an examination of this question. He gives a clear account of +the mode in which Lamarck supported his belief of the transmutation of +species; he interrupts the author's argument to observe that "no +positive fact is cited to exemplify the substitution of some _entirely +new_ sense, faculty, or organ--because no examples were to be found"; +and remarks that when Lamarck talks of "the effects of internal +sentiment," etc., as causes whereby animals and plants may acquire _new +organs_, he substitutes names for things, and with a disregard to the +strict rules of induction, resorts to fictions. + +He shows the fallacy of Lamarck's reasoning, and by anticipation +confutes the whole theory of Mr. Darwin, when gathering clearly up into +a few heads the recapitulation of the whole argument in favour of the +reality of species in nature. He urges:--[Transcriber's note: numbering +in original] + +1. That there is a capacity in all species to accommodate themselves to +a certain extent to a change of external circumstances. + +4. The entire variation from the original type ... may usually be +effected in a brief period of time, after which no further deviation can +be obtained. + +5. The intermixing distinct species is guarded against by the sterility +of the mule offspring. + +6. It appears that species have a real existence in nature, and that +each was endowed at the time of its creation with the attributes and +organization by which it is now distinguished.[1] + +[1] "Principles of Geology," edit. 1853. + +We trust that Sir C. Lyell abides still by these truly philosophical +principles; and that with his help and with that of his brethren this +flimsy speculation may be as completely put down as was what in spite of +all denials we must venture to call its twin though less-instructed +brother, the "Vestiges of Creation." In so doing they will assuredly +provide for the strength and continually growing progress of British +science. + +Indeed, not only do all laws for the study of nature vanish when the +great principle of order pervading and regulating all her processes is +given up, but all that imparts the deepest interest in the investigation +of her wonders will have departed too. Under such influences a man soon +goes back to the marvelling stare of childhood at the centaurs and +hippogriffs of fancy, or if he is of a philosophic turn, he comes like +Oken to write a scheme of creation under "a sort of inspiration"; but it +is the frenzied inspiration of the inhaler of mephitic gas. The whole +world of nature is laid for such a man under a fantastic law of glamour, +and he becomes capable of believing anything: to him it is just as +probable that Dr. Livingstone will find the next tribe of negroes with +their heads growing under their arms as fixed on the summit of the +cervical vertebrae; and he is able, with a continually growing neglect +of all the facts around him, with equal confidence and equal delusion, +to look back to any past and to look on to any future. + + + + +ON CARDINAL NEWMAN + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1864] + +_Apologia pro Vita suĂ¢_. By JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D. + +Few books have been published of late years which combine more distinct +elements of interest than the "Apologia" of Dr. Newman. As an +autobiography, in the highest sense of that word, as the portraiture, +that is, and record of what the man was, irrespective of those common +accidents of humanity which too often load the biographer's pages, it is +eminently dramatic. To produce such a portrait was the end which the +writer proposed to himself, and which he has achieved with a rare +fidelity and completeness. Hardly do the "Confessions of St. Augustine" +more vividly reproduce the old African Bishop before successive +generations in all the greatness and struggles of his life than do these +pages the very inner being of this remarkable man--"the living +intelligence," as he describes it, "by which I write, and argue, and +act" (p. 47). No wonder that when he first fully recognised what he had +to do, he + + shrank from both the task and the exposure which it would entail. I + must, I said, give the true key to my whole life; I must show what I + am, that it may be seen what I am not, and that the phantom may be + extinguished which gibbers instead of me. I wish to be known as a + living man, and not as a scarecrow which is dressed up in my + clothes.... I will draw out, as far as may be, the history of my mind; + I will state the point at which I began, in what external suggestion + or accident each opinion had its rise, how far and how they were + developed from within, how they grew, were modified, were combined, + were in collision with each other, and were changed. Again, how I + conducted myself towards them; and how, and how far, and for how long + a time, I thought I could hold them consistently with the + ecclesiastical engagements which I had made, and with the position + which I filled.... It is not at all pleasant for me to be egotistical + nor to be criticised for being so. It is not pleasant to reveal to + high and low, young and old, what has gone on within me from my early + years. It is not pleasant to be giving to every shallow or flippant + disputant the advantage over me of knowing my most private thoughts, I + might even say the intercourse between myself and my Maker. + --pp. 47-51. + +Here is the task he set himself, and the task which he has performed. +There is in these pages an absolute revealing of the hidden life in its +acting, and its processes, which at times is almost startling, which is +everywhere of the deepest interest. For the life thus revealed is well +worthy of the pen by which it is portrayed. Of all those who, in these +later years, have quitted the Church of England for the Roman communion +--esteemed, honoured, and beloved, as were many of them--no one, save +Dr. Newman, appears to us to possess the rare gift of undoubted genius. + +That life, moreover, which anywhere and at any time must have marked its +own character on his fellows, was cast precisely at the time and place +most favourable for stamping upon others the impress of itself. The +plate was ready to receive and to retain every line of the image which +was thrown so vividly upon it. The history, therefore, of this life in +its shifting scenes of thought, feeling, and purpose, becomes in fact +the history of a school, a party, and a sect. From its effect on us, +who, from without, judge of it with critical calmness, we can form some +idea of what must be its power on those who were within the charmed +ring; who were actually under the wand of the enchanter, for whom there +was music in that voice, fascination in that eye, and habitual command +in that spare but lustrous countenance; and who can trace again in this +retrospect the colours and shadows which in those years which fixed +their destiny, passed, though in less distinct hues, into their own +lives, and made them what they are. + +Again, in another aspect, the "Apologia" will have a special interest +for most of our readers. Almost every page of it will throw some light +upon the great controversy which has been maintained for these three +hundred years, and which now spreads itself throughout the world, +between the Anglican Church and her oldest and greatest antagonist, the +Papal See.... + +The first names to which it introduces us indicate the widely-differing +influences under which was formed that party within our Church which has +acted so powerfully and in such various directions upon its life and +teaching. They are those of Mr.--afterwards Archbishop--Whately and Dr. +Hawkins, afterwards and still the Provost of Oriel College. To +intercourse with both of whom Dr. Newman attributes great results in the +formation of his own character: the first emphatically opening his mind +and teaching him to use his reason, whilst in religious opinion he +taught him the existence of a church, and fixed in him Anti-Erastian +views of Church polity; the second being a man of most exact mind, who +through a course of severe snubbing taught him to weigh his words and be +cautious in his statements. + +To an almost unknown degree, Oriel had at that time monopolised the +active speculative intellect of Oxford. Her fellowships being open, +whilst those of other Colleges were closed, drew to her the ablest men +of the University: whilst the nature of the examination for her +fellowships, which took no note of ordinary University honours, and +stretched boldly out beyond inquiries as to classical and mathematical +attainments in everything which could test the dormant powers of the +candidates, had already impressed upon the Society a distinctive +character of intellectual excellence. The late Lord Grenville used at +this time to term an Oriel Fellowship the Blue Ribbon of the University; +and, undoubtedly, the results of those examinations have been +marvellously confirmed by the event, if we think to what an extent the +mind, and opinions, and thoughts of England have been moulded by them +who form the list of those "Orielenses," of whom it was said in an +academic squib of the time, with some truth, flavoured perhaps with a +spice of envy, that they were wont to enter the academic circle "under a +flourish of trumpets." Such a "flourish" certainly has often preceded +the entry of far lesser men than E. Coplestone, E. Hawkins, J. Davison, +J. Keble, R. Whately, T. Arnold, E.B. Pusey, J. H. Newman, H. Froude, R. +J. Wilberforce, S. Wilberforce, G. A. Denison, &c., &c. + +Into a Society leavened with such intellectual influences as these, Dr. +Newman, soon after taking his degree, was ushered. It could at this time +have borne no distinctively devout character in its religious aspect. +Rather must it have been marked by the opposite of this. Whately, whose +powerful and somewhat rude intellect must almost have overawed the +common room when the might of Davison had been taken from it, was, with +all his varied excellences, never by any means an eminently devout, +scarcely perhaps an orthodox man. All his earlier writings bristle with +paradoxes, which affronted the instincts of simpler and more believing +minds. Whately, accordingly, appears in these pages as "generous and +warmhearted--particularly loyal to his friends" (p. 68); as teaching +his pupil "to see with my own eyes and to walk with my own feet"; yet as +exercising an influence over him (p. 69) which, "in a higher respect +than intellectual advance, had not been satisfactory," under which he +"was beginning to prefer intellectual excellence to moral, was drifting +in the direction of liberalism"; a "dream" out of which he was "rudely +awakened at the end of 1827, by two great blows--illness and +bereavement" (p. 72). + +Though this change in his views is traced by Dr. Newman to the action of +these strictly personal causes of illness and bereavement, yet other +influences, we suspect, were working strongly in the same direction. It +is plain that, so far as regards early permanent impression on the +character of his religious opinions, the influence of Whately was +calculated rather to stir up reaction than to win a convert. "Whately's +mind," he says himself (p. 68), "was too different from mine for us to +remain long on one line." The course of events round him impelled him in +the same direction, and furnished him with new comrades, on whom +henceforth he was to act, and who were to react most powerfully on him. +The torrent of reform was beginning its full rush through the land; and +its turbulent waters threatened not only to drown the old political +landmarks of the Constitution, but also to sweep away the Church of the +nation. Abhorrence of these so-called liberal opinions was the electric +current which bound together the several minds which speedily appeared +as instituting and directing the great Oxford Church movement. Not that +it was in any sense the offspring of the old cry of "the Church in +danger." The meaning of that alarm was the apprehension of danger to the +emoluments or position of the Church as the established religion in the +land. From the very first the Oxford movement pointed more to the +maintenance of the Church as a spiritual society, divinely incorporated +to teach certain doctrines, and do certain acts which none other could +do, than to the preservation of those temporal advantages which had been +conferred by the State. From the first there was a tendency to +undervalue these external aids, which made the movement an object of +suspicion to thorough Church-and-State men. This suspicion was repaid by +the members of the new school with a return of contempt. They believed +that in struggling for the temporal advantages of the Establishment, men +had forgotten the essential characteristics of the Church, and had been +led to barter their divine birthright for the mess of pottage which Acts +of Parliament secured them. Thus we find Dr. Newman remembering his +early Oxford dislike of "the bigoted two-bottle orthodox." He records +(p. 73) the characteristic mode in which on the appearance of the first +symptoms of his "leaving the clientela" of Dr. Whately he was punished +by that rough humorist. "Whately was considerably annoyed at me; and he +took a humorous revenge, of which he had given me due notice +beforehand.... He asked a set of the least intellectual men in Oxford to +dinner, and men most fond of port; he made me one of the party; placed +me between Provost this and Principal that, and then asked me if I was +proud of my friends" (p. 73). It is easy to conceive how he liked them. +He had, indeed, though formerly a supporter of Catholic Emancipation, +"acted with them in opposing Mr. Peel's re-election in 1829, on 'simple +academical grounds,' because he thought that a great University ought +not to be bullied even by a great Duke of Wellington" (p. 172); but he +soon parted with his friends of "two-bottle orthodoxy," and joined the +gathering knot of men of an utterly different temper, who "disliked the +Duke's change of policy as dictated by liberalism" (p. 72). + +This whole company shared the feelings which even yet, after so many +years and in such altered circumstances, break forth from Dr. Newman +like the rumblings and smoke of a long extinct volcano, in such +utterances as this: "The new Bill for the suppression of the Irish Sees +was in prospect, and had filled my mind. I had fierce thoughts against +the Liberals. It was the success of the Liberal cause which fretted me +inwardly. I became fierce against its instruments and its +manifestations. A French vessel was at Algiers; I would not even look at +the tricolor" (97). This was the temper of the whole band. Most of these +men appear in Dr. Newman's pages; and from their common earnestness and +various endowments a mighty band they were. + + * * * * * + +Here then was the band which have accomplished so much; which have +failed in so much; which have added a new party-name to our vocabulary; +which have furnished materials for every scribbling or declaiming +political Protestant, from the writer of the Durham Letter down to Mr. +Whalley and Mr. Harper; which aided so greatly in reawakening the +dormant energies of the English Church; which carried over to the ranks +of her most deadly opponent some of the ablest and most devoted of her +sons. The language of these pages has never varied concerning this +movement. We have always admitted its many excellences--we have always +lamented its evils. As long ago as in 1839, whilst we protested openly +and fully against what we termed at the time the "strange and +lamentable" publication of Mr. Froude's "Remains,"[1] we declared our +hope that "the publication of the Oxford Tracts was a very seasonable +and valuable contribution to the cause both of the Church and the +State." And in 1846, even after so many of our hopes had faded away, we +yet spoke in the same tone of "this religious movement in our Church," +as one "from which, however clouded be the present aspect, we doubt not +that great blessings have resulted and will result, unless we forfeit +them by neglect or wilful abuse."[2] + +[1] "Quarterly Review," vol. lxiii, p. 551. +[2] Ibid., vol. lxxviii, p. 24. + +The history of the progress of the movement lies scattered through these +pages. All that we can collect concerning its first intention confirms +absolutely Mr. Perceval's Statements, 1843, that it was begun for two +leading objects: "first, the firm and practical maintenance of the +doctrine of the apostolical succession.... secondly, the preservation in +its integrity of the Christian doctrine in our Prayerbooks."[1] Its +unity of action was shaken by the first entrance of doubts into its +leader's mind. His retirement from it tended directly to break it up as +an actual party. But it would be a monstrous error to suppose that the +influence of this movement was extinguished when its conductors were +dispersed as a party. So far from it, the system of the Church of +England took in all the more freely the elements of truth which it had +all along been diffusing, because they were no longer scattered abroad +by the direct action of an organised party under ostensible chiefs. +Where, we may ask, is not at this moment the effect of that movement +perfectly appreciable within our body? Look at the new-built and +restored churches of the land; look at the multiplication of schools; +the greater exactness of ritual observance; the higher standard of +clerical life, service, and devotion; the more frequent celebrations; +the cathedrals open; the loving sisterhoods labouring, under episcopal +sanction, with the meek, active saintliness of the Church's purest time; +look--above all, perhaps--at the raised tone of devotion and doctrine +amongst us, and see in all these that the movement did not die, but +rather flourished with a new vigour when the party of the movement was +so greatly broken up. It is surely one of the strangest objections which +can be urged against a living spiritual body, that the loss of many of +its foremost sons still left its vital strength unimpaired. Yet this was +Dr. Newman's objection, and his witness, fourteen years ago, when he +complained of the Church of England, that though it had given "a hundred +educated men to the Catholic Church, yet the huge creature from which +they went forth showed no consciousness of its loss, but shook itself, +and went about its work as of old time."[2] + +[1] "Collection of Papers connected with the Theological Movement of + 1833." By the Hon. and Rev. A.P. Perceval. 1843. Second Edition. +[2] "Lectures on Anglican Difficulties," p. 9. + +As the unity of the party was broken up, the fire which had burned +hitherto in but a single beacon was scattered upon a thousand hills. +Nevertheless, the first breaking up of the party was eminently +disheartening to its living members. But it was not by external violence +that it was broken, but by the development within itself of a +distinctive Romeward bias. Dr. Newman lays his hand upon a particular +epoch in its progress, at which, he says, it was crossed by a new set of +men, who imparted to it that leaning to Romanism which ever after +perceptibly beset it. "A new school of thought was rising, as is usual +in such movements, and was sweeping the original party of the movement +aside, and was taking its place" (p. 277). This is a curious instance of +self-delusion. He was, as we maintain, throughout, the Romanising +element in the whole movement. But for him it might have continued, as +its other great chiefs still continue, the ornament and strength of the +English Church. These younger men, to whom he attributes the change, +were, in fact, the minds whom he had consciously or unconsciously +fashioned and biassed. Some of them, as is ever the case, had outrun +their leader. Some of them were now, in their sensitive spiritual +organism, catching the varying outline of the great leader whom they +almost worshipped, and beginning at once to give back his own altering +image. Instead of seeing in their changing minds this reflection of +himself, he dwelt upon it as an original element, and read in its +presence an indication of its being the will of God that the stream +should turn its flow towards the gulf to which he himself had unawares, +it may be, directed its waters. Those who remember how at this time he +was followed will know how easily such a result might follow his own +incipient change. Those who can still remember how many often +involuntarily caught his peculiar intonation--so distinctively singular, +and therefore so attractive in himself and so repulsive in his copyists +--will understand how the altering fashion of the leader's thoughts was +appropriated with the same unconscious fidelity. + +One other cause acted powerfully on him and on them to give this bias to +the movement, and that was the bitterness and invectives of the Liberal +party. Dr. Newman repeatedly reminds us that it was the Liberals who +drove him from Oxford. The four tutors--the after course of one of whom, +at least, was destined to display so remarkable a Nemesis--and the pack +who followed them turned by their ceaseless baying the noble hart who +led the rest towards this evil covert. He and they heard incessantly +that they were Papists in disguise: men dishonoured by professing one +thing and holding another; until they began to doubt their own fidelity, +and in that doubt was death. Nor was this all. The Liberals ever (as is +their wont), most illiberal to those who differ from them, began to use +direct academic persecution; until, in self-distrust and very weariness, +the great soul began to abandon the warfare it had waged inwardly +against its own inclinations and the fascinations of its enemy, and to +yield the first defences to the foe. It will remain written, as Dr. +Newman's deliberate judgment, that it was the Liberals who forced him +from Oxford. How far, if he had not taken that step, he might have again +shaken off the errors which were growing on him--how far therefore in +driving him from Oxford they drove him finally to Rome--man can never +know. + +In the new light thrown upon it from the pages of the "Apologia," we see +with more distinctness than was ever shown before, how greatly this +tendency to Rome, which at last led astray so many of the masters of the +party, was infused into it by the single influence of Dr. Newman +himself. We do not believe that, in spite of his startling speeches, the +bias towards Rome was at all as strong even in H. Froude himself. Let +his last letter witness for him:--"If," he says, "I was to assign my +reasons for belonging to the Church of England in preference to any +other religious community, it would be simply this, that she has +retained an apostolical clergy, and enacts no sinful terms of communion; +whereas, on the other hand, the Romanists, though retaining an +apostolical clergy, do exact sinful terms of communion."[1] This was the +tone of the movement until it was changed in Dr. Newman. We believe that +in tracing this out we shall be using these pages entirely as their +author intended them to be used. They were meant to exhibit to his +countrymen the whole secret of his moral and spiritual anatomy; they +were intended to prove that he was altogether free from that foul and +disgraceful taint of innate dishonesty, the unspoken suspicion of which +in so many quarters had so long troubled him; the open utterance of +which, from the lips of a popular and respectable writer, was so +absolutely intolerable to him. From that imputation it is but bare +justice to say he does thoroughly clear himself. The post-mortem +examination of his life is complete; the hand which guided the +dissecting-knife has trembled nowhere, nor shrunk from any incision. All +lies perfectly open, and the foul taint is nowhere. And yet, looking +back with the writer on the changes which this strange narrative +records, from his subscribing, in 1828, towards the first start of the +"Record" newspaper to his receiving on the 9th of October, 1845, at +Littlemore, the "remarkable-looking man, evidently a foreigner, shabbily +dressed in black,"[2] who received him into the Papal Communion, we see +abundant reason, even without the action of that prevalent suspicion of +secret dishonesty somewhere, which in English minds inevitably connects +itself with the spread of Popery, for the widely-diffused impression of +that being true which it is so pleasant to find unfounded. + +[1] "Collection of Papers, &c." p. 16. +[2] "Historical Notes of the Tractarian Movement," by Canon Oakley. + Dublin Review, No. v, p. 190. + +From first to last these pages exhibit the habit of Dr. Newman's mind as +eminently subjective. It might almost be described as the exact opposite +of that of S. Athanasius: with a like all-engrossing love for truth; +with ecclesiastical habits often strangely similar; with cognate gifts +of the imperishable inheritance of genius, the contradiction here is +almost absolute. The abstract proposition, the rightly-balanced +proposition, is everything to the Eastern, it is well-nigh nothing to +the English Divine. When led by circumstances to embark in the close +examination of Dogma, as in his "History of the Arians," his Nazarite +locks of strength appear to have been shorn, and the giant, at whose +might we have been marvelling, becomes as any other man. The dogmatic +portion of this work is poor and tame; it is only when the writer +escapes from dogma into the dramatic representation of the actors in the +strife that his powers reappear. For abstract truth it is true to us +that he has no engrossing affection: his strength lay in his own +apprehension of it, in his power of defending it when once it had been +so apprehended and had become engrafted into him; and it is to this as +made one with himself, and to his own inward life as fed and nourished +by it, that he perpetually reverts. + +All this is the more remarkable because he conceives himself to have +been, even from early youth, peculiarly devoted to dogma in the +abstract; he returns continually to this idea, confounding, as we +venture to conceive, his estimate of the effect of truth when he +received it, on himself, with truth as it exists in the abstract. And as +this affected him in regard to dogma, so it reached to his relations to +every part of the Church around him. It led him to gather up in a +dangerous degree, into the person of his "own Bishop," the deference due +to the whole order. "I did not care much for the Bench of Bishops, nor +should I have cared much for a Provincial Council.... All these matters +seemed to me to be jure ecclesiastico; but what to me was jure divino +was the voice of my Bishop in his own person. My own Bishop was my +Pope."--(p. 123.) His intense individuality had substituted the personal +bond to the individual for the general bond to the collective holders of +the office: and so when the strain became violent it snapped at once. +This doubtless natural disposition seems to have been developed, and +perhaps permanently fixed, as the law of his intellectual and spiritual +being, by the peculiarities of his early religious training. Educated in +what is called the "Evangelical" school, early and consciously +converted, and deriving his first religious tone, in great measure, from +the vehement but misled Calvinism, of which Thomas Scott, of Aston +Sandford, was one of the ablest and most robust specimens, he was early +taught to appreciate, and even to judge of, all external truth mainly in +its ascertainable bearings on his own religious experience. In many a +man the effect of this teaching is to fix him for life in a hard, +narrow, and exclusive school of religious thought and feeling, in which +he lives and dies profoundly satisfied with himself and his +co-religionists, and quite hopeless of salvation for any beyond the +immediate pale in which his own Shibboleth is pronounced with the +exactest nicety of articulation. But Dr. Newman's mind was framed upon a +wholly different idea, and the results were proportionally dissimilar. +With the introvertive tendency which we have ascribed to him, was joined +a most subtle and speculative intellect, and an ambitious temper. The +"Apologia" is the history of the practical working out of those various +conditions. His hold upon any truth external to and separate from +himself, was so feeble when placed in comparison with his perception of +what was passing within himself, that the external truth was always +liable to corrections which would make its essential elements harmonize +with what was occurring within his own intellectual or spiritual being. +We think that we can distinctly trace in these pages a twofold +consequence from all this: first, an inexhaustible mutability in his +views on all subjects; and secondly, a continually recurring temptation +to entire scepticism as to everything external to himself. Every page +gives illustrations of the first of these. He votes for what was called +Catholic Emancipation, and is drifting into the ranks of liberalism. But +the external idea of liberty is very soon metamorphosed, in his view, +from the figure of an angel of light into that of a spirit of darkness; +first, by his academical feeling that a great University ought not to be +bullied even by a great Duke, and then by the altered temper of his own +feelings, as they are played upon by the alternate vibrations of the +gibes of "Hurrell Froude," and the deep tones of Mr. Keble's +ministrelsy. + +The history of his religious alternations is in exact keeping with all +this. At every separate stage of his course, he constructs for himself a +tabernacle in which for a while he rests. This process he repeats with +an incessant simplicity of renewed commencements, which is almost like +the blind acting of instinct leading the insect, which is conscious of +its coming change, to spin afresh and afresh its ever-broken cocoon. He +is at one time an Anglo-Catholic, and sees Antichrist in Rome; he falls +back upon the Via Media--that breaks down, and left him, he says (p. +211), "very nearly a pure Protestant"; and again he has a "new theory +made expressly for the occasion, and is pleased with his new view" (p. +269); he then rests in "Samaria" before he finds his way over to Rome. +For the time every one of these transient tabernacles seems to +accomplish its purpose. He finds certain repose for his spirit. Whilst +sheltered by it, all the great unutterable phenomena of the external +world are viewed by him in relation to himself and to his home of +present rest. The gourd has grown up in a night, and shelters him by its +short-lived shadow from the tyrannous rays of the sunshine. But some +sudden irresistible change in his own inward preceptions alters +everything. The idea shoots across his mind that the English Church is +in the position of the Monophysite heretics of the fifth century (p. +209). At once all his views of truth are changed. He moves on to a new +position; pitches anew his tent; builds himself up a new theory; and +finds the altitudes of the stars above him, and the very forms of the +heavenly constellations, change with the change of his earthly +habitation. + + * * * * * + +In October the final step is taken, and in the succeeding January the +mournful history is closed in the following most touching words:-- + + Jan. 20, 1846.--You may think how lonely I am. _Obliviscere populum + tuum et domum patris tui_, has been in my ears for the last twelve + hours. I realize more that we are leaving Littlemore, and it is like + going on the open sea. + + I left Oxford for good on Monday, February 23, 1846. On the Saturday + and Sunday before, I was in my house at Littlemore simply by myself, + as I had been for the first day or two when I had originally taken + possession of it. I slept on Sunday night at my dear friend's, Mr. + Johnson's, at the Observatory. Various friends came to see the last of + me--Mr. Copeland, Mr. Church, Mr. Buckle, Mr. Pattison, and Mr. Lewis. + Dr. Pusey, too, came up to take leave of me; and I called on Dr. Ogle, + one of my very oldest friends, for he was my private tutor when I was + an undergraduate. In him I took leave of my first College, Trinity, + which was so dear to me, and which held on its foundation so many who + have been kind to me, both when I was a boy and all through my Oxford + life. Trinity had never been unkind to me. There used to be much + snapdragon growing on the walls opposite my freshman's rooms there, + and I had for years taken it as the emblem of my own perpetual + residence, even unto death, in my University. + + On the morning of the 23rd I left the Observatory. I have never seen + Oxford since, excepting its spires, as they are seen from the railway. + +What an exceeding sadness is gathered up in these words! And yet the +impress of this time left upon some of Dr. Newman's writings seems, like +the ruin which records what was the violence of the throes of the +long-passed earthquake, even still more indicative of the terrible +character of the struggle through which at this time he passed. We have +seen how keenly he felt the suspicious intrusions upon his privacy which +haunted his last years in the Church of England. But in "Loss and Gain" +there is a yet more expressive exhibition of the extremity of that +suffering. He denies as "utterly untrue" the common belief that he +"introduced friends or partisans into the tale"; and of course he is to +be implicitly believed. And yet ONE there is whom no one who reads the +pages can for a moment doubt is there, and that is Dr. Newman himself. +The weary, unresting, hunted condition of the leading figure in the +tale, with all its accompaniment of keen, flashing wit, always seemed to +us the history of those days when a well-meant but impertinent series of +religious intrusions was well-nigh driving the wise man mad. + +We have followed out these steps thus in detail, not only because of +their intense interest as an autobiography, but also because the +narrative itself seems to throw the strongest possible light on the +mainly-important question how far this defection of one of her greatest +sons does really tend to weaken the argumentative position of the +English Church in her strife with Rome. What has been said already will +suffice to prove that in our opinion no such consequence can justly +follow from it. We acknowledge freely the greatness of the individual +loss. But the causes of that defection are, we think, clearly shown to +have been the peculiarities of the individual, not the weakness of the +side which he abandoned. His steps mark no path to any other. He sprang +clear over the guarding walls of the sheepfold, and opened no way +through them for other wanderers. Men may have left the Church of +England because their leader left it; but they could not leave it as he +left it, or because of his reasons for leaving it. In truth, he appears +never to have occupied a thoroughly real Church-of-England position. He +was at first, by education and private judgment, a Calvinistic Puritan; +he became dissatisfied with the coldness and barrenness of this theory, +and set about finding a new position for himself, and in so doing he +skipped over true, sound English Churchmanship into a course of feeling +and thought allied with and leading on to Rome. Even the hindrances +which so long held him back can scarcely be said to have been indeed the +logical force of the unanswerable credentials of the English Church. On +the contrary they were rather personal impressions, feelings, and +difficulties. His faithful, loving nature made him cling desperately to +early hopes, friendships, and affections. Even to the end Thomas Scott +never loses his hold upon him. His narrative is not the history of the +normal progress of a mind from England to Rome; it is so thoroughly +exceptional that it does not seem calculated to seduce to Rome men +governed in such high matters by argument and reason rather than by +impulse and feeling. We do not therefore think that the mere fact of +this secession tells with any force against that communion whose claims +satisfied to their dying day such men as Hooker and Andrewes, and Ussher +and Hammond, and Bramhall and Butler. + +But, beyond this, his present view of the English Church appears to be +incompatible with that fierce and internecine hostility to the claim +upon the loyalty of her children which is really essential to clear the +act of perverting others from her ranks from the plainest guilt of +schism. It is not merely that the nobleness and tenderness of his nature +make his tone so unlike that of many of those who have taken the same +step with himself. It is not that every provocation--and how many they +have been!--every misunderstanding--and they have been all but +universal; every unworthy charge or insinuation--down to those of +Professor Kingsley, failed to embitter his feelings against the +communion he has deserted and the friends whom he has left. It is not +this to which we refer, for this is personal to himself, and the fruit +of his own generosity and true greatness of soul. But we refer to his +calm, deliberate estimate of the forsaken Church. He says, indeed, that +since his change he has "had no changes to record, no anxiety of heart +whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment. I never had one +doubt" (p. 373). But, as we have seen already, this was always the +temporary condition in which every new phase of opinion landed him. He +was always able to build up these tabernacles of rest. The difference +between this and those former resting-places is clear. In those he was +still a searcher after truth: he needed and required conviction, and a +new conviction might shake the old comfort. But his present +resting-place is built upon the denial of all further enquiry. "I have," +he says (p. 374), "no further history of religious opinions to narrate": +and some following words show how entirely it is this abandonment of the +idea of the actual conviction of truth for the blind admission of the +dictates of a despotic external authority on which he rests. + + * * * * * + +There is another deeply interesting question raised by Dr. Newman's +work, on which, if our limits did not absolutely prevent, we should be +glad to enter. We mean the present position of the Church of Rome with +that great rationalistic movement with which we, too, are called to +contend. Everywhere in Europe this contest is proceeding, and the +relations of the Church of Rome towards it are becoming daily more and +more embarrassed. Mr. Ffoulkes tells us that "the 'Home and Foreign +Review' is the _only_ publication professing to emanate from Roman +Catholics in this country that can be named in the same breath with the +leading Protestant Reviews."[1] Since he wrote these words its course +has been closed by Pontifical authority. M. Montalembert has barely +escaped censure with the payment of the penalty--so heavy to his +co-religionists--of an enforced silence; and Dr. Newman "interprets recent +acts of authority as tying the hands of a controversialist such as I +should be,"[2] and so is prevented completing the great work which has +occupied so much of his thoughts, and which promised, more than any +other work this country is likely to see, to set some limiting boundary +line between the provinces of a humble faith in Revelation and an ardent +love of advancing science. This is an evil inflicted by Rome on this +whole generation. But in truth, whenever the mind of Christendom is +active, the attitude of the Papal communion before this new enemy is +that of a startled, trembling minaciousness, which invites the deadly +combat it can so ill maintain. + +[1] "Union Review," ix, 294. +[2] "Apol." 405. + +These facts are patent to every one who knows anything whatever of the +present state of religious thought throughout Roman Catholic Europe. +Almost every one knows further that the struggle between those who would +subject all science and all the actings of the human mind to the +authority of the Church, and those who would limit the exercise of that +authority more or less to the proper subject-matter of theology, is rife +and increasing. The words of, perhaps, the ablest living member of the +Roman Catholic communion have rung through Europe, and many a heart in +all religious communions has been saddened by the thought of Dr. +Döllinger's virtual censure. And yet it is at such a time as this that +Dr. Manning ventures to put forth his "Letters to a Friend," painting +all as peace, unanimity, and obedient faith within the Roman Church; all +dissension, unbelief, and letting slip of the ancient faith within our +own communion. Surely such are not the weapons by which the cause of +God's truth can be advanced! + +But we must bring our remarks on the "Apologia" to a close. + +Some lessons there are, and those great ones, which this book is +calculated to instil into members of our own communion. Pre-eminently it +shows the rottenness of that mere Act-of-Parliament foundation on which +some, now-a-days, would rest our Church. Dr. Newman suggests, more than +once, that such a course must rob us of all our present strength. Dr. +Manning sings his paean with wild and premature delight, as if the evil +was already accomplished. In his first letter he triumphed in the +silence of Convocation, but that silence has since been broken. A solemn +synodical judgment, couched in the most explicit language, has condemned +the false teaching which had been our Church's scandal. But because a +"very exalted person in the House of Lords"[1] (p. 4), with an ignorance +or an ignoring of law, as was shown in the debate, which was simply +astonishing, chose, in a manner which even Dr. Manning condemns, to +assert, without a particle of real evidence, that the Convocation had +exceeded its legitimate powers, Dr. Manning is in ecstasies. The "very +exalted person" becomes "a righteous judge, a learned judge, a Daniel +come to judgment--yea, a Daniel." These shouts of joy ought to be enough +to show men where the real danger lies. Our present position is +impregnable. But if we abandon it for the new one proposed to us by the +Rationalist party, how shall we be able to stand? How could a national +religious Establishment which should seek to rest its foundations--not +on God's Word; on the ancient Creeds; on a true Apostolic ministry; on +valid Sacraments; on a living, even though it be an obscured, unity with +the Universal Church, and so on the presence with her of her Lord, and +on the gifts of His Spirit--but upon the critical reason of individuals, +and the support of Acts of Parliament--ever stand in the coming +struggle? How could it meet Rationalism on the one hand? How could it +withstand Popery on the other? After such a fatal change its career +might be easily foreshadowed. Under the assaults of Rationalism, it +would year by year lose some parts of the great deposit of the Catholic +faith. Under the attacks of Rome, it would lose many of those whom it +can ill spare, because they believe most firmly in the verities for +which she is ready to witness. Thus it might continue until our ministry +were filled with the time-serving, the ignorant, and the unbelieving; +and, when this has come to pass, the day of final doom cannot be far +distant. How such evils are to be averted is the anxious question of the +present day. The great practical question seems to us to be that to +which we have before this alluded,[2]--How the Supreme Court of Appeal +can be made fitter for the due discharge of its momentous functions? We +cannot enter here upon that great question. But solved it must be, and +solved upon the principles of the great Reformation statutes of our +land, which maintain, in the supremacy of the Crown, our undoubted +nationality; which, besides maintaining this great principle of national +life, save us from all the terrible practical evils of appeals to Rome, +and yet which maintain the spirituality of the land, as the guardians +under God of the great deposit of the Faith, in the very terms in which +the Catholic Church of Christ has from the beginning received, and to +this day handed down in its completeness, the inestimable gift. + +[1] Hansard's "House of Lord's Debates," July 15, 1864 +[2] "Quarterly Review," vol. cxv. p. 560 + + + + +ANONYMOUS ON "WAVERLEY" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1814] + +_Waverley; or, 'tis Sixty Years since_. 3 vols. 12mo. Edinburgh, 1814. + +We have had so many occasions to invite our readers' attention to that +species of composition called Novels, and have so often stated our +general views of the principles of this very agreeable branch of +literature, that we shall venture on the consideration of our present +subject with but a few observations, and those applicable to a class of +novels, of which it is a favourable specimen. + +The earlier novelists wrote at periods when society was not perfectly +formed, and we find that their picture of life was an embodying of their +own conceptions of the "_beau idĂ©al_."--Heroes all generosity and ladies +all chastity, exalted above the vulgarities of society and nature, +maintain, through eternal folios, their visionary virtues, without the +stain of any moral frailty, or the degradation of any human necessities. +But this high-flown style went out of fashion as the great mass of +mankind became more informed of each other's feelings and concerns, and +as a nearer intercourse taught them that the real course of human life +is a conflict of duty and desire, of virtue and passion, of right and +wrong; in the description of which it is difficult to say whether +uniform virtue or unredeemed vice would be in the greater degree tedious +and absurd. + +The novelists next endeavoured to exhibit a general view of society. The +characters in Gil Blas and Tom Jones are not individuals so much as +specimens of the human race; and these delightful works have been, are, +and ever will be popular, because they present lively and accurate +delineations of the workings of the human soul, and that every man who +reads them is obliged to confess to himself, that in similar +circumstances with the personages of Le Sage and Fielding, he would +probably have acted in the way in which they are described to have done. + +From this species the transition to a third was natural. The first class +was theory--it was improved into a _generic_ description, and that again +led the way to a more particular classification--a copying not of man in +general, but of men of a peculiar nation, profession, or temper, or, to +go a step further--of _individuals_. + +Thus Alcander and Cyrus could never have existed in human society--they +are neither French, nor English, nor Italian, because it is only +allegorically that they are _men_. Tom Jones might have been a +Frenchman, and Gil Blas an Englishman, because the essence of their +characters is human nature, and the personal situation of the individual +is almost indifferent to the success of the object which the author +proposed to himself: while, on the other hand, the characters of the +most popular novels of later times are Irish, or Scotch, or French, and +not in the abstract, _men_.--The general operations of nature are +circumscribed to her effects on an individual character, and the modern +novels of this class, compared with the broad and noble style of the +earlier writers, may be considered as Dutch pictures, delightful in +their vivid and minute details of common life, wonderfully entertaining +to the close observer of peculiarities, and highly creditable to the +accuracy, observation and humour of the painter, but exciting none of +those more exalted feelings, giving none of those higher views of the +human soul which delight and exalt the mind of the spectator of Raphael, +Correggio, or Murillo. + +But as in a gallery we are glad to see every style of excellence, and +are ready to amuse ourselves with Teniers and Gerard Dow, so we derive +great pleasure from the congenial delineations of Castle Rack-rent and +Waverley; and we are well assured that any reader who is qualified to +judge of the illustration we have borrowed from a sister art, will not +accuse us of undervaluing, by this comparison, either Miss Edgeworth or +the ingenious author of the work now under consideration. We mean only +to say, that the line of writing which they have adopted is less +comprehensive and less sublime, but not that it is less entertaining or +less useful than that of their predecessors. On the contrary, so far as +utility constitutes merit in a novel, we have no hesitation in +preferring the moderns to their predecessors. We do not believe that any +man or woman was ever improved in morals or manners by the reading of +Tom Jones or Peregrine Pickle, though we are confident that many have +profited by the Tales of Fashionable Life, and the Cottagers of +Glenburnie. + +We have heard Waverley called a Scotch Castle Rack-rent; and we have +ourselves alluded to a certain resemblance between these works; but we +must beg leave to explain that the resemblance consists only in this, +that the one is a description of the peculiarities of Scottish manners +as the other is of those of Ireland; and that we are far from placing on +the same level the merits and qualities of the works. Waverley is of a +much higher strain, and may be safely placed far above the amusing +vulgarity of Castle Rack-rent, and by the side of Ennui or the Absentee, +the best undoubtedly of Miss Edgeworth's compositions. + + * * * * * + +We shall conclude this article, which has grown to an immoderate length, +by observing what, indeed, our readers must have already discovered, +that Waverley, who gives his name to the story, is far from being its +hero, and that in truth the interest and merit of the work is derived, +not from any of the ordinary qualities of a novel, but from the truth of +its facts, and the accuracy of its delineations. + +We confess that we have, speaking generally, a great objection to what +may be called historical romance, in which real and fictitious +personages, and actual and fabulous events are mixed together to the +utter confusion of the reader, and the unsettling of all accurate +recollections of past transactions; and we cannot but wish that the +ingenious and intelligent author of Waverley had rather employed himself +in recording _historically_ the character and transactions of his +countrymen _Sixty Years since_, than in writing a work, which, though it +may be, in its facts, almost true, and in its delineations perfectly +accurate, will yet, in sixty years _hence_, be regarded, or rather, +probably, _disregarded_, as a _mere_ romance, and the gratuitous +invention of a facetious fancy. + + + + +ON SCOTT'S "TALES OF MY LANDLORD" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1817] + +_Tales of My Landlord_. 4 vols. 12mo. Third Edition. Blackwood, +Edinburgh. John Murray, London. 1817. + +These Tales belong obviously to a class of novels which we have already +had occasion repeatedly to notice, and which have attracted the +attention of the public in no common degree,--we mean Waverley, Guy +Mannering, and the Antiquary, and we have little hesitation to pronounce +them either entirely, or in a great measure, the work of the same +author. Why he should industriously endeavour to elude observation by +taking leave of us in one character, and then suddenly popping out upon +us in another, we cannot pretend to guess without knowing more of his +personal reasons for preserving so strict an incognito that has hitherto +reached us. We can, however, conceive many reasons for a writer +observing this sort of mystery; not to mention that it has certainly had +its effect in keeping up the interest which his works have excited. + +We do not know if the imagination of our author will sink in the opinion +of the public when deprived of that degree of invention which we have +been hitherto disposed to ascribe to him; but we are certain that it +ought to increase the value of his portraits, that human beings have +actually sate for them. These coincidences between fiction and reality +are perhaps the very circumstances to which the success of these novels +is in a great measure to be attributed: for, without depreciating the +merit of the artist, every spectator at once recognizes in those scenes +and faces which are copied from nature an air of distinct reality, which +is not attached to fancy-pieces however happily conceived and +elaborately executed. By what sort of freemasonry, if we may use the +term, the mind arrives at this conviction, we do not pretend to guess, +but every one must have felt that he instinctively and almost insensibly +recognizes in painting, poetry, or other works of imagination, that +which is copied from existing nature, and that he forthwith clings to it +with that kindred interest which thinks nothing which is human +indifferent to humanity. Before therefore we proceed to analyse the work +immediately before us, we beg leave briefly to notice a few +circumstances connected with its predecessors. + +Our author has told us it was his object to present a succession of +scenes and characters connected with Scotland in its past and present +state, and we must own that his stories are so slightly constructed as +to remind us of the showman's thread with which he draws up his pictures +and presents them successively to the eye of the spectator. He seems +seriously to have proceeded on Mr. Bays's maxim--"What the deuce is a +plot good for, but to bring in fine things?"--Probability and +perspicuity of narrative are sacrificed with the utmost indifference to +the desire of producing effect; and provided the author can but contrive +to "surprize and elevate," he appears to think that he has done his duty +to the public. Against this slovenly indifference we have already +remonstrated, and we again enter our protest. It is in justice to the +author himself that we do so, because, whatever merit individual scenes +and passages may possess, (and none have been more ready than ourselves +to offer our applause), it is clear that their effect would be greatly +enhanced by being disposed in a clear and continued narrative. We are +the more earnest in this matter, because it seems that the author errs +chiefly from carelessness. There may be something of system in it, +however: for we have remarked, that with an attention which amounts even +to affectation, he has avoided the common language of narrative, and +thrown his story, as much as possible, into a dramatic shape. In many +cases this has added greatly to the effect, by keeping both the actors +and action continually before the reader, and placing him, in some +measure, in the situation of the audience at a theatre, who are +compelled to gather the meaning of the scene from what the _dramatis +personae_ say to each other, and not from any explanation addressed +immediately to themselves. But though the author gain this advantage, +and thereby compel the reader to think of the personages of the novel +and not of the writer, yet the practice, especially pushed to the extent +we have noticed, is a principal cause of the flimsiness and incoherent +texture of which his greatest admirers are compelled to complain. Few +can wish his success more sincerely than we do, and yet without more +attention on his own part, we have great doubts of its continuance. + +In addition to the loose and incoherent style of the narration, another +leading fault in these novels is the total want of interest which the +reader attaches to the character of the hero. Waverley, Brown, or +Bertram in Guy Mannering, and Lovel in the Antiquary, are all brethren +of a family; very amiable and very insipid sort of young men. We think +we can perceive that this error is also in some degree occasioned by the +dramatic principle upon which the author frames his plots. His chief +characters are never actors, but always acted upon by the spur of +circumstances, and have their fates uniformly determined by the agency +of the subordinate persons. This arises from the author having usually +represented them as foreigners to whom every thing in Scotland is +strange,--a circumstance which serves as his apology for entering into +many minute details which are reflectively, as it were, addressed to the +reader through the medium of the hero. While he is going into +explanations and details which, addressed directly to the reader, might +appear tiresome and unnecessary, he gives interest to them by exhibiting +the effect which they produce upon the principal person of his drama, +and at the same time obtains a patient hearing for what might otherwise +be passed over without attention. But if he gains this advantage, it is +by sacrificing the character of the hero. No one can be interesting to +the reader who is not himself a prime agent in the scene. This is +understood even by the worthy citizen and his wife, who are introduced +as prolocutors in Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle. When they are +asked what the principal person of the drama shall do?--the answer is +prompt and ready--"Marry, let him come forth and kill a giant." There is +a good deal of tact in the request. Every hero in poetry, in fictitious +narrative, ought to come forth and do or say something or other which no +other person could have done or said; make some sacrifice, surmount some +difficulty, and become interesting to us otherwise than by his mere +appearance on the scene, the passive tool of the other characters. + +The insipidity of this author's heroes may be also in part referred to +the readiness with which the twists and turns his story to produce some +immediate and perhaps temporary effect. This could hardly be done +without representing the principal character either as inconsistent or +flexible in his principles. The ease with which Waverley adopts and +after forsakes the Jacobite party in 1745 is a good example of what we +mean. Had he been painted as a steady character, his conduct would have +been improbable. The author was aware of this; and yet, unwilling to +relinquish an opportunity of introducing the interior of the Chevalier's +military court, the circumstances of the battle of Preston-pans, and so +forth, he hesitates not to sacrifice poor Waverley, and to represent him +as a reed blown about at the pleasure of every breeze: a less careless +writer would probably have taken some pains to gain the end proposed in +a more artful and ingenious manner. But our author was hasty, and has +paid the penalty of his haste. + +We have hinted that we are disposed to question the originality of these +novels in point of invention, and that in doing so, we do not consider +ourselves as derogating from the merit of the author, to whom, on the +contrary, we give the praise due to one who has collected and brought +out with accuracy and effect, incidents and manners which might +otherwise have slept in oblivion. We proceed to our proofs.[1] + +[1] It will be readily conceived that the curious MSS. and other + information of which we have availed ourselves were not accessible + to us in this country; but we have been assiduous in our inquiries; + and are happy enough to possess a correspondent whose researches on + the spot have been indefatigable, and whose kind, and ready + communications have anticipated all our wishes. + + * * * * * + +The traditions and manners of the Scotch were so blended with +superstitious practices and fears, that the author of these novels seems +to have deemed it incumbent on him, to transfer many more such incidents +to his novels, than seem either probable or natural to an English +reader. It may be some apology that his story would have lost the +national cast, which it was chiefly his object to preserve, had this +been otherwise. There are few families of antiquity in Scotland, which +do not possess some strange legends, told only under promise of secrecy, +and with an air of mystery; in developing which, the influence of the +powers of darkness is referred to. The truth probably is, that the +agency of witches and demons was often made to account for the sudden +disappearance of individuals and similar incidents, too apt to arise out +of the evil dispositions of humanity, in a land where revenge was long +held honourable--where private feuds and civil broils disturbed the +inhabitants for ages--and where justice was but weakly and irregularly +executed. Mr. Law, a conscientious but credulous clergyman of the Kirk +of Scotland, who lived in the seventeenth century, has left behind him a +very curious manuscript, in which, with the political events of that +distracted period, he has intermingled the various portents and +marvellous occurrences which, in common with his age, he ascribed to +supernatural agency. The following extract will serve to illustrate the +taste of this period for the supernatural. When we read such things +recorded by men of sense and education, (and Mr. Law was deficient in +neither), we cannot help remembering the times of paganism, when every +scene, incident, and action, had its appropriate and presiding deity. It +is indeed curious to consider what must have been the sensations of a +person, who lived under this peculiar species of hallucination, +believing himself beset on all hands by invisible agents; one who was +unable to account for the restiveness of a nobleman's carriage horses +otherwise than by the immediate effect of witchcraft: and supposed that +the _sage femme_ of the highest reputation was most likely to devote the +infants to the infernal spirits, upon their very entrance into life. + + * * * * * + +To the superstitions of the North Britons must be added their peculiar +and characteristic amusements; and here we have some atonement to make +to the memory of the learned Paulus Pleydell, whose compotatory +relaxations, better information now inclines us to think, we mentioned +with somewhat too little reverence. Before the new town of Edinburgh (as +it is called) was built, its inhabitants lodged, as is the practice of +Paris at this day, in large buildings called _lands_, each family +occupying a story, and having access to it by a stair common to all the +inhabitants. These buildings, when they did not front the high street of +the city, composed the sides of little, narrow, unwholesome _closes_ or +lanes. The miserable and confined accommodation which such habitations +afforded, drove _men of business_, as they were called, that is, people +belonging to the law, to hold their professional rendezvouses in +taverns, and many lawyers of eminence spent the principal part of their +time in some tavern of note, transacted their business there, received +the visits of clients with their writers or attornies, and suffered no +imputation from so doing. This practice naturally led to habits of +conviviality, to which the Scottish lawyers, till of very late years, +were rather too much addicted. Few men drank so hard as the counsellors +of the old school, and there survived till of late some veterans who +supported in that respect the character of their predecessors. To vary +the humour of a joyous evening many frolics were resorted to, and the +game of _high jinks_ was one of the most common.[1] In fact, high jinks +was one of the _petits jeux_ with which certain circles were wont to +while away the time; and though it claims no alliance with modern +associations, yet, as it required some shrewdness and dexterity to +support the characters assumed for the occasion, it is not difficult to +conceive that it might have been as interesting and amusing to the +parties engaged in it, as counting the spots of a pack of cards, or +treasuring in memory the rotation in which they are thrown on the table. +The worst of the game was what that age considered as its principal +excellence, namely, that the forfeitures being all commuted for wine, it +proved an encouragement to hard drinking, the prevailing vice of the +age. + +[1] We have learned, with some dismay, that one of the ablest lawyers + Scotland ever produced, and who lives to witness (although in + retirement) the various changes which have taken place in her courts + of judicature, a man who has filled with marked distinction the + highest offices of his profession, _tush'd_ (pshaw'd) extremely at + the delicacy of our former criticism. And certainly he claims some + title to do so, having been in his youth not only a witness of such + orgies as are described as proceeding under the auspices of Mr. + Pleydell, but himself a distinguished performer. + +On the subject of Davie Gellatley, the fool of the Baron of +Bradwardine's family, we are assured there is ample testimony that a +custom, referred to Shakespeare's time in England, had, and in remote +provinces of Scotland, has still its counterpart, to this day. We do not +mean to say that the professed jester with his bauble and his +party-coloured vestment can be found in any family north of the Tweed. Yet +such a personage held this respectable office in the family of the Earls +of Strathemore within the last century, and his costly holiday dress, +garnished with bells of silver, is still preserved in the Castle of +Glamis. But we are assured, that to a much later period, and even to +this moment, the habits and manners of Scotland have had some tendency +to preserve the existence of this singular order of domestics. There are +(comparatively speaking) no poor's rates in the country parishes of +Scotland, and of course no work-houses to immure either their worn out +poor or the "moping idiot and the madman gay," whom Crabbe characterizes +as the happiest inhabitants of these mansions, because insensible of +their misfortunes. It therefore happens almost necessarily in Scotland, +that the house of the nearest proprietor of wealth and consequence +proves a place of refuge for these outcasts of society; and until the +pressure of the times, and the calculating habits which they have +necessarily generated had rendered the maintenance of a human being +about such a family an object of some consideration, they usually found +an asylum there, and enjoyed the degree of comfort of which their +limited intellect rendered them susceptible. Such idiots were usually +employed in some simple sort of occasional labour; and if we are not +misinformed, the situation of turn-spit was often assigned them, before +the modern improvement of the smoke-jack. But, however employed, they +usually displayed towards their benefactors a sort of instinctive +attachment which was very affecting. We knew one instance in which such +a being refused food for many days, pined away, literally broke his +heart, and died within the space of a very few weeks after his +benefactor's decease. We cannot now pause to deduce the moral inference +which might be derived from such instances. It is however evident, that +if there was a coarseness of mind in deriving amusement from the follies +of these unfortunate beings, a circumstance to the disgrace of which +they were totally insensible, their mode of life was, in other respects, +calculated to promote such a degree of happiness as their faculties +permitted them to enjoy. But besides the amusement which our forefathers +received from witnessing their imperfections and extravagancies, there +was a more legitimate source of pleasure in the wild wit which they +often flung around them with the freedom of Shakespeare's licensed +clowns. There are few houses in Scotland of any note or antiquity where +the witty sayings of some such character are not occasionally quoted at +this very day. The pleasure afforded to our forefathers by such +repartees was no doubt heightened by their wanting the habits of more +elegant amusement. But in Scotland the practice long continued, and in +the house of one of the very first noblemen of that country (a man whose +name is never mentioned without reverence) and that within the last +twenty years, a jester such as we have mentioned stood at the side-table +during dinner, and occasionally amused the guests by his extemporaneous +sallies. Imbecility of this kind was even considered as an apology for +intrusion upon the most solemn occasions. All know the peculiar +reverence with which the Scottish of every rank attend on funeral +ceremonies. Yet within the memory of most of the present generation, an +idiot of an appearance equally hideous and absurd, dressed, as if in +mockery, in a rusty and ragged black coat, decorated with a cravat and +weepers made of white paper in the form of those worn by the deepest +mourners, preceded almost every funeral procession in Edinburgh, as if +to turn into ridicule the last rites paid to mortality. + +It has been generally supposed that in the case of these as of other +successful novels, the most prominent and peculiar characters were +sketched from real life. It was only after the death of Smollet, that +two barbers and a shoemaker contended about the character of Strap, +which each asserted was modelled from his own: but even in the lifetime +of the present author, there is scarcely a dale in the pastoral +districts of the southern counties but arrogates to itself the +possession of the original Dandie Dinmont. As for Baillie Mac Wheeble, a +person of the highest eminence in the law perfectly well remembers +having received fees from him. + + * * * * * + +Although these strong resemblances occur so frequently, and with such +peculiar force, as almost to impress us with the conviction that the +author sketched from nature, and not from fancy alone; yet we hesitate +to draw any positive conclusion, sensible that a character dashed off as +the representative of a certain class of men will bear, if executed with +fidelity to the general outlines, not only that resemblance which he +ought to possess as "knight of the shire," but also a special affinity +to some particular individual. It is scarcely possible it should be +otherwise. When Emery appears on the stage as a Yorkshire peasant, with +the habit, manner, and dialect peculiar to the character, and which he +assumes with so much truth and fidelity, those unacquainted with the +province or its inhabitants see merely the abstract idea, the beau ideal +of a Yorkshireman. But to those who are intimate with both, the action +and manner of the comedian almost necessarily recall the idea of some +individual native (altogether unknown probably to the performer) to whom +his exterior and manners bear a casual resemblance. We are therefore on +the whole inclined to believe, that the incidents are frequently copied +from _actual_ occurrences, but that the characters are either entirely +fictitious, or if any traits have been borrowed from real life, as in +the anecdote which we have quoted respecting Invernahyle, they have been +carefully disguised and blended with such as are purely imaginary. We +now proceed to a more particular examination of the volumes before us. + +They are entitled "Tales of my Landlord": why so entitled, excepting to +introduce a quotation from Don Quixote, it is difficult to conceive: for +Tales of my Landlord they are _not_, nor is it indeed easy to say whose +tales they ought to be called. There is a proem, as it is termed, +supposed to be written by Jedediah Cleishbotham, the schoolmaster and +parish clerk of the village of Gandercleugh, in which we are given to +understand that these Tales were compiled by his deceased usher, Mr. +Peter Pattieson, from the narratives or conversations of such travellers +as frequented the Wallace Inn, in that village. Of this proem we shall +only say that it is written in the quaint style of that prefixed by Gay +to his Pastorals, being, as Johnson terms it, "such imitation as he +could obtain of obsolete language, and by consequence in a style that +was never written nor spoken in any age or place." + + * * * * * + +We have given these details partly in compliance with the established +rules which our office prescribes, and partly in the hope that the +authorities we have been enabled to bring together might give additional +light and interest to the story. From the unprecedented popularity of +the work, we cannot flatter ourselves that our summary has made any one +of our readers acquainted with events with which he was not previously +familiar. The causes of that popularity we may be permitted shortly to +allude to; we cannot even hope to exhaust them, and it is the less +necessary that we should attempt it, since we cannot suggest a +consideration which a perusal of the work has not anticipated in the +minds of all our readers. + +One great source of the universal admiration which this family of Novels +has attracted, is their peculiar plan, and the distinguished excellence +with which it has been executed. The objections that have frequently +been stated against what are called Historical Romances, have been +suggested, we think, rather from observing the universal failure of that +species of composition, than from any inherent and constitutional defect +in the species of composition itself. If the manners of different ages +are injudiciously blended together,--if unpowdered crops and slim and +fairy shapes are commingled in the dance with volumed wigs and +far-extending hoops,--if in the portraiture of real character the truth +of +history be violated, the eyes of the spectator are necessarily averted +from a picture which excites in every well regulated and intelligent +mind the hatred of incredulity. We have neither time nor inclination to +enforce our remark by giving illustrations of it. But if those +unpardonable sins against good taste can be avoided, and the features of +an age gone by can be recalled in a spirit of delineation at once +faithful and striking, the very opposite is the legitimate conclusion: +the composition itself is in every point of view dignified and improved; +and the author, leaving the light and frivolous associates with whom a +careless observer would be disposed to ally him, takes his seat on the +bench of the historians of his time and country. In this proud assembly, +and in no mean place of it, we are disposed to rank the author of these +works; for we again express our conviction--and we desire to be +understood to use the term as distinguished from _knowledge_--that they +are all the offspring of the same parent. At once a master of the great +events and minuter incidents of history, and of the manners of the times +he celebrates, as distinguished from those which now prevail,--the +intimate thus of the living and of the dead, his judgment enables him to +separate those traits which are characteristic from those that are +generic; and his imagination, not less accurate and discriminating than +vigorous and vivid, presents to the mind of the reader the manners of +the times, and introduces to his familiar acquaintance the individuals +of his drama as they thought and spoke and acted. We are not quite sure +that any thing is to be found in the manner and character of the Black +Dwarf which would enable us, without the aid of the author's +information, and the facts he relates, to give it to the beginning of +the last century; and, as we have already remarked, his free-booting +robber lives, perhaps, too late in time. But his delineation is perfect. +With palpable and inexcusable defects in the _dĂ©nouement_, there are +scenes of deep and overwhelming interest; and every one, we think, must +be delighted with the portrait of the Grandmother of Hobbie Elliott, a +representation soothing and consoling in itself, and heightened in its +effect by the contrast produced from the lighter manners of the younger +members of the family, and the honest but somewhat blunt and boisterous +bearing of the shepherd himself. + +The second tale, however, as we have remarked, is more adapted to the +talents of the author, and his success has been proportionably +triumphant. We have trespassed too unmercifully on the time of our +gentle readers to indulge our inclination in endeavouring to form an +estimate of that melancholy but, nevertheless, most attractive period in +our history, when by the united efforts of a corrupt and unprincipled +government, of extravagant fanaticism, want of education, perversion of +religion, and the influence of ill-instructed teachers, whose hearts and +understandings were estranged and debased by the illapses of the wildest +enthusiasm, the liberty of the people was all but extinguished, and the +bonds of society nearly dissolved. Revolting as all this is to the +Patriot, it affords fertile materials to the Poet. As to the _beauty_ of +the delineation presented to the reader in this tale, there is, we +believe, but one opinion: and we are persuaded that the more carefully +and dispassionately it is contemplated, the more perfect will it appear +in the still more valuable qualities of fidelity and truth. We have +given part of the evidence on which we say this, and we will again recur +to the subject. The opinions and language of the _honest party_ are +detailed with the accuracy of a witness; and he who could open to our +view the state of the Scottish peasantry, perishing in the field or on +the scaffold, and driven to utter and just desperation, in attempting to +defend their first and most sacred rights; who could place before our +eyes the leaders of these enormities, from the notorious Duke of +Lauderdale downwards to the fellow mind that executed his behest, +precisely as they lived and looked,--such a chronicler cannot justly be +charged with attempting to extenuate or throw into the shade the +corruptions of a government that soon afterwards fell a victim to its +own follies and crimes. + +Independently of the delineation of the manners and characters of the +times to which the story refers, it is impossible to avoid noticing, as +a separate excellence, the faithful representation of general nature. +Looking not merely to the litter of novels that peep out for a single +day from the mud where they were spawned, but to many of more ambitious +pretensions--it is quite evident that in framing them, the authors have +first addressed themselves to the involutions and developement of the +story, as the principal object of their attention; and that in +entangling and unravelling the plot, in combining the incidents which +compose it, and even in depicting the characters, they sought for +assistance chiefly in the writings of their predecessors. Baldness, and +uniformity, and inanity are the inevitable results of this slovenly and +unintellectual proceeding. The volume which this author has studied is +the great book of Nature. He has gone abroad into the world in quest of +what the world will certainly and abundantly supply, but what a man of +great discrimination alone will find, and a man of the very highest +genius will alone depict after he has discovered it. The characters of +Shakespeare are not more exclusively human, not more perfectly men and +women as they live and move, than those of this mysterious author. It is +from this circumstance that, as we have already observed, many of his +personages are supposed to be sketched from real life. He must have +mixed much and variously in the society of his native country; his +studies must have familiarized him to systems of manners now forgotten; +and thus the persons of his drama, though in truth the creatures of his +own imagination, convey the impression of individuals who we are +persuaded must exist, or are evoked from their graves in all their +original freshness, entire in their lineaments, and perfect in all the +minute peculiarities of dress and demeanour. + + * * * * * + +Admitting, however, that these portraits are sketched with spirit and +effect, two questions arise of much more importance than any thing +affecting the merits of the novels--namely, whether it is safe or +prudent to imitate, in a fictitious narrative, and often with a view to +a ludicrous effect, the scriptural style of the zealots of the +seventeenth century; and secondly, whether the recusant presbyterians, +collectively considered, do not carry too reverential and sacred a +character to be treated by an unknown author with such insolent +familiarity. + +On the first subject, we frankly own we have great hesitation. It is +scarcely possible to ascribe scriptural expressions to hypocritical or +extravagant characters without some risk of mischief, because it will be +apt to create an habitual association between the expression and the +ludicrous manner in which it is used, unfavourable to the reverence due +to the sacred text. And it is no defence to state that this is an error +inherent in the plan of the novel. Bourdaloue, a great authority, +extends this restriction still farther, and denounces all attempts to +unmask hypocrisy by raillery, because in doing so the satirist is +necessarily compelled to expose to ridicule the religious vizard of +which he has divested him. Yet even against such authority it may be +stated, that ridicule is the friend both of religion and virtue, when +directed against those who assume their garb, whether from hypocrisy or +fanaticism. The satire of Butler, not always decorous in these +particulars, was yet eminently useful in stripping off their borrowed +gravity and exposing to public ridicule the affected fanaticism of the +times in which he lived. It may also be remembered, that in the days of +Queen Anne a number of the Camisars or Huguenots of DauphinĂ© arrived as +refugees in England, and became distinguished by the name of the French +prophets. The fate of these enthusiasts in their own country had been +somewhat similar to that of the Covenanters. Like them, they used to +assemble in the mountains and desolate places, to the amount of many +hundreds, in arms, and like them they were hunted and persecuted by the +military. Like them, they were enthusiasts, though their enthusiasm +assumed a character more decidedly absurd. The fugitive Camisars who +came to London had convulsion-fits, prophesied, made converts, and +attracted the public attention by an offer to raise the dead. The +English minister, instead of fine and imprisonment and other inflictions +which might have placed them in the rank and estimation of martyrs, and +confirmed in their faith their numerous disciples, encouraged a dramatic +author to bring out a farce on the subject which, though neither very +witty nor very delicate, had the good effect of laughing the French +prophets out of their audience and putting a stop to an inundation of +nonsense which could not have failed to disgrace the age in which it +appeared. The Camisars subsided into their ordinary vocation of +psalmodic whiners, and no more was heard of their sect or their +miracles. It would be well if all folly of the kind could be so easily +quelled: for enthusiastic nonsense, whether of this day or of those +which have passed away, has no more title to shelter itself under the +veil of religion than a common pirate to be protected by the reverence +due to an honoured and friendly flag. + +Still, however, we must allow that there is great delicacy and +hesitation to be used in employing the weapon of ridicule on any point +connected with religion. Some passages occur in the work before us for +which the writer's sole apology must be the uncontroulable disposition +to indulge the peculiarity of his vein of humour--a temptation which +even the saturnine John Knox was unable to resist either in narrating +the martyrdom of his friend Wisheart or the assassination of his enemy +Beatson, and in the impossibility of resisting which his learned and +accurate biographer has rested his apology for this mixture of jest and +earnest. + + "There are writers," he says (rebutting the charge of Hume against + Knox), "who can treat the most sacred subjects with a levity bordering + on profanity. Must we at once pronounce them profane, and is nothing + to be set down to the score of natural temper inclining them to wit + and humour? The pleasantry which Knox has mingled with his narrative + of his (Cardinal Beatson's) death and burial is unseasonable and + unbecoming. But it is to be imputed not to any pleasure which he took + in describing a bloody scene, but to the strong propensity which he + had to indulge his vein of humour. Those who have read his history + with attention must have perceived that he is not able to check this + even on the very serious occasions."--_Macrie's Life of Knox_, p. 147. + +Indeed Dr. Macrie himself has given us a striking instance of the +indulgence which the Presbyterian clergy, even of the strictest +persuasion, permit to the _vis comica_. After describing a polemical +work as "ingeniously constructed and occasionally enlivened with strokes +of humour," he transfers, to embellish his own pages, (for we can +discover no purpose of edification which the tale serves), a ludicrous +parody made by an ignorant parish-priest on certain words of a Psalm, +too sacred to be here quoted. Our own innocent pleasantry cannot, in +this instance, be quite reconciled with that of the learned biographer +of John Knox, but we can easily conceive that his authority may be +regarded in Scotland as decisive of the extent to which a humourist may +venture in exercising his wit upon scriptural expressions without +incurring censure even from her most rigid divines. + +It may however be a very different point how far the author is entitled +to be acquitted upon the second point of indictment. To use too much +freedom with things sacred is a course much more easily glossed over +than that of exposing to ridicule the persons of any particular sect. +Every one knows the reply of the great Prince of CondĂ© to Louis XIV when +this monarch expressed his surprize at the clamour excited by Molière's +Tartuffe, while a blasphemous farce called _Scaramouche Hermite_ was +performed without giving any scandal: "C'est parceque Scaramouche ne +jouoit que le ciel et la religion, dont les dĂ©vots se soucioient +beaucoup moins que d'eux-mĂªmes." We believe, therefore, the best service +we can do our author in the present case is to shew that the odious part +of his satire applies only to that fierce and unreasonable set of +extra-presbyterians, whose zeal, equally absurd and cruel, afforded +pretexts for the severities inflicted on non-conformists without +exception, and gave the greatest scandal and offence to the wise, sober, +enlightened, and truly pious among the Presbyterians. + +The principal difference betwixt the Cameronians and the rational +presbyterians has been already touched upon. It may be summed in a very +few words. + +After the restoration of Charles II episcopacy was restored in Scotland, +upon the unanimous petition of the Scottish parliament. Had this been +accompanied with a free toleration of the presbyterians, whose +consciences preferred a different mode of church-government, we do not +conceive there would have been any wrong done to that ancient kingdom. +But instead of this, the most violent means of enforcing conformity were +resorted to without scruple, and the ejected presbyterian clergy were +persecuted by penal statutes and prohibited from the exercise of their +ministry. These rigours only made the people more anxiously seek out and +adhere to the silenced preachers. Driven from the churches, they held +conventicles in houses. Expelled from cities and the mansions of men, +they met on the hills and deserts like the French Huguenots. Assailed +with arms, they repelled force by force. The severity of the rulers, +instigated by the episcopal clergy, increased with the obstinacy of the +recusants, until the latter, in 1666, assumed arms for the purpose of +asserting their right to worship God in their own way. They were +defeated at Pentland; and in 1669 a gleam of common sense and justice +seems to have beamed upon the Scottish councils of Charles. They granted +what was called an _indulgence_ (afterwards repeatedly renewed) to the +presbyterian clergy, assigned them small stipends, and permitted them to +preach in such deserted churches as should be assigned to them by the +Scottish Privy Council. This "indulgence," though clogged with harsh +conditions and frequently renewed or capriciously recalled, was still an +acceptable boon to the wiser and better part of the presbyterian clergy, +who considered it as an opening to the exercise of their ministry under +the lawful authority, which they continued to acknowledge. But fiercer +and more intractable principles were evinced by the younger ministers of +that persuasion. They considered the submitting to exercise their +ministry under the controul of any visible authority as absolute +erastianism, a desertion of the great invisible and divine Head of the +church, and a line of conduct which could only be defended, says one of +their tracts, by nullifidians, time-servers, infidels, or the Archbishop +of Canterbury. They held up to ridicule and abhorrence such of their +brethren as considered mere toleration as a boon worth accepting. Every +thing, according to these fervent divines, which fell short of +re-establishing presbytery as the sole and predominating religion, all +that did not imply a full restoration of the Solemn League and Covenant, +was an imperfect and unsound composition between God and mammon, +episcopacy and prelacy. The following extracts from a printed sermon by +one of them, on the subject of "soul-confirmation," will at once exemplify +the contempt and scorn with which these high-flyers regarded their more +sober-minded brethren, and serve as a specimen of the homely eloquence +with which they excited their followers. The reader will probably be of +opinion that it is worthy of Kettledrummle himself, and will serve to +clear Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham of the charge of exaggeration. + + There is many folk that has a face to the religion that is in fashion, + and there is many folk, they have ay a face to the old company, they + have a face for godly folk, and they have a face for persecutors of + godly folk, and they will be daddies bairns and minnies bairns both; + they will be _prelates_ bairns and they will be _malignants_ bairns + and they will be the people of God's bairns. And what think ye of that + bastard temper? Poor Peter had a trial of this soupleness, but God + made Paul an instrument to take him by the neck and shake it from him: + And O that God would take us by the neck and shake our soupleness from + us. + + Therefore you that keeps only your old job-trot, and does not mend + your pace, you will not wone at _soul-confirmation,_ there is a whine + (i.e., _a few_) old job-trot, and does not mend your pace, you will + not wone at _soul-confirmation,_ there is a whine old job-trot + ministers among us, a whine old job-trot professors, they have their + own pace, and faster they will not go; O therefore they could never + wine to _soul-confirmation_ in the mettere of God. And our old + job-trot ministers is turned _curates_, and our old job-trot + professors is joined with them, and now this way God has turned them + inside out, and has made it manifest and when their heart is hanging + upon this braw, I will not give a gray groat for them and their + profession both. + + The devil has the ministers and professors of Scotland, now in a sive, + and O as he sifts, and O as he riddles, and O as he rattles, and O the + chaff he gets; And I fear there be more chaff nor there be good corn, + and that will be found among us or all be done: but the + _soul-confirmed_ man leaves ever the devil at two more, and he has ay + the matter gadged, and leaves ay the devil in the lee side,--Sirs O + work in the day of the cross. + +The more moderate presbyterian ministers saw with pain and resentment +the lower part of their congregation, who had least to lose by taking +desperate courses, withdrawn from their flocks, by their more zealous +pretenders to purity of doctrine, while they themselves were held up to +ridicule, old jog trot professors and chaff-winnowed out and flung away +by Satan. They charged the Cameronian preachers with leading the deluded +multitude to slaughter at Bothwell, by prophesying a certainty of +victory, and dissuading them from accepting the amnesty offered by +Monmouth. "All could not avail," says Mr. Law, himself a presbyterian +minister, "with McCargill, Kidd, Douglas, and other witless men amongst +them, to hearken to any proposals of peace. Among others that Douglas, +sitting on his horse, and preaching to the confused multitude, told them +that they would come to terms with them, and like a drone was always +droning on these terms with them: 'they would give us a half Christ, but +we will have a whole Christ,' and such like impertinent speeches as +these, good enough to feed those that are served with wind and not with +the sincere milk of the word of God." Law also censures these irritated +and extravagant enthusiasts, not only for intending to overthrow the +government, but as binding themselves to kill all that would not accede +to their opinion, and he gives several instances of such cruelty being +exercised by them, not only upon straggling soldiers whom they shot by +the way or surprized in their quarters, but upon those who, having once +joined them, had fallen away from their principles. Being asked why they +committed these cruelties in cold blood, they answered, 'they were +obliged to do it by their sacred bond.' Upon these occasions they +practised great cruelties, mangling the bodies of their victims that +each man might have his share of the guilt. In these cases the +Cameronians imagined themselves the direct and inspired executioners of +the vengeance of heaven. Nor did they lack the usual incentives of +enthusiasm. Peden and others among them set up a claim to the gift of +prophecy, though they seldom foretold any thing to the purpose. They +detected witches, had bodily encounters with the enemy of mankind in his +own shape, or could discover him as, lurking in the disguise of a raven, +he inspired the rhetoric of a Quaker's meeting. In some cases, celestial +guardians kept guard over their field-meetings. At a conventicle held on +the Lomond-hills, the Rev. Mr. Blacader was credibly assured, under the +hands of four honest men, that at the time the meeting was disturbed by +the soldiers, some women who had remained at home, "clearly perceived as +the form of a tall man, majestic-like, stand in the air in stately +posture with the one leg, as it were, advanced before the other, +standing above the people all the time of the soldiers shooting." +Unluckily this great vision of the Guarded Mount did not conclude as +might have been expected. The divine sentinel left his post too soon, +and the troopers fell upon the rear of the audience, plundered and +stripped many, and made eighteen prisoners. + +But we have no delight to dwell either upon the atrocities or +absurdities of a people whose ignorance and fanaticism were rendered +frantic by persecution. It is enough for our present purpose to observe +that the present Church of Scotland, which comprizes so much sound +doctrine and learning, and has produced so many distinguished +characters, is the legitimate representative of the indulged clergy of +the days of Charles II, settled however upon a comprehensive basis. That +after the revolution, it should have succeeded episcopacy as the +national religion, was natural and regular, because it possessed all the +sense, learning, and moderation fit for such a change, and because among +its followers were to be found the only men of property and influence +who acknowledged presbytery. But the Cameronians continued long as a +separate sect, though their preachers were bigoted and ignorant, and +their hearers were gleaned out of the lower ranks of the peasantry. +Their principle, so far as it was intelligible, asserted that paramount +species of presbyterian church-government which was established in the +year 1648, and they continued to regard the established church as +erastian and time-serving, because they prudently remained silent upon +certain abstract and delicate topics, where there might be some +collision between the absolute liberty asserted by the church and the +civil government of the state. The Cameronians, on the contrary, +disowned all kings and government whatsoever, which should not take the +Solemn League and Covenant; and long retained hopes of re-establishing +that great national engagement, a bait which was held out to them by all +those who wished to disturb the government during the reign of William +and Anne, as is evident from the Memoirs of Ker of Kersland, and the +Negotiations of Colonel Hooke with the Jacobites and disaffected of the +year. + +A party so wild in their principles, so vague and inconsistent in their +views, could not subsist long under a free and unlimited toleration. +They continued to hold their preachings on the hills, but they lost much +of their zeal when they were no longer liable to be disturbed by +dragoons, sheriffs, and lieutenants of Militia.--The old fable of the +Traveller's Cloak was in time verified, and the fierce sanguinary +zealots of the days of Claverhouse sunk into such quiet and peaceable +enthusiasts as Howie of Lochgoin, or Old Mortality himself. It is, +therefore, upon a race of sectaries who have long ceased to exist, that +Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham has charged all that is odious, and almost all +that is ridiculous, in his fictitious narrative; and we can no more +suppose any moderate presbyterian involved in the satire, than we should +imagine that the character of Hampden stood committed by a little +raillery on the person of Ludovic Claxton, the Muggletonian. If, +however, there remain any of those sectaries who, confining the beams of +the Gospel to the Goshen of their own obscure synagogue, and with James +Mitchell, the intended assassin, giving their sweeping testimony against +prelacy and popery, The Whole Duty of Man and bordles, promiscuous +dancing and the Common Prayer-book, and all the other enormities and +backslidings of the time, may perhaps be offended at this idle tale, we +are afraid they will receive their answer in the tone of the revellers +to Malvolio, who, it will be remembered, was something a kind of +Puritan: "Doest thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no +more cakes and ale?--Aye, by Saint Anne, and ginger will be hot in the +mouth too." + + + + +ON LEIGH HUNT + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1816] + +_The Story of Rimini, a Poem_. By LEIGH HUNT. fc. 8vo. pp. 111. London, +1816. + +A considerable part of this poem was written in Newgate, where the +author was some time confined, we believe for a libel which appeared in +a newspaper, of which he is said to be the conductor. Such an +introduction is not calculated to make a very favourable impression. +Fortunately, however, we are as little prejudiced as possible on this +subject: we have never seen Mr. Hunt's newspaper; we have never heard +any particulars of his offence; nor should we have known that he had +been imprisoned but for his own confession. We have not, indeed, ever +read one line that he has written, and are alike remote from the +knowledge of his errors or the influence of his private character. We +are to judge him solely from the work now before us; and our criticism +would be worse than uncandid if it were swayed by any other +consideration. + +The poem is not destitute of merit; but--and this, we confess, was our +main inducement to notice it--it is written on certain pretended +_principles_, and put forth as a pattern for imitation, with a degree of +arrogance which imposes on us the duty of making some observations on +this new theory, which Mr. Leigh Hunt, with the weight and authority of +his venerable name, has issued, ex cathedra, as the canons of poetry and +criticism. + +These canons Mr. Hunt endeavours to explain and establish in a long +preface, written in a style which, though Mr. Hunt implies that it is +meant to be perfectly natural and unaffected, appears to us the most +strange, laboured, uncouth, and unintelligible species of prose that we +ever read, only indeed to be exceeded in these qualities by some of the +subsequent verses; and both the prose and the verse are the first +eruptions of this disease with which Mr. Leigh Hunt insists upon +inoculating mankind. + +Mr. Hunt's _first_ canon is that there should be a _great freedom_ _of +versification_--this is a proposition to which we should have readily +assented; but when Mr. Hunt goes on to say that by _freedom of +versification_ he means something which neither Pope nor Johnson +possessed, and of which even "they knew less than any poets perhaps who +ever wrote," we check our confidence; and, after a little consideration, +find that by freedom Mr. Hunt means only an inaccurate, negligent, and +harsh style of versification, which our early poets fell into from want +of polish, and such poets as Mr. Hunt still practise from want of ease, +of expression, and of taste. + + "_License_ he means, when he cries _liberty_." + +Mr. Hunt tells us that Dryden, Spenser and Ariosto, Shakespeare and +Chaucer (so he arranges them), are the greatest masters of _modern_ +versification; but he, in the next few sentences, leads us to suspect +that he really does not think much more reverently of these great names +than of Pope and of Johnson; and that, if the whole truth were told, he +is decidedly of opinion that the only good master of versification, in +modern times, is--Mr. Leigh Hunt. + +Dryden, Mr. Hunt thinks, is apt to be _artificial_ in his style; or, in +other words, he has improved the harmony of our language from the +rudeness of Chaucer, whom Mr. Hunt (in a sentence which is not grammar, +p. xv) says that Dryden (though he spoke of and borrowed from him) +neither relished nor understood. Spenser, he admits, was musical from +pure taste, but Milton was only, as he elegantly expresses it, +"_learnedly_ so." Being _learned in music_, is intelligible, and, of +Milton, true; but what can Mr. Hunt mean by saying that Milton had +"_learnedly_ a _musical ear_"? "Ariosto's fine ear and _animal spirits_ +gave a _frank_ and exquisite tone to all he said"--what does this mean?-- +a fine ear may, perhaps, be said to _give_, as it contributes to, an +exquisite tone; but what have _animal spirits_ to do here? and what, in +the matter of _tones_ and _sounds_, is the effect of _frankness_? We +shrewdly suspect that Mr. Hunt, with all his affectation of Italian +literature, knows very little of Ariosto; it is clear that he knows +nothing of Tasso. Of Shakespeare he tells us, "that his versification +escapes us because he _over-informed_ it with knowledge and sentiment," +by which it appears (as well, indeed, as by his own verses), that this +new Stagyrite thinks that good versification runs a risk of being +spoiled by having _too much meaning_ included in its lines. + +To wind up the whole of this admirable, precise, and useful criticism by +a recapitulation as useful and precise, he says, "all these are about as +different from Pope as the church organ is from the bell in the steeple, +or, to give him a more decorous comparison, the song of the nightingale +from that of the cuckoo."--p. xv. + +Now we own that what there is so _indecorous_ in the first comparison, +or so especially _decorous_ in the second, we cannot discover; neither +can we make out whether Pope is the organ or the bell--the nightingale +or the cuckoo; we suppose that Mr. Hunt knows that Pope was called by +his contemporaries the _nightingale_, but we never heard Milton and +Dryden called _cuckoos_; or, if the comparison is to be taken the other +way, we apprehend that, though Chaucer may be to Mr. Hunt's ears a +_church organ_, Pope cannot, to any ear, sound like the _church bell_. + +But all this theory, absurd and ignorant as it is, is really nothing to +the practice of which it effects to be the defence. + +Hear the warblings of Mr. Hunt's nightingales. + +A horseman is described-- + + The patting hand, that best persuades the check, + _And makes the quarrel up with a proud neck_, + The thigh broad pressed, the spanning palm _upon it_, + And the jerked feather _swaling_ in the _bonnet_.--p. 15. + +Knights wear ladies' favours-- + + Some tied about their arm, some at the breast, + _Some, with a drag, dangling from the cap's crest_.--p. 14. + +Paulo pays his compliments to the destined bride of his brother-- + + And paid them with an air so frank and bright, + As to a friend _appreciated at sight_; + That air, in short, which sets you at your ease, + Without _implying_ your perplexities, + That _what with the surprize in every way_, + The hurry of the time, the appointed day,-- + She knew _not how to object_ in her confusion.--p. 29. + +The meeting of the brothers, on which the catastrophe turns, is +excellent: the politeness with which the challenge is given would have +delighted the heart of old Caranza. + + May I request, Sir, said the prince, and frowned, + Your ear a moment in the tilting ground? + _There_, brother? answered Paulo with an _air_ + Surprized and _shocked_. Yes, _brother_, cried he, _there_. + The word smote _crushingly_.--p. 92. + +Before the duel, the following spirited explanation takes place: + + The prince spoke low, + And said: Before _you answer what you can_, + I wish to tell you, _as a gentleman_, + That what you may confess-- + Will implicate no person known to you, + More than disquiet in _its_ sleep may do.--p. 93. + +Paulo falls--and the event is announced in these exquisite lines: + + Her _aged_ nurse-- + Who, shaking her _old_ head, and pressing close + Her withered _lips_ to _keep the tears_ that rose--p. 101. + +"By the way," does Mr. Leigh Hunt suppose that the aged nurses of Rimini +weep with their mouths? or does he mistake crying for drivelling?--In +fact, the young lady herself seems to have adopted the same mode of +weeping: + + With that, a _keen_ and _quivering glance of_ tears + Scarce moves her _patient mouth_, and disappears. + +But to the nurse.--She introduces the messenger of death to the +princess, who communicates his story, in pursuance of her command-- + + Something, I'm sure, has happened--tell me what-- + I can bear all, though _you may fancy not_. + Madam, replied the squire, you are, I know, + All sweetness--_pardon me for saying so_. + My Master bade _me_ say then, resumed _he_, + That _he_ spoke firmly, when he told it _me_,-- + That I was also, madam, to your ear + Firmly to speak, and you firmly to hear,-- + That he was forced this day, _whether or no_, + To combat with the prince;--'--p. 103. + +The _second_ of Mr. Hunt's new principles he thus announces: + + With the endeavour to recur to a freer spirit of versification, I have + joined one of still greater importance--that of having a _free and + idiomatic_ cast of language. There is a cant of art as well as of + nature, though the former is not so unpleasant as the latter, which + affects non-affectation.--(What does all this mean?)--But the proper + _language of poetry_ is in fact nothing different from that of real + life, and depends for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of + what it speaks. It is only adding _musical modulation_ to what a _fine + understanding_ might actually utter in the midst of its griefs or + enjoyments. The poet therefore should do as Chaucer or Shakespeare + did,--not copy what is obsolete or peculiar in either, any more than + they copied from their predecessors,--but use as much as possible an + _actual, existing language,_--omitting of course _mere vulgarisms_ and + _fugitive phrases_, which are the cant of ordinary discourse, just as + tragedy phrases, _dead idioms,_ and exaggerations of dignity, are of + the artificial style, and yeas, verilys, and exaggerations of + simplicity, are of the natural.--p. xvi. + +This passage, compared with the verses to which it preludes, affords a +more extraordinary instance of self-delusion than even Mr. Hunt's notion +of the merit of his versification; for if there be one fault more +eminently conspicuous and ridiculous in Mr. Hunt's work than another, it +is,--that it is full of _mere vulgarisms_ and _fugitive phrases_, and +that in every page the language is--not only not _the actual, existing +language_, but an ungrammatical, unauthorised, chaotic jargon, such as +we believe was never before spoken, much less written. + +In what vernacular tongue, for instance, does Mr. Hunt find a lady's +waist called _clipsome_ (p. 10)--or the shout of a mob "enormous" (p. +9)--or a fit, _lightsome_;--or that a hero's nose is "_lightsomely_ +brought down from a forehead of clear-spirited thought" (p. 46)--or that +his back "drops" _lightsomely in_ (p. 20). Where has he heard of a +_quoit-like drop_--of _swaling_ a jerked feather--of _unbedinned_ music +(p. 11)--of the death of _leaping_ accents (p. 32)--of the _thick +reckoning_ of a hoof (p. 33)--of a _pin-drop_ silence (p. 17)--a +_readable_ look (p. 20)--a _half indifferent wonderment_ (p. 37)--or of + + _Boy-storied_ trees and _passion-plighted_ spots,--p. 38. + +of + + Ships coming up with _scattery_ light,--p. 4. + +or of self-knowledge being + + _Cored_, after all, in our complacencies?--p. 38. + +We shall now produce a few instances of what "_a fine understanding +might utter_," with "the addition of _musical modulation_," and of the +_dignity_ and _strength_ of Mr. Hunt's sentiments and expressions. + +A crowd, which divided itself into groups, is-- + + --the multitude, + Who _got_ in clumps----p. 26. + +The impression made on these "clumps" by the sight of the Princess, is +thus "musically" described: + + There's not in all that croud one _gallant_ being, + Whom, if his heart were whole, and _rank agreeing_, + It would not _fire to twice of what he is_,--p. 10. + +"Dignity and strength"-- + + First came the trumpeters-- + And as they _sit along_ their easy way, + Stately and _heaving_ to the croud below.--p. 12. + +This word is deservedly a great favourite with the poet; he _heaves_ it +in upon all occasions. + + The deep talk _heaves_.--p. 5. + With _heav'd_ out tapestry the windows glow.--p. 6. + Then _heave_ the croud.--_id_. + And after a rude _heave_ from side to side.--p. 7. + The marble bridge comes _heaving_ forth below.--p. 28. + +"Fine understanding"-- + + The youth smiles _up_, and with a _lowly_ grace, + _Bending_ his _lifted_ eyes--p. 22. + +This is very neat: + + No peevishness there was-- + But a _mute_ gush of _hiding_ tears from one, + Clasped to the _core_ of him who yet shed none.--p. 83. + +The heroine is suspected of wishing to have some share in the choice of +her own husband, which is thus elegantly expressed: + + She had stout notions on the marrying _score_.--p. 27. + +This noble use of the word _score_ is afterwards carefully repeated in +speaking of the Prince, her husband-- + + --no suspicion could have touched him more, + Than that of _wanting_ on the generous _score_.--p. 48. + +But though thus punctilious on the _generous score_, his Highness had +but a bad temper, + + And kept no reckoning with his _sweets and sours_.--p. 47. + +This, indeed, is somewhat qualified by a previous observation, that-- + + _The worst of Prince Giovanni_, as his bride + Too quickly found, was an ill-tempered pride. + +How nobly does Mr. Hunt celebrate the combined charms of the fair sex, +and the country! + + _The two divinest things this world_ HAS GOT, + A lovely woman in a rural spot!--p. 58. + +A rural spot, indeed, seems to inspire Mr. Hunt with peculiar elegance +and sweetness: for he says, soon after, of Prince Paulo-- + + For welcome grace, there rode not such another, + Nor yet for strength, except his lordly brother. + Was there a court day, or a sparkling feast, + Or better still--_to my ideas, at least!_-- + A summer party in the green wood shade.--p. 50. + +So much for this new invented _strength_ and _dignity_: we shall add a +specimen of his syntax: + + But fears like these he never entertain'd, + And had they crossed him, would have been disdain'd.--p. 50. + + * * * * * + +After these extracts, we have but one word more to say of Mr. Hunt's +poetry; which is, that amidst all his vanity, vulgarity, ignorance, and +coarseness, there are here and there some well-executed descriptions, +and occasionally a line of which the sense and the expression are good-- +The interest of the story itself is so great that we do not think it +wholly lost even in Mr. Hunt's hands. He has, at least, the merit of +telling it with decency; and, bating the qualities of versification, +expression, and dignity, on which he peculiarly piques himself, and in +which he has utterly failed, the poem is one which, in our opinion at +least, may be read with satisfaction after GALT'S Tragedies. + +Mr. Hunt prefixes to his work a dedication to Lord Byron, in which he +assumes a high tone, and talks big of his "_fellow-dignity_" and +independence: what fellow-dignity may mean, we know not; perhaps the +_dignity_ of a _fellow_; but this we will say, that Mr. Hunt is not more +unlucky in his pompous pretension to versification and good language, +than he is in that which he makes, in this dedication, to _proper +spirit_, as he calls it, and _fellow-dignity_; for we never, in so few +lines, saw so many clear marks of the vulgar impatience of a low man, +conscious and ashamed of his wretched vanity, and labouring, with coarse +flippancy, to scramble over the bounds of birth and education, and +fidget himself into the _stout-heartedness_ of being familiar with a +LORD. + + + + +OF SHAKESPEARE + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1816] + +_Shakespeare's Himself Again! or the Language of the Poet asserted; +being a full and dispassionate Examen of the Readings and +Interpretations of the several Editors. Comprised in a Series of Notes, +Sixteen Hundred in Number, illustrative of the most difficult Passages +in his Plays_--_to the various editions of which the present Volumes +form a complete and necessary Supplement_. By ANDREW BECKET. 2 vols. +8vo. pp. 730. 1816. + +If the dead could be supposed to take any interest in the integrity of +their literary reputation, with what complacency might we not imagine +our great poet to contemplate the labours of the present writer! Two +centuries have passed away since his death--the mind almost sinks under +the reflection that he has been all that while exhibited to us so +"transmographied" by the joint ignorance and malice of printers, +critics, etc., as to be wholly unlike himself. But--_post nubila, +Phoebus!_ Mr. Andrew Becket has at length risen upon the world, and +Shakespeare is about to shine forth in genuine and unclouded glory! + +What we have at present is a mere scantling of the great work _in +procinctu_--[Greek: _pidakos ex ieraes oligaelizas_]--sixteen hundred +"restorations," and no more! But if these shall be favourably received, +a complete edition of the poet will speedily follow. Mr. Becket has +taken him to develop; and it is truly surprizing to behold how beautiful +he comes forth as the editor proceeds in unrolling those unseemly and +unnatural rags in which he has hitherto been so disgracefully wrapped: + + Tandem aperit vultum, et tectoria prima reponit,-- + Incipit agnosci!-- + +Mr. Becket has favoured us, in the Preface, with a comparative estimate +of the merits of his predecessors. He does not, as may easily be +conjectured, rate any of them very highly; but he places Warburton at +the top of the scale, and Steevens at the bottom: this, indeed, was to +be expected. "Warburton," he says, "is the _best_, and Steevens the +_worst_ of Shakespeare's commentators"; (p. xvii) and he ascribes it +solely to his forbearance that the latter is not absolutely crushed: it +not being in his nature, as he magnanimously insinuates, "to break a +butterfly upon a wheel!" Dr. Johnson is shoved aside with very little +ceremony; Mr. Malone fares somewhat better; and the rest are dismissed +with the gentle valediction of Pandarus to the Trojans--"asses, fools, +dolts! chaff and bran! porridge after meat!" With respect to our author +himself, it is but simple justice to declare, that he comes to the great +work of "restoring Shakespeare"--not only with more negative advantages +than the unfortunate tribe of critics so cavalierly dismissed, but than +all who have aspired to illumine the page of a defunct writer since the +days of Aristarchus. As far as we are enabled to judge, Mr. Becket never +examined an old play in his life:--he does not seem to have the +slightest knowledge of any writer, or any subject, or any language that +ever occupied the attention of his contemporaries; and he possesses a +mind as innocent of all requisite information as if he had dropped, with +the last thunderstone, from the moon. + +"Addison has well observed, that 'in works of criticism it is absolutely +necessary to have a _clear and logical head_.'" (p.v.) In this position, +Mr. Becket cheerfully agrees with him; and, indeed, it is sufficiently +manifest, that without the internal conviction of enjoying that +indispensable advantage, he would not have favoured the public with +those matchless "restorations"; a few specimens of which we now proceed +to lay before them. Where all are alike admirable, there is no call for +selection; we shall therefore open the volumes at random, and trust to +fortune. + + "_Hamlet_. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?" + +This reading, Mr. Becket says, he cannot admit; and he says well: since +it appears that Shakespeare wrote-- + + "For who would bear the _scores_ of _weapon'd_ time?" + +using _scores_ in the sense of stripes. Formerly, _i.e.,_ when Becket +was _in his sallad days_, he augured, he says, that the true reading +was-- + + --"the scores of _whip-hand_ time." + +Time having always the _whip-hand,_ the advantage; but he now reverts to +the other emendation; though, as he modestly hints, the epithet +_whip-hand_ (which he still regards with parental fondness) will perhaps +be thought to have much of the manner of Shakespeare.--Vol. i, p. 43. + + "_Horatio_.--While they, distill'd + Almost to jelly with the act of fear, + Stand dumb, and speak not to him!" + +We had been accustomed to find no great difficulty here: the words +seemed, to us, at least, to express the usual effect of inordinate +terror--but we gladly acknowledge our mistake. "The passage is not to be +understood." How should it, when both the pointing and the language are +corrupt? Read, as Shakespeare gave it-- + + --"While they _bestill'd_ + Almost to _gelèe_ with the act. Of fear + Stand dumb," &c.--that is, petrified (or rather icefied) p. 13. + + + "_Lear_. And my poor fool is hang'd!" + +With these homely words, which burst from the poor old king on reverting +to the fate of his loved Cordelia, whom he then holds in his arms, we +have been always deeply affected, and therefore set them down as one of +the thousand proofs of the poet's intimate knowledge of the human heart. +But Mr. Becket has made us ashamed of our simplicity and our tears. +Shakespeare had no such "lenten" language in his thoughts; he wrote, as +Mr. Becket tells us, + + "And my _pure soot_ is hang'd!" + +Poor, he adds, might be easily mistaken for _pure_; while the _s_ in +_soot_ (sweet) was scarcely discernible from the _f_, or the _t_ from +the _l_.--p. 176. + +We are happy to find that so much can be offered in favour of the old +printers. And yet--were it not that the genuine text is always to be +preferred--we could almost wish that the critic had left their blunder +as it stood. + + "_Wolsey_.--that his bones + May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on them." + + A tomb of tears is ridiculous. I read--a _coomb_ of tears--a _coomb_ + is a liquid measure containing forty gallons. Thus the expression, + which was before absurd, becomes forcible and just.--vol. ii, p. 134. + +It does indeed! + + "_Sir Andrew_. I sent thee six-pence for thy leman (mistress): had'st + it?" Read as Shakespeare wrote: "I sent thee sixpence for thy + _lemma_"--_lemma_ is properly an _argument_, or _proposition assumed_, + and is used by Sir Andrew Aguecheek for a story.--p. 335. + + + "_Viola_. She pined in thought, + And with a green and yellow melancholy."--Correct it thus: + + "She pined in thought + And with _agrein_ and _hollow_ melancholy."--p. 339. + + "_Iago_. I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense, + And he grows angry"-- + +that is, or rather _was_, according to our homely apprehension, I have +rubb'd this pimple (Roderigo) almost to bleeding:--but, no; Mr. Becket +has furnished us not only with the genuine words, but the meaning of +Shakespeare-- + + I have _fubb'd_ this young _quat_--_Quat_, or cat, appears to be a + contraction of cater-cousin--and this reading will be greatly + strengthened when it is remembered that Roderigo was really the + intimate of Iago.--p. 204. + +In a subsequent passage, "I am as melancholy as a gibb'd cat"--we are +told that _cat_ is not the domestic animal of that name, but a +contraction of _catin_, a woman of the town. But, indeed, Mr. Becket +possesses a most wonderful faculty for detecting these latent +contractions and filling them up. Thus, + + "_Parolles_. Sir, he will steal an egg out of a cloister." Read (as + Shakespeare wrote), "Sir, he will steal an _Ag_ (i.e., an _Agnes_) out + of a cloister." _Agnes_ is the name of a woman, and may easily stand + for chastity.--p. 325. + +No doubt. + + "_Carter_. Prithee, Tom, put a few flocks in Cut's saddle; the poor + beast is wrung in the withers out of all cess." + +Out of all cess, we used to think meant, in vulgar phraseology, out of +all measure, very much, &c.--but see how foolishly! + + _Cess_ is a mere contraction of _cessibility_, which signifies the + _quality of receding_, and may very well stand for _yielding_, as + spoken of a tumour.--p. 5. + + + "_Hamlet_. A cry of players." + + +This we once thought merely a sportive expression for a _company of_ +players, but Mr. Becket has undeceived us--"_Cry_ (he tells us) is +contracted from _cryptic_, and cryptic is precisely of the same import +as mystery."--p. 53. How delightful it is when learning and judgment +walk thus hand in hand! But enough-- + + --"the sweetest honey + Is loathsome in its own deliciousness"-- + +and we would not willingly cloy our readers. Sufficient has been +produced to encourage them--not perhaps to contend for the possession of +the present volumes, though Mr. Becket conscientiously affirms, in his +title-page, that "they form a complete and _necessary_ supplement to +every former edition"--but, with us, to look anxiously forward to the +great work in preparation. + +Meanwhile we have gathered some little consolation from what is already +in our hands. Very often, on comparing the dramas of the present day +(not even excepting Mr. Tobin's) with those of Elizabeth's age, we have +been tempted to think that we were born too late, and to exclaim with +the poet-- + + "Infelix ego, non illo qui tempore natus, + Quo facilis natura fuit; sors O mea laeva + Nascendi, miserumque genus!" &c. + +but we now see that unless Mr. Andrew Becket had also been produced at +that early period, we should have derived no extraordinary degree of +satisfaction from witnessing the first appearance of Shakespeare's +plays, since it is quite clear that we could not have understood them. + +One difficulty yet remains. We scarcely think that the managers will +have the confidence, in future, to play Shakespeare as they have been +accustomed to do; and yet, to present him, as now so happily "restored," +would, for some time at least, render him _caviare to the general_. We +know that Livius Andronicus, when grown hoarse with repeated +declamation, was allowed a second rate actor, who stood at his back and +spoke while he gesticulated, or gesticulated while he spoke. A hint may +be borrowed from this fact. We therefore propose that Mr. Andrew Becket +be forthwith taken into the pay of the two theatres, and divided between +them. He may then be instructed to follow the _dramatis personae_ of our +great poet's plays on the stage, and after each of them has made his +speech in the present corrupt reading, to pronounce aloud the words as +"restored" by himself. This may have an awkward effect at first; but a +season or two will reconcile the town to it; Shakespeare may then be +presented in his genuine language, or, as our author better expresses +it, be HIMSELF AGAIN. + + + + +ON MOXON'S SONNETS + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1837] + +_Sonnets by_ EDWARD MOXON. Second Edition. London, 1837. + +This is quite a _dandy_ of a book. Some seventy pages of drawing-paper-- +fifty-five of which are impressed each with a single sonnet in all the +luxury of type, while the rest are decked out with vignettes of nymphs +in clouds and bowers, and Cupids in rose-bushes and cockle-shells. And +all these coxcombries are the appendages of, as it seems to us, as +little intellect as the rings and brooches of the Exquisite in a modern +novel. We shall see presently, by what good fortune so moderate a poet +has found so liberal a publisher. + +We are no great admirers of the sonnet at its best--concurring in Dr. +Johnson's opinion that it does not suit the genius of our language, and +that the great examples of Shakespeare and Milton have failed to +domesticate it with us. It seems to be, even in master hands, that +species of composition which is at once the most artificial and the +least effective, which bears the appearance of the greatest labour and +produces the least pleasure. Its peculiar and unvaried construction must +inevitably inflict upon it something of pedantry and monotony, and +although some powerful minds have used it as a form for condensing and +elaborating a particular train of thought--_an Iliad in a nutshell_--yet +the vast majority of sonneteers employ it as an economical expedient, by +which one idea can be expanded into fourteen lines--fourteen lines into +one page--and, as we see, fifty-four pages into a costly volume. + +The complex construction, which at first sight seems a difficulty, is, +in fact, like all mechanism, a great saving of labour to the operator. A +sonnet almost makes itself, as a musical snuff-box plays a tune, or +rather as a cotton _Jenny_ spins twist. When a would-be poet has +collected in his memory a few of what may have struck him as poetical +ideas, he puts them into his machine, and after fourteen turns, out +comes a sonnet, or--if it be his pleasure to spin out his reminiscences +very fine--a dozen sonnets. + +Mr. Moxon inscribes as a motto on his title-page four lines of Mr. +Wordsworth's vindication of his own use of the sonnet-form-- + + In truth, the prison, into which we doom + Ourselves, no prison is: and hence to _me_, + In sundry moods 'twas pastime to be bound + Within the _sonnet's_ scanty plot of ground. + +Yes, Mr. Moxon, to _him_ perhaps, but not to every one--the "plot of +ground" which is "_scanty_" to an elephant is a wilderness to a mouse; +and the garment in which Wordsworth might feel straitened hangs flabby +about a puny imitator. There seems no great modesty in the estimate +which Mr. Moxon thus exhibits of his own superior powers, but we fear +there is, at least, as much modesty as truth--for really, so far from +being "_bound_" within the narrow limit of the sonnet, it seems to us to +be + + --a world too wide + For his shrunk shank. + +Ordinary sonneteers, as we have said, will spin a single thought through +the fourteen lines. Mr., Moxon will draw you out a single thought into +fourteen sonnets:--and these are his best--for most of the others appear +to us mere soap bubbles, very gay and gaudy, but which burst at the +fourteenth line and leave not the trace of an idea behind. Of two or +three Mr. Moxon has kindly told us the meaning, which, without that +notice, we confess we should never have guessed. + + * * * * * + +Another of the same genus--though, he had just told us + + My love I can _compare_ with _nought_ on earth-- + +is like _nought on earth_ we ever read but Dean Swift's song of similes. +I _will prove_, he says, that + + A swan-- + A fawn-- + An artless lamb-- + A hawthorn tree-- + A willow-- + A laburnum-- + A dream-- + A rainbow-- + Diana-- + Aurora-- + A dove that _singeth_-- + A lily,--and finally, + Venus herself! + --I in truth will prove + These are not _half_ so _fair_ as she I love. + +_Sonnet_ iii, p. 43. + + +Such heterogeneous compliments remind us of Shacabac's gallantry to +_Beda_ in _Blue Beard:_ "Ah, you little rogue, you have a prettier mouth +_than an elephant_, and you know it!"--A _fawn-coloured_ countenance +rivalling in _fairness a laburnum_ blossom, seems to us a more dubious +type of female beauty than even an elephant's mouth. + +_Love_, it may be said, has carried away better poets and graver men +than Mr. Moxon seems to be, into such namby-pamby nonsense; but Mr. +Moxon is just as absurd in his _grief_ or his _musings_, as in his +_love_. + +When he hears a nightingale--"sad Philomel!"--he concludes that the bird +was originally created for no other purpose than to prophesy in Paradise +_the fall of man_, or, as he chooses to collocate the words, + + _Prophetic_ to have mourned of _man_ the _fall_,--p. 9. + +but he does not tell us what she has been doing ever since. + +When he sees two Cumberland streams--the Brathay and Rothay--flowing +down, first to a confluence, and afterwards to the sea, he fancies "a +_soul-knit_ pair," man and wife, mingling their waters and gliding to +their final haven-- + + in kindred love, + The haven Contemplation sees _above_! + +_Below_, he would--following his allegory--have said; but rhyme forbade-- +and _allegories_ are not _so headstrong_ on the banks of the Brathay as +on those of the _Nile_. + +A sonnet on Thomson's grave is a fine specimen of empty sounds and solid +nonsense:-- + + Whene'er I linger, Thomson, near thy tomb, + Where _Thamis_-- + +"_Classic Cam_" will be somewhat amazed to hear his learned brother +called _Thamis_-- + + Where Thamis urges his majestic way, + And the Muse loves at twilight hour to stray, + I think how in thy theme ALL _seasons_ BLOOM;-- + +What, all four?--_autumn_, nay, _winter_--blooming? + + What _heart_ so cold that of thy fame has _heard_, + And _pauses_ not to _gaze_ upon each scene. + +We are inclined to be very indulgent to what is called a confusion of +metaphors, when it arises from a rush of ideas--but when it is produced +by an author's having no idea at all, we can hardly forgive him for +equipping the _Heart_ with eyes, ears, and legs:--he might just as well +have said that on entering Twickenham church to visit the tomb, every +_Heart_ would take off _its hat_, and on going out again would put _its +hand_ in _its pockets_ to fee the sexton. + + And pauses not to gaze upon each scene + That was familiar to thy raptured view, + Those walks beloved by thee while I pursue, + Musing upon the years that intervene-- + +Why this line _intervenes_ or what it means we do not see--it seems +inserted just to make up the number-- + + Methinks, as eve descends, a hymn of praise + To thee, their bard, the _sister Seasons_ raise! + +That is, as we understand it, ALL the _Seasons meet together_ on one or +more evenings of the year, to sing a hymn to the memory of Thompson. +This _simultaneous entree_ of the Four Seasons would be a much more +appropriate fancy for the opera stage than for Twickenham meadows. + +Such are the tame extravagances--the vapid affectations--the unmeaning +mosaic which Mr. Moxon has laboriously tesselated into fifty and four +sonnets. If he had been--as all this childishness at first led us to +believe--a very young man--we should have discussed the matter with him +in a more conciliatory and persuasive tone; but we find that he is, what +we must call, an old offender. We have before us two little volumes of +what he entitles poetry--one dated 1826, and the other 1829--which, +though more laughable, are not in substance more absurd than his new +production. From the first of these we shall extract two or three +stanzas of the introductory poem, not only on account of their intrinsic +merit, but because they state, pretty roundly, Mr. Moxon's principles of +poetry. He modestly disclaims all rivalry with Pope, Byron, Moore, +Campbell, Scott, Rogers, Goldsmith, Dryden, Gray, Spenser, Milton, and +Shakespeare; but he, at the same time, intimates that he follows, what +he thinks, a truer line of poetry than the before-named illustrious, +but, in this point, _mistaken_ individuals. + + 'Tis not a poem with learning fraught, + To that I ne'er pretended; + Nor yet with Pope's fine touches wrought, + _From that my time prevented_. + +We skip four intermediate stanzas; then comes + + Milton divine and great Shakespeare + With reverence I mention; + My name with theirs shall ne'er appear, + _'Tis far from my intention!_ + If poetry, as one _pretends, + Be all imagination!_ + Why then, at once, _my bardship ends-- + 'Mong prose I take my station._ + + _Moxon's Poems, p. 81, Ed. 1826._ + +But as _"common sense"_ must see, says Mr. Moxon, that _imagination_ can +have nothing to do with _poetry_, he engages to pursue his tuneful +vocation, subject to _one_ condition-- + + You'll hear no more from me, + If _critics prove unkind;_ + My next _in simple prose_ must be, + _Unless I favour find!_ + +We regret that some _kind_--or, as Mr. Moxon would have thought it, +_unkind_--critic, did not, on the appearance of this first volume, +confirm his own misgivings that he had been all this time, like the man +in the farce, talking not only _prose_, but _nonsense_ into the bargain: +this disagreeable information the pretension of his recent publication +obliges us to convey to him. The fact is, that the volume at first +struck us with serious alarm. Its typographical splendour led us to fear +that this style of writing was getting into fashion; and the hints about +_"classic Cam"_ seemed to impute the production to one of our +Universities: on turning, with some curiosity, to the title-page, for +the name of the too indulgent bookseller who had bestowed such unmerited +embellishment on a work which we think of so little value--_we found +none_; and on further inquiry learned that _Dover Street, Piccadilly_, +and not the banks of _"classic Cam"_ is the seat of this sonneteering +muse--in short, that Mr. Moxon, the bookseller, is his own poet, and +that Mr. Moxon, the poet, is his own bookseller. This discovery at once +calmed both our anxieties--it relieved the university of Cambridge from +an awful responsibility, which might have called down upon it the +vengeance of Lord Radnor; and it accounted--without any imputation on +the public taste--for the extraordinary care and cost with which the +paternal solicitude of the poet-publisher had adorned his own volume. +Mr. Moxon seems to be--like most sonneteers--a man of amiable +disposition, and to have an ear--as he certainly has a _memory_--for +poetry; and--if he had not been an old hand--we should not have presumed +to say that he is incapable of anything better than this tumid +commonplace. But, however that may be, we do earnestly exhort him to +abandon the self-deluding practice of being his own publisher. Whatever +may have been said in disparagement of the literary taste of the +booksellers, it will at least be admitted that their experience of +public opinion and a due attention to their own pecuniary interest, +enable them to operate as a salutary check upon the blind and +presumptive vanity of small authors. The necessity of obtaining the +_"imprimatur"_ of a publisher is a very wholesome restraint, from which +Mr. Moxon--unluckily for himself and for us--found himself relieved. If +he could have looked at his own work with the impartiality, and perhaps +the good taste, that he would have exercised on that of a stranger, _he_ +would have saved himself a good deal of expense and vexation--and _we_ +should have been spared the painful necessity of contrasting the +ambitious pretensions of his volume with its very moderate literary +merit. + + + + +ON "VANITY FAIR" AND "JANE EYRE" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, December, 1848] + +1. _Vanity Fair; a Novel without a Hero._ By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE +THACKERAY. London, 1848. + +2. _Jane Eyre; an Autobiography._ Edited by CURRER BELL. In 3 vols. +London. 1847. + +A remarkable novel is a great event for English society. It is a kind of +common friend, about whom people can speak the truth without fear of +being compromised, and confess their emotions without being ashamed. We +are a particularly shy and reserved people, and set about nothing so +awkwardly as the simple art of getting really acquainted with each +other. We meet over and over again in what is conventionally called +"easy society," with the tacit understanding to go so far and no +farther; to be as polite as we ought to be, and as intellectual as we +can; but mutually and honourably to forbear lifting those veils which +each spreads over his inner sentiments and sympathies. For this purpose +a host of devices have been contrived by which all the forms of +friendship may be gone through, without committing ourselves to one +spark of the spirit. We fly with eagerness to some common ground in +which each can take the liveliest interest, without taking the slightest +in the world in his companion. Our various fashionable manias, for +charity one season, for science the next, are only so many clever +contrivances for keeping our neighbour at arm's length. We can attend +committees, and canvass for subscribers, and archaeologise, and +geologise, and take ether with our fellow Christians for a twelvemonth, +as we might sit cross-legged and smoke the pipe of fraternity with a +Turk for the same period--and know at the end of the time as little of +the real feelings of the one as we should about the domestic relations +of the other. But there are ways and means for lifting the veil which +equally favour our national idiosyncrasy; and a new and remarkable novel +is one of them--especially the nearer it comes to real life. We invite +our neighbour to a walk with the deliberate and malicious object of +getting thoroughly acquainted with him. We ask no impertinent questions-- +we proffer no indiscreet confidences--we do not even sound him, ever so +delicately, as to his opinion of a common friend, for he would be sure +not to say, lest we should go and tell; but we simply discuss Becky +Sharp, or Jane Eyre, and our object is answered at once. + +There is something about these two new and noticeable characters which +especially compels everybody to speak out. They are not to be dismissed +with a few commonplace moralities and sentimentalities. They do not fit +any ready-made criticism. They give the most stupid something to think +of, and the most reserved something to say; the most charitable too are +betrayed into home comparisons which they usually condemn, and the most +ingenious stumble into paradoxes which they can hardly defend. Becky and +Jane also stand well side by side both in their analogies and their +contrasts. Both the ladies are governesses, and both make the same move +in society; the one, in Jane Eyre phraseology, marrying her "master," +and the other her master's son. Neither starts in life with more than a +moderate capital of good looks--Jane Eyre with hardly that--for it is +the fashion now-a-days with novelists to give no encouragement to the +insolence of mere beauty, but rather to prove to all whom it may concern +how little a sensible woman requires to get on with in the world. Both +have also an elfish kind of nature, with which they divine the secrets +of other hearts, and conceal those of their own; and both rejoice in +that peculiarity of feature which Mademoiselle de Luzy has not +contributed to render popular, viz., green eyes. Beyond this, however, +there is no similarity either in the minds, manners, or fortunes of the +two heroines. They think and act upon diametrically opposite principles-- +at least so the author of "Jane Eyre" intends us to believe--and each, +were they to meet, which we should of all things enjoy to see them do, +would cordially despise and abominate the other. Which of the two, +however, would most successfully _dupe_ the other is a different +question, and one not so easy to decide; though we have our own ideas +upon the subject. + +We must discuss "Vanity Fair" first, which, much as we were entitled to +expect from its author's pen, has fairly taken us by surprise. We were +perfectly aware that Mr. Thackeray had of old assumed the jester's +habit, in order the more unrestrainedly to indulge the privilege of +speaking the truth;--we had traced his clever progress through "Fraser's +Magazine" and the ever-improving pages of "Punch"--which wonder of the +time has been infinitely obliged to him--but still we were little +prepared for the keen observation, the deep wisdom, and the consummate +art which he has interwoven in the slight texture and whimsical pattern +of "Vanity Fair." Everybody, it is to be supposed, has read the volume +by this time; and even for those who have not, it is not necessary to +describe the order of the story. It is not a novel, in the common +acceptation of the word, with a plot purposely contrived to bring about +certain scenes, and develop certain characters, but simply a history of +those average sufferings, pleasures, penalties, and rewards to which +various classes of mankind gravitate as naturally and certainly in this +world as the sparks fly upward. It is only the same game of life which +every player sooner or later makes for himself--were he to have a +hundred chances, and shuffle the cards of circumstance every time. It is +only the same busy, involved drama which may be seen at any time by any +one, who is not engrossed with the magnified minutiae of his own petty +part, but with composed curiosity looks on to the stage where his +fellow-men and women are the actors; and that not even heightened by the +conventional colouring which Madame de StaĂ«l philosophically declares +that fiction always wants in order to make up for its not being truth. +Indeed, so far from taking any advantage of this novelist's licence, Mr. +Thackeray has hardly availed himself of the natural average of +remarkable events that really do occur in this life. The battle of +Waterloo, it is true, is introduced; but, as far as regards the story, +it brings about only one death and one bankruptcy, which might either of +them have happened in a hundred other ways. Otherwise the tale runs on, +with little exception, in that humdrum course of daily monotony, out of +which some people coin materials to act, and others excuses to doze, +just as their dispositions may be. + +It is this reality which is at once the charm and the misery here. With +all these unpretending materials it is one of the most amusing, but also +one of the most distressing books we have read for many a long year. We +almost long for a little exaggeration and improbability to relieve us of +that sense of dead truthfulness which weighs down our hearts, not for +the Amelias and Georges of the story, but for poor kindred human nature. +In one light this truthfulness is even an objection. With few exceptions +the personages are too like our every-day selves and neighbours to draw +any distinct moral from. We cannot see our way clearly. Palliations of +the bad and disappointments in the good are perpetually obstructing our +judgment, by bringing what should decide it too close to that common +standard of experience in which our only rule of opinion is charity. For +it is only in fictitious characters which are highly coloured for one +definite object, or in notorious personages viewed from a distance, that +the course of the true moral can be seen to run straight--once bring the +individual with his life and circumstances closely before you, and it is +lost to the mental eye in the thousand pleas and witnesses, unseen and +unheard before, which rise up to overshadow it. And what are all these +personages in "Vanity Fair" but feigned names for our own beloved +friends and acquaintances, seen under such a puzzling cross-light of +good in evil, and evil in good, of sins and sinnings against, of little +to be praised virtues, and much to be excused vices, that we cannot +presume to moralise upon them--not even to judge them,--content to +exclaim sorrowfully with the old prophet, "Alas! my brother!" Every +actor on the crowded stage of "Vanity Fair" represents some type of that +perverse mixture of humanity in which there is ever something not wholly +to approve or to condemn. There is the desperate devotion of a fond +heart to a false object, which we cannot respect; there is the vain, +weak man, half good and half bad, who is more despicable in our eyes +than the decided villain. There are the irretrievably wretched +education, and the unquenchably manly instincts, both contending in the +confirmed _rouĂ©_, which melt us to the tenderest pity. There is the +selfishness and self-will which the possessor of great wealth and +fawning relations can hardly avoid. There is the vanity and fear of the +world, which assist mysteriously with pious principles in keeping a man +respectable; there are combinations of this kind of every imaginable +human form and colour, redeemed but feebly by the steady excellence of +an awkward man, and the genuine heart of a vulgar woman, till we feel +inclined to tax Mr. Thackeray with an under estimate of our nature, +forgetting that Madame de StaĂ«l is right after all, and that without a +little conventional rouge no human conplexion can stand the stage-lights +of fiction. + +But if these performers give us pain, we are not ashamed to own, as we +are speaking openly, that the chief actress herself gives us none at +all. For there is of course a principal pilgrim in Vanity Fair, as much +as in its emblematical original, Bunyan's "Progress"; only unfortunately +this one is travelling the wrong way. And we say "unfortunately" merely +by way of courtesy, for in reality we care little about the matter. No, +Becky--our hearts neither bleed for you, nor cry out against you. You +are wonderfully clever, and amusing, and accomplished, and intelligent, +and the Soho _ateliers_ were not the best nurseries for a moral +training; and you were married early in life to a regular blackleg, and +you have had to live upon your wits ever since, which is not an +improving sort of maintenance; and there is much to be said for and +against; but still you are not one of us, and there is an end to our +sympathies and censures. People who allow their feelings to be lacerated +by such a character and career as yours, are doing both you and +themselves great injustice. No author could have openly introduced a +near connexion of Satan's into the best London society, nor would the +moral end intended have been answered by it; but really and honestly, +considering Becky in her human character, we know of none which so +thoroughly satisfies our highest _beau idĂ©al_ of feminine wickedness, +with so slight a shock to our feelings and properties. It is very +dreadful, doubtless, that Becky neither loved the husband who loved her, +nor the child of her own flesh and blood, nor indeed any body but +herself; but, as far as she is concerned, we cannot pretend to be +scandalized--for how could she without a heart? It is very shocking of +course that she committed all sorts of dirty tricks, and jockeyed her +neighbours, and never cared what she trampled under foot if it happened +to obstruct her step; but how could she be expected to do otherwise +without a conscience? The poor little woman was most tryingly placed; +she came into the world without the customary letters of credit upon +those two great bankers of humanity, "Heart and Conscience," and it was +no fault of hers if they dishonoured all her bills. All she could do in +this dilemma was to establish the firmest connexion with the inferior +commercial branches of "Sense and Tact," who secretly do much business +in the name of the head concern, and with whom her "fine frontal +development" gave her unlimited credit. She saw that selfishness was the +metal which the stamp of heart was suborned to pass; that hypocrisy was +the homage that vice rendered to virtue; that honesty was, at all +events, acted, because it was the best policy; and so she practised the +arts of selfishness and hypocrisy like anybody else in Vanity Fair, only +with this difference, that she brought them to their highest possible +pitch of perfection. For why is it that, looking round in this world, we +find plenty of characters to compare with her up to a certain pitch, but +none which reach her actual standard? Why is it that, speaking of this +friend or that, we say in the tender mercies of our hearts, "No, she is +not _quite_ so bad as Becky?" We fear not only because she has more +heart and conscience, but also because she has less cleverness. + +No; let us give Becky her due. There is enough in this world of ours, as +we all know, to provoke a saint, far more a poor little devil like her. +She had none of those fellow-feelings which make us wondrous kind. She +saw people around her cowards in vice, and simpletons in virtue, and she +had no patience with either, for she was as little the one as the other +herself. She saw women who loved their husbands and yet teazed them, and +ruining their children although they doated upon them, and she sneered +at their utter inconsistency. Wickedness or goodness, unless coupled +with strength, were alike worthless to her. That weakness which is the +blessed pledge of our humanity, was to her only the despicable badge of +our imperfection. She thought, it might be, of her master's words, +"Fallen Cherub! to be weak is to be miserable!" and wondered how we +could be such fools as first to sin and then to be sorry. Becky's light +was defective, but she acted up to it. Her goodness goes as far as good +temper, and her principles as far as shrewd sense, and we may thank her +consistency for showing us what they are both worth. + +It is another thing to pretend to settle whether such a character be +_primĂ¢ facie_ impossible, though devotion to the better sex might well +demand the assertion. There are mysteries of iniquity, under the +semblance of man and woman, read of in history, or met with in the +unchronicled sufferings of private life, which would almost make us +believe that the powers of Darkness occasionally made use of this earth +for a Foundling Hospital, and sent their imps to us, already provided +with a return-ticket. We shall not decide on the lawfulness or otherwise +of any attempt to depict such importations; we can only rest perfectly +satisfied that, granting the author's premises, it is impossible to +imagine them carried out with more felicitous skill and more exquisite +consistency than in the heroine of "Vanity Fair." At all events, the +infernal regions have no reason to be ashamed of little Becky, nor the +ladies either: she has, at least, all the cleverness of the sex. + +The great charm, therefore, and comfort of Becky is, that we may study +her without any compunctions. The misery of this life is not the evil +that we see, but the good and the evil which are so inextricably twisted +together. It is that perpetual memento ever meeting one-- + + How in this vile world below + Noblest things find vilest using, + +that is so very distressing to those who have hearts as well as eyes. +But Becky relieves them of all this pain--at least in her own person. +Pity would be thrown away upon one who has not heart enough for it to +ache even for herself. Becky is perfectly happy, as all must be who +excel in what they love best. Her life is one exertion of successful +power. Shame never visits her, for "'Tis conscience that makes cowards +of us all"--and she has none. She realizes that _ne plus ultra_ of +sublunary comfort which it was reserved for a Frenchman to define--the +blessed combination of _"le bon estomac et le mauvais coeur"_: for Becky +adds to her other good qualities that of an excellent digestion. + +Upon the whole, we are not afraid to own that we rather enjoy her _ignis +fatuus_ course, dragging the weak and the vain and the selffish +[Transcriber's note: sic], through mud and mire, after her, and acting +all parts, from the modest rushlight to the gracious star, just as it +suits her. Clever little imp that she is! What exquisite tact she +shows!--what unflagging good humour!--what ready self-possession! Becky +never disappoints us; she never even makes us tremble. We know that her +answer will come exactly suiting her one particular object, and +frequently three or four more in prospect. What respect, too, she has +for those decencies which more virtuous, but more stupid humanity, often +disdains! What detection of all that is false and mean! What instinct +for all that is true and great! She is her master's true pupil in that: +she knows what is really divine as well as he, and bows before it. She +honours Dobbin in spite of his big feet; she respects her husband more +than ever she did before, perhaps for the first time, at the very moment +when he is stripping not only her jewels, but name, honour, and comfort +off her. + +We are not so sure either whether we are justified in calling hers _"le +mauvais coeur."_ Becky does not pursue any one vindictively; she never +does gratuitous mischief. The fountain is more dry than poisoned. She is +even generous--when she can afford it. Witness that burst of plain +speaking in Dobbin's favour to the little dolt Amelia, for which we +forgive her many a sin. 'Tis true she wanted to get rid of her; but let +that pass. Becky was a thrifty dame, and liked to despatch two birds +with one stone. And she was honest, too, after a fashion. The part of +wife she acts at first as well, and better than most; but as for that of +mother, there she fails from the beginning. She knew that maternal love +was no business of hers--that a fine frontal development could give her +no help there--and puts so little spirit into her imitation that no one +could be taken in for a moment. She felt that that bill, of all others, +would be sure to be dishonoured, and it went against her conscience--we +mean her sense--to send it in. + +In short, the only respect in which Becky's course gives us pain is when +it locks itself into that of another, and more genuine child of this +earth. No one can regret those being entangled in her nets whose vanity +and meanness of spirit alone led them into its meshes--such are rightly +served; but we do grudge her that real sacred thing called _love_, even +of a Rawdon Crawley, who has more of that self-forgetting, all-purifying +feeling for his little evil spirit than many a better man has for a good +woman. We do grudge Becky _a heart_, though it belong only to a +swindler. Poor, sinned against, vile, degraded, but still true-hearted +Rawdon!--you stand next in our affections and sympathies to honest +Dobbin himself. It was the instinct of a good nature which made the +Major feel that the stamp of the Evil One was upon Becky; and it was the +stupidity of a good nature which made the Colonel never suspect it. He +was a cheat, a black-leg, an unprincipled dog; but still "Rawdon _is_ a +man, and be hanged to him," as the Rector says. We follow him through +the illustrations, which are, in many instances, a delightful +enhancement to the text--as he stands there, with his gentle eyelid, +coarse moustache, and foolish chin, bringing up Becky's coffee-cup with +a kind of dumb fidelity; or looking down at little Rawdon with a more +than paternal tenderness. All Amelia's philoprogenitive idolatries do +not touch us like one fond instinct of "stupid Rawdon." + +Dobbin sheds a halo over all the long-necked, loose-jointed, +Scotch-looking gentlemen of our acquaintance. Flat feet and flap ears +seem henceforth incompatible with evil. He reminds us of one of the +sweetest creations that have appeared from any modern pen--that plain, +awkward, loveable "Long Walter," in Lady Georgina Fullerton's beautiful +novel of "Grantley Manor." Like him, too, in his proper self-respect; for +Dobbin--lumbering, heavy, shy, and absurdly over modest as the ugly fellow +is--is yet true to himself. At one time he seems to be sinking into the +mere abject dangler after Amelia; but he breaks his chains like a man, and +resumes them again like a man, too, although half disenchanted of his +amiable delusion. + +But to return for a moment to Becky. The only criticism we would offer +is one which the author has almost disarmed by making her mother a +Frenchwoman. The construction of this little clever monster is +diabolically French. Such a _lusus naturae_ as a woman without a heart +and conscience would, in England, be a mere brutal savage, and poison +half a village. France is the land for the real Syren, with the woman's +face and the dragon's claws. The genus of Pigeon and Laffarge claims it +for its own--only that our heroine takes a far higher class by not +requiring the vulgar matter of fact of crime to develop her full powers. +It is an affront to Becky's tactics to believe that she could ever be +reduced to so low a resource, or, that if she were, anybody would find +it out. We, therefore, cannot sufficiently applaud the extreme +discretion with which Mr. Thackeray has hinted at the possibly assistant +circumstances of Joseph Sedley's dissolution. A less delicacy of +handling would have marred the harmony of the whole design. Such a +casualty as that suggested to our imagination was not intended for the +light net of Vanity Fair to draw on shore; it would have torn it to +pieces. Besides it is not wanted. Poor little Becky is bad enough to +satisfy the most ardent student of "good books." Wickedness, beyond a +certain pitch, gives no increase of gratification even to the sternest +moralist; and one of Mr. Thackeray's excellences is the sparing quantity +he consumes. The whole _use_, too, of the work--that of generously +measuring one another by this standard--is lost, the moment you convict +Becky of a capital crime. Who can, with any face, liken a dear friend to +a murderess? Whereas now there are no little symptoms of fascinating +ruthlessness, graceful ingratitude, or ladylike selfishness, observable +among our charming acquaintance, that we may not immediately detect to +an inch, and more effectually intimidate by the simple application of +the Becky gauge than by the most vehement use of all ten commandments. +Thanks to Mr. Thackeray, the world is now provided with an _idea_, +which, if we mistake not, will be the skeleton in the corner of every +ball-room and boudoir for a long time to come. Let us leave it intact in +its unique fount and freshness--a Becky, and nothing more. We should, +therefore, advise our readers to cut out that picture of our heroine's +"Second Appearance as Clytemnestra," which casts so uncomfortable a +glare over the latter part of the volume, and, disregarding all hints +and inuendoes, simply to let the changes and chances of this moral life +have due weight in their minds. Jos had been much in India. His was a +bad life; he ate and drank most imprudently, and his digestion was not +to be compared with Becky's. No respectable office would have ensured +"Waterloo Sedley." + +"Vanity Fair" is pre-eminently a novel of the day--not in the vulgar +sense, of which there are too many, but as a literal photograph of the +manners and habits of the nineteenth century, thrown on to paper by the +light of a powerful mind; and one also of the most artistic effect. Mr. +Thackeray has a peculiar adroitness in leading on the fancy, or rather +memory of his readers from one set of circumstances to another by the +seeming chances and coincidences of common life, as an artist leads the +spectator's eye through the subject of his picture by a skilful +repetition of colour. This is why it is impossible to quote from his +book with any justice to it. The whole growth of the narrative is so +matted and interwoven together with tendril-like links and bindings, +that there is no detaching a flower with sufficient length of stalk to +exhibit it to advantage. There is that mutual dependence in his +characters which is the first requisite in painting every-day life: no +one is stuck on a separate pedestal--no one is sitting for his portrait. +There may be one exception--we mean Sir Pitt Crawley, senior; it is +possible, nay, we hardly doubt, that this baronet was closer drawn from +individual life than anybody else in the book; but granting that fact, +the animal was so unique an exception, that we wonder so shrewd an +artist could stick him into a gallery so full of our familiars. The +scenes in Germany, we can believe, will seem to many readers of an +English book hardly less extravagantly absurd--grossly and gratuitously +overdrawn; but the initiated will value them as containing some of the +keenest strokes of truth and humour that "Vanity Fair" exhibits, and not +enjoy them the less for being at our neighbour's expense. For the +thorough appreciation of the chief character they are quite +indispensable too. The whole course of the work may be viewed as the +_Wander-Jahre_ of a far cleverer female, _Wilhelm Meister_. We have +watched her in the ups-and-downs of life--among the humble, the +fashionable, the great, and the pious--and found her ever new, yet ever +the same; but still Becky among the students was requisite to complete +the full measure of our admiration. + +"Jane Eyre," as a work, and one of equal popularity, is, in almost every +respect, a total contrast to "Vanity Fair." The characters and events, +though some of them masterly in conception, are coined expressly for the +purpose of bringing out great effects. The hero and heroine are beings +both so singularly unattractive that the reader feels they can have no +vocation in the novel but to be brought together; and they do things +which, though not impossible, lie utterly beyond the bounds of +probability. On this account a short sketch of the plan seems requisite; +not but what it is a plan familiar enough to all readers of novels-- +especially those of the old school and those of the lowest school of our +own day. For Jane Eyre is merely another Pamela, who, by the force of +her character and the strength of her principles, is carried +victoriously through great trials and temptations from the man she +loves. Nor is she even a Pamela adapted and refined to modern notions; +for though the story is conducted without those derelictions of decorum +which we are to believe had their excuse in the manners of Richardson's +time, yet it stamped with a coarseness of language and laxity of tone +which have certainly no excuse in ours. It is a very remarkable book: we +have no remembrance of another combining such genuine power with such +horrid taste. Both together have equally assisted to gain the great +popularity it has enjoyed; for in these days of extravagant adoration of +all that bears the stamp of novelty and originality, sheer rudeness and +vulgarity have come in for a most mistaken worship. + +The story is written in the first person. Jane begins with her earliest +recollections, and at once takes possession of the readers' intensest +interest by the masterly picture of a strange and oppressed child she +raises up in a few strokes before him. She is an orphan, and a dependant +in the house of a selfish, hard-hearted aunt, against whom the +disposition of the little Jane chafes itself in natural antipathy, till +she contrives to make the unequal struggle as intolerable to her +oppressor as it is to herself. She is, therefore, at eight years of age, +got rid of to a sort of Dothegirls Hall, where she continues to enlist +our sympathies for a time with her little pinched fingers, cropped hair, +and empty stomach. But things improve: the abuses of the institution are +looked into. The Puritan patron, who holds that young orphan girls are +only safely brought up upon the rules of La Trappe, is superseded by an +enlightened committee--the school assumes a sound English character-- +Jane progresses duly from scholar to teacher, and passes ten profitable +and not unhappy years at Lowood. Then she advertises for a situation as +governess, and obtains one immediately in one of the midland counties. +We see her, therefore, as she leaves Lowood, to enter upon a new life--a +small, plain, odd creature, who has been brought up dry upon school +learning, and somewhat stunted accordingly in mind and body, and who is +now thrown upon the world as ignorant of its ways, and as destitute of +its friendships, as a shipwrecked mariner upon a strange coast. + +Thornfield Hall is the property of Mr. Rochester--a bachelor addicted to +travelling. She finds it at first in all the peaceful prestige of an +English gentleman's seat when "nobody is at the hall." The companions +are an old decayed gentlewoman housekeeper--a far away cousin of the +squire's--and a young French child, Jane's pupil, Mr. Rochester's ward +and reputed daughter. There is a pleasing monotony in the summer +solitude of the old country house, with its comfort, respectability, and +dulness, which Jane paints to the life; but there is one circumstance +which varies the sameness and casts a mysterious feeling over the scene. +A strange laugh is heard from time to time in a distant part of the +house--a laugh which grates discordantly upon Jane's ear. She listens, +watches, and inquires, but can discover nothing but a plain matter of +fact woman, who sits sewing somewhere in the attics, and goes up and +down stairs peaceably to and from her dinner with the servants. But a +mystery there is, though nothing betrays it, and it comes in with +marvellous effect from the monotonous reality of all around. After +awhile Mr. Rochester comes to Thornfield, and sends for the child and +her governess occasionally to bear him company. He is a dark, +strange-looking man--strong and large--of the brigand stamp, with fine +eyes and lowering brows--blunt and sarcastic in his manners, with a kind +of misanthropical frankness, which seems based upon utter contempt for +his fellow-creatures and a surly truthfulness which is more rudeness than +honesty. With his arrival disappears all the prestige of country +innocence that had invested Thornfield Hall. He brings the taint of the +world upon him, and none of its illusions. The queer little governess is +something new to him. He talks to her at one time imperiously as to a +servant, and at another recklessly as to a man. He pours into her ears +disgraceful tales of his past life, connected with the birth of little +Adele, which any man with common respect for a woman, and that a mere +girl of eighteen, would have spared her; but which eighteen in this case +listens to as if it were nothing new, and certainly nothing distasteful. +He is captious and Turk-like--she is one day his confidant, and another +his unnoticed dependant. In short, by her account, Mr. Rochester is a +strange brute, somewhat in the Squire Western style of absolute and +capricious eccentricity, though redeemed in him by signs of a cultivated +intellect, and gleams of a certain fierce justice of heart. He has a +_mind_, and when he opens it at all, he opens it freely to her. Jane +becomes attached to her "master," as Pamela-like she calls him, and it +is not difficult to see that solitude and propinquity are taking effect +upon him also. An odd circumstance heightens the dawning romance. Jane +is awoke one night by that strange discordant laugh close to her ear-- +then a noise as if hands feeling along the wall. She rises--opens her +door, finds the passage full of smoke, is guided by it to her master's +room, whose bed she discovers enveloped in flames, and by her timely aid +saves his life. After this they meet no more for ten days, when Mr. +Rochester returns from a visit to a neighbouring family, bringing with +him a housefull of distinguished guests; at the head of whom is Miss +Blanche Ingram, a haughty beauty of high birth, and evidently the +especial object of the Squire's attentions--upon which tumultuous +irruption Miss Eyre slips back into her naturally humble position. + +Our little governess is now summoned away to attend her aunt's death-bed, +who is visited by some compunctions towards her, and she is absent +a month. When she returns Thornfield Hall is quit of all its guests, and +Mr. Rochester and she resume their former life of captious cordiality on +the one side, and diplomatic humility on the other. At the same time the +bugbear of Miss Ingram and of Mr. Rochester's engagement with her is +kept up, though it is easy to see that this and all concerning that lady +is only a stratagem to try Jane's character and affection upon the most +approved Griselda precedent. Accordingly an opportunity for explanation +ere long offers itself, where Mr. Rochester has only to take it. Miss +Eyre is desired to walk with him in shady alleys, and to sit with him on +the roots of an old chestnut-tree towards the close of evening, and of +course she cannot disobey her "master"--whereupon there ensues a scene +which, as far as we remember, is new equally in art or nature; in which +Miss Eyre confesses her love--whereupon Mr. Rochester drops not only his +cigar (which she seems to be in the habit of lighting for him) but his +mask, and finally offers not only heart, but hand. The wedding day is +soon fixed, but strange misgivings and presentiments haunt the young +lady's mind. The night but one before her bed-room is entered by a +horrid phantom, who tries on the wedding veil, sends Jane into a swoon +of terror, and defeats all the favourite refuge of a bad dream by +leaving the veil in two pieces. But all is ready. The bride has no +friends to assist--the couple walk to church--only the clergyman and the +clerk are there--but Jane's quick eye has seen two figures lingering +among the tombstones, and these two follow them into church. The +ceremony commences, when at the due charge which summons any man to come +forward and show just cause why they should not be joined together, a +voice interposes to forbid the marriage. There is an impediment, and a +serious one. The bridegroom has a wife not only living, but living under +the very roof of Thornfield Hall. Hers was that discordant laugh which +had so often caught Jane's ear; she it was who in her malice had tried +to burn Mr. Rochester in his bed--who had visited Jane by night and torn +her veil, and whose attendant was that same pretended sew-woman who had +so strongly excited Jane's curiosity. For Mr. Rochester's wife is a +creature, half fiend, half maniac, whom he had married in a distant part +of the world, and whom now, in self-constituted code of morality, he had +thought it his right, and even his duty, to supersede by a more +agreeable companion. Now follow scenes of a truly tragic power. This is +the grand crisis in Jane's life. Her whole soul is wrapt up in Mr. +Rochester. He has broken her trust, but not diminished her love. He +entreats her to accept all that he still can give, his heart and his +home; he pleads with the agony not only of a man who has never known +what it was to conquer a passion, but of one who, by that same +self-constituted code, now burns to atone for a disappointed crime. There +is no one to help her against him or against herself. Jane had no friends +to stand by her at the altar, and she has none to support her now she is +plucked away from it. There is no one to be offended or disgraced at her +following him to the sunny land of Italy, as he proposes, till the +maniac should die. There is no duty to any one but to herself, and this +feeble reed quivers and trembles beneath the overwhelming weight of love +and sophistry opposed to it. But Jane triumphs; in the middle of the +night she rises--glides out of her room--takes off her shoes as she +passes Mr. Rochester's chamber;--leaves the house, and casts herself +upon a world more desert than ever to her-- + + Without a shilling and without a friend. + +Thus the great deed of self-conquest is accomplished; Jane has passed +through the fire of temptation from without and from within; her +character is stamped from that day; we need therefore follow her no +further into wanderings and sufferings which, though not unmixed with +plunder from Minerva-lane, occupy some of, on the whole, the most +striking chapters in the book. Virtue of course finds her reward. The +maniac wife sets fire to Thornfield Hall, and perishes herself in the +flames. Mr. Rochester, in endeavouring to save her, loses the sight of +his eyes. Jane rejoins her blind master; they are married, after which +of course the happy man recovers his sight. + +Such is the outline of a tale in which, combined with great materials +for power and feeling, the reader may trace gross inconsistencies and +improbabilities, and chief and foremost that highest moral offence a +novel writer can commit, that of making an unworthy character +interesting in the eyes of the reader. Mr. Rochester is a man who +deliberately and secretly seeks to violate the laws both of God and man, +and yet we will be bound half our lady readers are enchanted with him +for a model of generosity and honour. We would have thought that such a +hero had had no chance, in the purer taste of the present day; but the +popularity of Jane Eyre is a proof how deeply the love for illegitimate +romance is implanted in our nature. Not that the author is strictly +responsible for this. Mr. Rochester's character is tolerably consistent. +He is made as coarse and as brutal as can in all conscience be required +to keep our sympathies at a distance. In point of literary consistency +the hero is at all events impugnable, though we cannot say as much for +the heroine. + +As to Jane's character--there is none of that harmonious unity about it +which made little Becky so grateful a subject of analysis--nor are the +discrepancies of that kind which have their excuse and their response in +our nature. The inconsistencies of Jane's character lie mainly not in +her own imperfections, though of course she has her share, but in the +author's. There is that confusion in the relations between cause and +effect, which is not so much untrue to human nature as to human art. The +error in Jane Eyre is, not that her character is this or that, but that +she is made one thing in the eyes of her imaginary companions, and +another in that of the actual reader. There is a perpetual disparity +between the account she herself gives of the effect she produces, and +the means shown us by which she brings that effect about. We hear +nothing but self-eulogiums on the perfect tact and wondrous penetration +with which she is gifted, and yet almost every word she utters offends +us, not only with the absence of these qualities, but with the positive +contrasts of them, in either her pedantry, stupidity, or gross +vulgarity. She is one of those ladies who puts us in the unpleasant +predicament of undervaluing their very virtues for dislike of the person +in whom they are represented. One feels provoked as Jane Eyre stands +before us--for in the wonderful reality of her thoughts and +descriptions, she seems accountable for all done in her name--with +principles you must approve in the main, and yet with language and +manners that offend you in every particular. Even in that _chef-d'oeuvre_ +of brilliant retrospective sketching, the description of her +early life, it is the childhood and not the child that interests you. +The little Jane, with her sharp eyes and dogmatic speeches, is a being +you neither could fondle nor love. There is a hardness in her infantine +earnestness, and a spiteful precocity in her reasoning, which repulses +all our sympathy. One sees that she is of a nature to dwell upon and +treasure up every slight and unkindness, real or fancied, and such +natures we know are surer than any others to meet with plenty of this +sort of thing. As the child, so also the woman--an uninteresting, +sententious, pedantic thing; with no experience of the world, and yet +with no simplicity or freshness in its stead. What are her first answers +to Mr. Rochester but such as would have quenched all interest, even for +a prettier woman, in any man of common knowledge of what was nature--and +especially in a _blasĂ©_ monster like him? + + * * * * * + +But the crowning scene is the offer--governesses are said to be sly on +such occasions, but Jane out-governesses them all--little Becky would +have blushed for her. They are sitting together at the foot of the old +chestnut tree, as we have already mentioned, towards the close of +evening, and Mr. Rochester is informing her, with his usual delicacy of +language, that he is engaged to Miss Ingram--"a strapper! Jane, a real +strapper!"--and that as soon as he brings home his bride to Thornfield, +she, the governess, must "trot forthwith"--but that he shall make it his +duty to look out for employment and an asylum for her--indeed, that he +has already heard of a charming situation in the depths of Ireland--all +with a brutal jocoseness which most women of spirit, unless grievously +despairing of any other lover, would have resented, and any woman of +sense would have seen through. But Jane, that profound reader of the +human heart, and especially of Mr. Rochester's, does neither. She meekly +hopes she may be allowed to stay where she is till she has found another +shelter to betake herself to--she does not fancy going to Ireland--Why? + + "It is a long way off, Sir." "No matter--a girl of your sense will not + object to the voyage or the distance." "Not the voyage, but the + distance, Sir; and then the sea is a barrier--" "From what, Jane?" + "From England, and from Thornfield; and--" "Well?" "From _you_, Sir." + --vol. ii, p. 205. + +and then the lady bursts into tears in the most approved fashion. + +Although so clever in giving hints, how wonderfully slow she is in +taking them! Even when, tired of his cat's play, Mr. Rochester proceeds +to rather indubitable demonstrations of affection--"enclosing me in his +arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips"--Jane +has no idea what he can mean. Some ladies would have thought it high +time to leave the Squire alone with his chestnut tree; or, at all +events, unnecessary to keep up that tone of high-souled feminine +obtusity which they are quite justified in adopting if gentlemen will +not speak out--but Jane again does neither. Not that we say she was +wrong, but quite the reverse, considering the circumstances of the case-- +Mr. Rochester was her master, and "Duchess or nothing" was her first +duty--only she was not quite so artless as the author would have us +suppose. + +But if the manner in which she secures the prize be not inadmissible +according to the rules of the art, that in which she manages it when +caught, is quite without authority or precedent, except perhaps in the +servants' hall. Most lover's play is wearisome and nonsensical to the +lookers on--but the part Jane assumes is one which could only be +efficiently sustained by the substitution of Sam for her master. Coarse +as Mr. Rochester is, one winces for him under the infliction of this +housemaid _beau idĂ©al_ of the arts of coquetry. A little more, and we +should have flung the book aside to lie for ever among the trumpery with +which such scenes ally it; but it were a pity to have halted here, for +wonderful things lie beyond--scenes of suppressed feeling, more fearful +to witness than the most violent tornados of passion--struggles with +such intense sorrow and suffering as it is sufficient misery to know +that any one should have conceived, far less passed through; and yet +with that stamp of truth which takes precedence in the human heart +before actual experience. The flippant, fifth-rate, plebeian actress has +vanished, and only a noble, high-souled woman, bound to us by the +reality of her sorrow, and yet raised above us by the strength of her +will, stands in actual life before us. If this be Jane Eyre, the author +has done her injustice hitherto, not we. + + * * * * * + +We have said that this was the picture of a natural heart. This, to our +view, is the great and crying mischief of the book. Jane Eyre is +throughout the personification of an unregenerate and undisciplined +spirit, and more dangerous to exhibit from that prestige of principle +and self-control which is liable to dazzle the eye too much for it to +observe the inefficient and unsound foundation on which it rests. It is +true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength, but it is the +strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself. No Christian +grace is perceptible upon her. She has inherited in fullest measure the +worst sin of our fallen nature--the sin of pride. Jane Eyre is proud, +and therefore she is ungrateful too. It pleased God to make her an +orphan, friendless, and penniless--yet she thanks nobody, and least of +all Him, for the food and raiment, the friends, companions, and +instructors of her helpless youth--for the care and education vouchsafed +to her till she was capable in mind as fitted in years to provide for +herself. On the contrary, she looks upon all that has been done for her +not only as her undoubted right, but as falling far short of it. The +doctrine of humility is not more foreign to her mind than it is +repudiated by her heart. It is by her own talents, virtues, and courage +that she is made to attain the summit of human happiness, and, as far as +Jane Eyre's own statement is concerned, no one would think that she owed +anything either to God above or to man below. She flees from Mr. +Rochester, and has not a being to turn to. Why was this? The excellence +of the present institution at Casterton, which succeeded that of Cowan +Bridge near Kirkby Lonsdale--these being distinctly, as we hear, the +original and the reformed Lowoods of the book--is pretty generally +known. Jane had lived there for eight years with 110 girls and fifteen +teachers. Why had she formed no friendships among them? Other orphans +have left the same and similar institutions, furnished with friends for +life, and puzzled with homes to choose from. How comes it that Jane had +acquired neither? Among that number of associates there were surely some +exceptions to what she so presumptuously stigmatises as "the society of +inferior minds." Of course it suited the author's end to represent the +heroine as utterly destitute of the common means of assistance, in order +to exhibit both her trials and her powers of self-support--the whole +book rests on this assumption--but it is one which, under the +circumstances, is very unnatural and very unjust. + +Altogether the auto-biography of Jane Eyre is pre-eminently an +anti-Christian composition. There is throughout it a murmuring against the +comforts of the rich and against the privations of the poor, which, as +far as each individual is concerned, is a murmuring against God's +appointment--there is a proud and perpetual assertion of the rights of +man, for which we find no authority either in God's word or in God's +providence--there is that pervading tone of ungodly discontent which is +at once the most prominent and the most subtle evil which the law and +the pulpit, which all civilized society in fact has at the present day +to contend with. We do not hesitate to say that the tone of mind and +thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code human and +divine abroad, and fostered Chartism and rebellion at home, is the same +which has also written Jane Eyre. + +Still we say again this is a very remarkable book. We are painfully +alive to the moral, religious, and literary deficiencies of the picture, +and such passages of beauty and power as we have quoted cannot redeem +it, but it is impossible not to be spell-bound with the freedom of the +touch. It would be mere hackneyed courtesy to call it "fine writing." It +bears no impress of being written at all, but is poured out rather in +the heat and hurry of an instinct, which flows ungovernably on to its +object, indifferent by what means it reaches it, and unconscious too. As +regards the author's chief object, however, it is a failure--that, +namely, of making a plain, odd woman, destitute of all the conventional +features of feminine attraction, interesting in our sight. We deny that +he has succeeded in this. Jane Eyre, in spite of some grand things about +her, is a being totally uncongenial to our feelings from beginning to +end. We acknowledge her firmness--we respect her determination--we feel +for her struggles; but, for all that, and setting aside higher +considerations, the impression she leaves on our mind is that of a +decidedly vulgar-minded woman--one whom we should not care for as an +acquaintance, whom we should not seek as a friend, whom we should not +desire for a relation, and whom we should scrupulously avoid for a +governess. + +There seems to have arisen in the novel-reading world some doubts as to +who really wrote this book; and various rumours, more or less romantic, +have been current in Mayfair, the metropolis of gossip, as to the +authorship. For example, Jane Eyre is sentimentally assumed to have +proceeded from the pen of Mr. Thackeray's governess, whom he had himself +chosen as his model of Becky, and who, in mingled love and revenge, +personified him in return as Mr. Rochester. In this case, it is evident +that the author of "Vanity Fair," whose own pencil makes him grey-haired, +has had the best of it, though his children may have had the +worst, having, at all events, succeeded in hitting the vulnerable point +in the Becky bosom, which it is our firm belief no man born of woman, +from her Soho to her Ostend days, had ever so much as grazed. To this +ingenious rumour the coincidence of the second edition of Jane Eyre +being dedicated to Mr. Thackeray has probably given rise. For our parts, +we see no great interest in the question at all. The first edition of +Jane Eyre purports to be edited by Currer Bell, one of a trio of +brothers, or sisters, or cousins, by names Currer, Acton, and Ellis +Bell, already known as the joint-authors of a volume of poems. The +second edition the same--dedicated, however, "by the author," to Mr. +Thackeray; and the dedication (itself an indubitable _chip_ of Jane +Eyre) signed Currer Bell. Author and editor therefore are one, and we +are as much satisfied to accept this double individual under the name of +"Currer Bell," as under any other, more or less euphonious. Whoever it +be, it is a person who, with great mental powers, combines a total +ignorance of the habits of society, a great coarseness of taste, and a +heathenish doctrine of religion. And as these characteristics appear +more or less in the writings of all three, Currer, Acton, and Ellis +alike, for their poems differ less in degree of power than in kind, we +are ready to accept the fact of their identity or of their relationship +with equal satisfaction. At all events there can be no interest attached +to the writer of "Wuthering Heights "--a novel succeeding "Jane Eyre," +and purporting to be written by Ellis Bell--unless it were for the sake +of more individual reprobation. For though there is a decided family +likeness between the two, yet the aspect of the Jane and Rochester +animals in their native state, as Catherine and Heathfield +[Transcriber's note: sic], is too odiously and abominably pagan to be +palatable even to the most vitiated class of English readers. With all +the unscrupulousness of the French school of novels it combines that +repulsive vulgarity in the choice of its vice which supplies its own +antidote. The question of authorship, therefore, can deserve a moment's +curiosity only as far as "Jane Eyre" is concerned, and though we cannot +pronounce that it appertains to a real Mr. Currer Bell and to no other, +yet that it appertains to a man, and not, as many assert, to a woman, we +are strongly inclined to affirm. Without entering into the question +whether the power of the writing be above her, or the vulgarity below +her, there are, we believe, minutiae of circumstantial evidence which at +once acquit the feminine hand. No woman--a lady friend, whom we are +always happy to consult, assures us--makes mistakes in her own _mĂ©tier_-- +no woman _trusses game_ and garnishes dessert-dishes with the same +hands, or talks of so doing in the same breath. Above all, no woman +attires another in such fancy dresses as Jane's ladies assume--Miss +Ingram coming down, irresistible, "in a _morning_ robe of sky-blue +crape, a gauze azure scarf twisted in her hair!!" No lady, we +understand, when suddenly roused in the night, would think of hurrying +on "_a frock_." They have garments more convenient for such occasions, +and more becoming too. This evidence seems incontrovertible. Even +granting that these incongruities were purposely assumed, for the sake +of disguising the female pen, there is nothing gained; for if we ascribe +the book to a woman at all, we have no alternative but to ascribe it to +one who has, for some sufficient reason, long forfeited the society of +her own sex. + + + + +ON GEORGE ELIOT + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1860] + +1. _Scenes of Clerical Life_ [containing _The Sad Fortunes of the +Reverend Amos Barton; Mr. Gilfil's Love Story_; and _Janet's +Repentance_]. By GEORGE ELIOT. Second Edition. 2 vols. Edinburgh and +London, 1859. + +2. _Adam Bede_. By GEORGE ELIOT. Sixth Edition, 2 vols. 1859. + +3. _The Mill on the Floss_. By GEORGE ELIOT. 3 vols. 1860. + + +We frequently hear the remark, that in the present day everything is +tending to uniformity--that all minds are taught to think alike, that +the days of novelty have departed. To us, however, it appears that the +age abounds in new and abnormal modes of thought--we had almost said, +forms of being. What could be so new and so unlikely as that the young +and irreproachable maiden daughter of a clergyman should have produced +so extraordinary a work as "Jane Eyre,"--a work of which we were +compelled to express the opinion that the unknown and mysterious "Currer +Bell" held "a heathenish doctrine of religion"; that the ignorance which +the book displayed as to the proprieties of female dress was hardly +compatible with the idea of its having been written by a woman; but +that, if a woman at all, the writer must be "one who had, for some +sufficient reason, long forfeited the society of her own sex." + +In attempting to guess at the character and circumstances of the writer, +a reviewer could only choose among such types of men and women as he had +known, or heard, or read of. An early European settler in Australia, in +conjecturing whether his garden had been ravaged by a bird or by a +quadruped, would not light readily on the conception of an +ornithorhynchus; and assuredly no one accustomed only to ordinary men +and women could have divined the character, the training, and the +position of Charlotte BrontĂ«, as they have been made known to us by her +biographer's unsparing revelations. It was not to be expected that any +one should have imagined the life of Howorth [Trasncriber's note: sic] +parsonage; the gifted, wayward, and unhappy sisterhood in their +cheerless home; the rudeness of the only society which was within their +reach; while their views of anything beyond their own immediate circle, +and certain unpleasing forms of school-life which they had known, were +drawn from the representations of a brother whose abilities they +regarded with awe, but who in other respects appears to have been an +utterly worthless debauchee; lying and slandering, bragging not only of +the sins which he had committed, but of many which he had not committed; +thoroughly depraved himself, and tainting the thoughts of all within his +sphere. There was, therefore, in "Jane Eyre," as the reviewer supposed, +the influence of a corrupt male mind, although this influence had been +exerted through an unsuspected medium. We now know how it was that a +clergyman's daughter, herself innocent, and honourably devoted to the +discharge of many a painful duty, could have written such a book as +"Jane Eyre" but without such explanations as Mrs. Gaskell has placed +(perhaps somewhat too unreservedly) before the world, the thing would +have been inconceivable. Indeed there is very sufficient evidence that +the Quarterly reviewer was by no means alone in entertaining the +opinions we have referred to: for the book was most vehemently cried up-- +the society of the authoress, when she became known, was most eagerly +courted--assiduous attempts were made (greatly to her annoyance) to +enlist her, to exhibit her, to trade on her fame--by the very persons +who would have been most ready to welcome her if she had been such as +the reviewer supposed her to be. And it is clear that the gentleman who +introduced himself to her acquaintance on the ground that each of them +had "written a naughty book" must have drawn pretty much the same +conclusions from the tone of Miss BrontĂ«'s first novel as the writer in +this Review. + +In like manner a great and remarkable departure from ordinary forms and +conditions has caused extreme uncertainty and many mistaken guesses as +to the new novelist who writes under the name of George Eliot. One +critic of considerable pretensions, for instance, declared his belief +that "George Eliot" was "a gentleman of high-church tendencies"; next +came the strange mystification which ascribed the "Eliot" tales to one +Mr. Joseph Liggins; and finally, the public learnt on authority that the +"gentleman of high church tendencies" was a lady; and that this lady was +the same who had given a remarkable proof of mastery over both the +German language and her own, but had certainly not established a +reputation for orthodoxy, by a translation of Strauss's "Life of Jesus." + +It is now too late to claim credit for having discovered the female +authorship before this disclosure of the fact. But it seems to us +impossible, when once the idea has been suggested, to read through these +books without finding confirmation of it in almost every page. There is, +indeed, power such as is rarely given to woman (or to man either); there +are traces of knowledge which is not usual among women (although some of +the classical quotations might at least have been more correctly +printed); there is a good deal of coarseness, which it is unpleasant to +think of as the work of a woman; and, as we shall have occasion to +observe more fully hereafter, the influence which these novels are +likely to exercise over the public taste is not altogether such as a +woman should aim at. But, with all this, the tone and atmosphere of the +books are unquestionably feminine. The men are a woman's men--the women +are a woman's women; the points on which the descriptions dwell in +persons of each sex are those which a woman would choose. In matters of +dress we are assured that "George Eliot" avoids the errors of "Jane +Eyre"; for no doubt she has had better opportunities of study than those +which were afforded by the Sunday finery of Howorth church. The sketches +of nature, of character, of life and manners, show female observation; +penetrating where it alone could penetrate, and usually stopping at the +boundaries beyond which it does not advance.... + +On looking at these very slight sketches we cannot but be struck by the +uniformly melancholy ending of the tales. The first culminates in the +death of the heroine (a word which in relation to these stories must be +very loosely interpreted), Mrs. Barton; the second, in the death of the +heroine, Mrs. Gilfil; the third, in the death of the hero, Mr. Tryan; +the fourth, in the death of one of the heroines, Hetty Sorrel; the +fifth, in the simultaneous death of the heroine and her brother, who is, +we suppose, to be regarded as the chief hero. Surely this is an +exaggerated representation of the proportion which sorrow bears to +happiness in human life; and the fact that a popular writer has (whether +consciously or not) brought every one of the five stories which she has +published to a tragical end gives a very uncomfortable idea of the tone +of our present literature. And other such symptoms are only too +plentiful--the announcement of a novel with the title of "Why Paul +Freeoll Killed his Wife" being one of the latest. With all respect for +the talents of the lady who offers us the solution of this question, we +must honestly profess that we would rather not know, and that we regret +such an employment of her pen. + +And in "George Eliot's" writings there is very much of this kind to +regret. She delights in unpleasant subjects--in the representation of +things which are repulsive, coarse, and degrading. Thus, in "Mr. +Gilfil's Story," Tina is only prevented from committing murder by the +opportune death of her intended victim. In "Janet's Repentance," a +drunken husband beats his beautiful but drunken wife, turns her out of +doors at midnight in her night-dress, and dies of "_delirium tremens_ +and _meningitis_." ... + +So, in "Adam Bede" we have all the circumstances of Hetty's seduction +and the birth and murder of her illegitimate child; and in the "Mill on +the Floss" there are the almost indecent details of mere animal passion +in the loves of Stephen and Maggie. If these are, as the writer's more +thorough-going admirers would tell us, the depths of human nature, we do +not see what good can be expected from raking them up,--not for the +benefit of those whom the warnings may concern (for these are not likely +to heed any warnings which may be presented in such a form), but for the +amusement of ordinary readers in hours of idleness and relaxation. +Compare "Adam Bede" with that one of Scott's novels which has something +in common with it as to story--the "Heart of Midlothian." In each a +beautiful young woman of the peasant class is tried and condemned for +child-murder; but, although condemned on circumstancial evidence under a +law of peculiar severity, Effie Deans is really innocent, whereas Hetty +Sorrel is guilty. In the novel of the last generation we see little of +Effie, and our attention is chiefly drawn to the simple heroism of her +sister Jeanie. In the novel of the present day, everything about Hetty +is most elaborately described: her thoughts throughout the whole course +of the seduction, her misery on discovering that there is evidence of +her frailty, her sufferings on the journey to Windsor and back (for it +is the Edie and not the Jeanie of this tale that makes a long solitary +journey to the south), her despairing hardness in the prison, her +confession, her behaviour on the way to the gallows. That all this is +represented with extraordinary force we need not say; and doubtless the +partisans of "George Eliot" would tell us that Scott could not have +written the chapters in question. We do not think it necessary to +discuss that point, but we are sure that in any case he _would_ not have +written them, because his healthy judgment would have rejected such +matters as unfit for the novelist's art. + +The boldness with which George Eliot chooses her subjects is very +remarkable. It is not that, like other writers, she fails in the attempt +to represent people as agreeable and interesting, but she knowingly +forces _dis_agreeable people on us, and insists that we shall be +interested in their story by the skill with which it is told. Mr. Amos +Barton, for instance, is as uninteresting a person as can well be +imagined: a dull, obtuse curate, whose poverty gives him no fair claim +to pity; for he has entered the ministry of the English Church without +any particular conviction of its superiority to other religious bodies; +without any special fitness for its ministry; without anything of the +ability which might reasonably entitle him to expect to rise; and +without the private means which are necessary for the support of most +married men in a profession which, if it is not (as it is sometimes +called) a lottery, has very great inequalities of income, and to the +vast majority of those who follow it gives very little indeed. Mr. +Barton is not a gentleman--a defect which the farmers and tradespeople +of his parish are not slow to discover, and for which they despise him. +He is without any misgivings as to himself or suspicion of his +deficiencies in any way, and his conduct is correctly described in a +lisping speech of the "secondary squire" of his parish, "What an ath +Barton makth of himthelf!" Yet for this stupid man our sympathy is +bespoken, merely because he has a wife so much too good for him that we +are almost inclined to be angry with her for her devotion to him. + +Tina is an undisciplined, abnormal little creature, without good looks +or any attractive quality except a talent for music, and with a temper +capable of the most furious excesses. Although Janet is described as +handsome, amiable, and cultivated, all these good properties are +overwhelmed in our thoughts of her by the degrading vice of which she is +to be cured; while her prophet, Mr. Tryan, although very zealous in his +work, is avowedly a narrow Calvinist, wanting in intellectual culture, +very irritable, not a little bitter and uncharitable, excessively fond +of applause without being very critical as to the quarter from which it +comes, and strongly possessed with the love of domination. Tom Tulliver +is hard, close, unimaginative, self-confident, repelling, with a stern +rectitude of a certain kind, but with no understanding of or toleration +for any character different from his own. Philip Wakem is a personage as +little pleasant as picturesque. Maggie, as a child--although in her +father's opinion "too clever for a gell"--is foolish, vain, self-willed, +and always in some silly scrape or other; and when grown up, her +behaviour is such, even before the climax of the affair with Stephen +Guest, that the dislike of the St. Ogg's ladies for her might have been +very sufficiently accounted for even if they had not had reason to envy +her superior beauty. + +But of all the characters for whom our authoress has been pleased to +bespeak our interest, Hetty Sorrel is the most remarkable for unamiable +qualities. She is represented as "distractingly pretty," and we hear a +great deal about her "kitten-like beauty," and her graceful movements, +looks, and attitudes. But this is all that can be said for her. Her mind +has no room for anything but looks and dress; she has no feeling for +anybody but her little self; and is only too truly declared by Mrs. +Poyser to be "no better than a peacock, as 'ud strut about on the wall, +and spread its tail when the sun shone, if all the folks i' the parish +was dying"--"no better nor a cherry, wi' a hard stone inside it."[1] +Over and over this view of Hetty's character is enforced on us, from the +time when, early in the first volume, we are told that hers "was a +springtide beauty; it was the beauty of young frisking things, +round-limbed, gambolling, circumventing you by a false air of +innocence.[2] ..." + +[1] "Adam Bede," i. 228; ii. 75. +[2] _ibid_., i. 119. + +Her conduct throughout is such as to offend and disgust; and the +authoress does not seem to be sufficiently aware that, while the +descriptions of the little coquette's beauty leave that to be imagined, +her follies and faults and crimes are set before us as matters of hard, +unmistakeable fact, so that the reader is in no danger of being blinded +by the charms which blinded Adam Bede, and Hetty consequently appears as +little else than contemptible when she is not odious. Yet it is on this +silly, heartless, and wicked little thing that the interest of the story +is made to rest. Her agonies, as we have already said, are depicted with +very great power; yet, if they touch our hearts, it is merely because +they _are_ agonies, and our feeling is unmixed with any regard for the +sufferer herself. + +This habit of representing her characters without any concealment of +their faults is, no doubt, connected with that faculty which enables the +authoress to give them so remarkable an air of reality. There are, +indeed, exceptions to this, as there are in almost every work of +fiction. Thus, Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel strike us as old +acquaintances whom we have known not in real life, but in books. We are +not altogether sure of stately old Mrs. Irwine, and are sceptical as to +Dinah Morris, notwithstanding the very great pains which the authoress +has evidently bestowed on her--perhaps because she is utterly unlike +such female Methodists as have fallen within our own (happily, small) +experience; and Bob Jakin is a grotesque caricature, which would have +been far better done by Mr. Dickens, who is undeniably great in the +production of grotesques, although we do not remember that throughout +the whole of his voluminous works he has ever succeeded in embodying a +single natural and lifelike character. But, with a very few exceptions, +"George Eliot's" personages have that appearance of reality in which +those of Mr. Dickens are so conspicuously wanting. And while Mr. +Dickens's views of English life and society are about as far from the +truth as those of the French dramatists and romancers, "George Eliot" is +able to represent the social circumstances in which her action is laid +with the strongest appearance of verisimilitude. We may not ourselves +have known Shepperton, or Hayslope, or St. Ogg's; but we feel as much at +home in them as if we had.... + +Tulliver may be cited as another well-imagined and well-executed +character, with his downright impetuous honesty, his hatred of +"raskills," and his disposition to see rascality everywhere; his +resolution to stand on his rights, his good-natured contempt for his +wife, his very justifiable dislike of her sisters, his love for his +children, and his determination that they shall have a good education, +cost what it may,--the benefits of education having been impressed on +his mind by his own inability to "wrap up things in words as aren't +actionable," and by the consequent perception that "it's an uncommon +fine thing, that is, when we can let a man know what you think of him +without paying for it."[1] His love of litigation is reconciled with his +belief that "the law is meant to take care o' raskills," and that "Old +Harry made the lawyers" by the principle that the cause which has the +"biggest raskill" for attorney has the best chance of success; so that +honesty need not despair if it can only secure the professional +assistance of accomplished roguery. And when, notwithstanding this, the +law and Mr. Wakem have been too much for him, great skill is shown in +the description of poor Tulliver's latter days; his prostration and +partial recovery; the concentration of his feelings on the desire to +wipe out the dishonour of insolvency, and to avenge himself on the +hostile attorney. Indeed, we confess that, notwithstanding his somewhat +unedifying end, Tulliver is the only person in "The Mill on the Floss" +for whom we can bring ourselves to care much. + +[1] "The Mill on the Floss," i. 32. + +The reality of which we have been speaking is connected with a peculiar +sort of consciousness in the authoress, as if she had actually witnessed +all that she describes, and were resolved to describe it without any +attempt to refine beyond the naked truth. Thus, the most serious +characters make their most solemn and most pathetic speeches in +provincial dialect and ungrammatical constructions, although it must be +allowed that the authoress has not ventured so far in this way as to +play with the use and abuse of the aspirate. And her dialect appears to +be very carefully studied, although we may doubt whether the +Staffordshire provincialisms of "Clerical Life" and "Adam Bede" are +sufficiently varied when the scene is shifted in the latest book to the +Lincolnshire side of the Humber. But where a greater variation than that +between one midland dialect and another is required, "George Eliot's" +conscientiousness is very curiously shown. There is in "Mr. Gilfil's +Story" a gardener of the name of Bates, who is described as a +Yorkshireman, and in "Adam Bede" there is another gardener, Mr. Craig, +whose name would naturally indicate a Scotchman. Each of these +horticulturists is introduced into the dialogue, and of course the +reader would expect the one to talk Yorkshire and the other to talk some +variety of Scotch. But the authoress, apparently, did not feel herself +mistress of either Scotch or Yorkshire to such a degree as would have +warranted her in attempting them, and therefore, before her characters +are allowed to open their mouths, she, in each case, is careful to tell +us that we must moderate our expectations: "Mr. Bates's lips were of a +peculiar cut, and I fancy this had something to do with the peculiarity +of his dialect, which, as we shall see, was individual rather than +provincial."[1] + +[1] "Scenes of Clerical Life," i. 191. + +"I think it was Mr. Craig's pedigree only that had the advantage of +being Scotch, and not his 'bringing up'; for, except that he had a +stronger burr in his accent, his speech differed little from that of the +Loamshire people around him."[2] In short, except that lucifer matches +are twice introduced as familiar things in days when the tinder-box was +the only resource in general use for obtaining a light,[3] we have not +observed anything in which the authoress could be "caught out." + +[2] "Adam Bede," i. 302. +[3] "Adam Bede," i. 219, 362. + +But this conscientious fidelity has very serious drawbacks. It seems as +if the authoress felt herself under an obligation to give everything +literally as it took place; to shut out nothing which is superfluous; to +suppress nothing which is unfit for a work of fiction (for not only have +we a report of Dinah Morris's sermons, but the very words of the prayer +which she put up for Hetty in the prison); to abridge nothing which is +tiresome. People and incidents are described at length, although they +have little or nothing to do with the story. We may mention as instances +the detailed history and character which are given of Tom Tulliver's +tutor, the Reverend Walter Stelling, and the account of Mr. Poyser's +harvest-home, which, however good in itself, is utterly out of place +between the crisis and the conclusion of the story. But most especially +we complain of the fondness which the authoress shows for exhibiting +uninteresting and tiresome people in all their interminable tediousness; +and if the morbid tone which we have already mentioned reminds us of a +French school of novelists, her passion for photographing the minutest +details of dullness reminds us painfully of those American ladies who +contribute so largely to the literature of our railway-stalls, by +flooding their boundless prairies of dingy paper with inexhaustible +masses of blotchy type. We quite admit the naturalness of the +tradespeople and other small folks whom this writer has perhaps explored +more deeply than any earlier novelist; but surely we have far too much +of them. It has indeed been said that we are spoiled by the activity of +the present day for enjoying the faithful picture of what life was in +country parishes and in little country towns fifty years ago; but we +really cannot admit the justice of this attempt to throw the blame on +ourselves. Dullness, we may be sure, has not died out within the last +half century, but is yet to be found in plenty; and, if times were dull +fifty or a hundred years ago, the novelists of those days--Scott and +Fielding, and Smollett, and even Goldsmith in his simple tale--did not +make their readers groan under their dullness.... + +But _are_ we likely to feel more kindly towards such people as those of +whom we are now complaining, because all their triviality, and +smallness, and tediousness are displayed at wearisome length on paper? +If some Dutch painters bestowed their skill on homely old women and +boozy boors, there is no evidence that they were capable of better +things, and their choice of subjects is no justification for one who +certainly can do better. Nor do we complain that we have an old woman or +a coarse merrymaking occasionally, but that such things in their +monotonous meanness fill whole rooms of "George Eliot's" gallery; and, +in truth, the real parallel to her is not to be found in the old +Dutchmen who honestly painted what was before their eyes, but rather in +the perverseness of our modern "pre-Raphaelites." It is of these +gentlemen--who, by the way, in their reactionary affectations are the +most entire opposites of the simple, unaffected, and forward-striving +artists who really lived before Raphael--it is of these gentlemen, with +their choice of disagreeable subjects, uncomely models, and uncouth +attitudes, their bestowal of superfluous labour on trifling details, and +the consequent obtrusiveness of subordinate things so as to mar the +general effect of the work, that "George Eliot" too often reminds us. + +How very wearisome is the conversation of the clique of inferior women +who worship Mr. Tryan! how dismally twaddling is that respectable old +congregationalist, Mr. Jerome, with his tidy little garden and his +"littel chacenut hoss"! We feel for Mr. Tryan when in the society of +such people, although to him it was mitigated by the belief that he was +doing good by associating with them, and that by love of incense from +any quarter which is described as part of his character. But why should +it be inflicted in such fearful doses on us, who have done nothing to +deserve it, who have no "mission" to encounter it, and are entirely +without Mr. Tryan's consolations under the endurance of it? + +Adam Bede's mother is another sore trial of the reader's patience--with +her endless fretful chatter, and all the details of her urging her sons, +one after the other, to refresh themselves with cold potatoes: nay, we +are not reconciled to these vegetables even by the fact that on one +occasion they are recommended as "taters wi' the gravy in 'em."[1] But +it is in "The Mill on the Floss" that the plague of tedious conversation +reaches its height. Mrs. Tulliver is one of four married sisters, whose +maiden name had been Dodson, and in these sisters there is a studious +combination of family likeness with individual varieties of character. +Mrs. Tulliver herself--whose "blond" complexion is generally associated +by our authoress with imbecility of mind and character--belongs to that +class of minds of which Mrs. Quickly may be considered as the chief +intellectual type. Mrs. Pullet--the wife of a gentleman farmer, whose +great characteristic is a habit of sucking lozenges, and whom Tom +Tulliver most justly sets down as a "nincompoop"--is almost sillier than +Mrs. Tulliver. She has the gift of tears ever ready to flow, and sheds +them profusely on the anticipation of imaginary and ridiculous woes. Her +favourite vanity consists in drawing dismal pictures of the future and +in priding herself on the bodily sufferings of her neighbours; that one +had "been tapped no end o' times, and the water--they say you might ha' +swum in it if you'd liked"; that another's "breath was short to that +degree as you could hear him two rooms off"; and her highest religion-- +the loftiest exercise of her faith and self-denial--is the accumulation +of superfluous clothes and linen, in the hope that they may make a +creditable display after her death. Mrs. Deane is "a thin-lipped woman, +who made small well-considered speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating +them afterwards to her husband, and asking him if she had not spoken +very properly"; and of her we see but little. But of the eldest of the +four, Mrs. Glegg, we see so much that we are really made quite +uncomfortable by her; for she is a very formidable person indeed,-- +utterly without kindness, bullying everybody within her reach (her +husband included), holding herself up as a model to everybody, and +shaming all other families--especially those into which she and her +sisters had married--by odious comparisons with the Dodsons. All this we +grant is very cleverly done. The grim Mrs. Glegg and the fatuous Mrs. +Tulliver and Mrs. Pullet talk admirably in their respective kinds; and +we can quite believe that there are people who are not unfairly +represented by the Dodsons--with, the narrow limitation of their +thoughts to their own little circle--the extravagantly high opinion of +their own vulgar family, with the corresponding depreciation of all in +and about their own rank who do not belong to it--their perfect +conviction that their own family traditions (such as the copious eating +of salt in their broth) are the standard of all that is good--their +consecration of all their most elevated feelings to the worship of +furniture, and clothes, and table-linen, and silver spoons--their utter +alienation from all that, in the opinion of educated people, can make +life fit to be enjoyed. The humour of Mrs. Glegg's determination that no +ill desert of a relation shall interfere with the disposal of her +property by will on the most rigidly Dodsonian principles of justice, +according to the several degrees of Dodsonship, is excellent; and so is +the change in her behaviour towards Maggie, whom, after having always +bullied her, she takes up for the sake of Dodsondom's credit when +everybody else has turned against her.... + +[1] "Adam Bede," i. 54. + +The writer does not seem to be aware that the fools and bores of a book, +while they bore the other characters, ought not to bore but to amuse the +reader, and that they will become seriously wearisome to him if there be +too much of them. Shakespeare has contented himself with showing us his +Dogberry and Verges, his Shallow and Slender, and Silence, to such a +degree as may sufficiently display their humours; but he has not filled +whole acts with them, and, even if he had, a five-act play is a small +field for the display of prolix foolishness as compared with a +three-volume novel. Lord Macaulay has been supposed to speak sarcastically +in saying that he "would not advise any person who reads for amusement to +venture on a certain _jeu d'esprit_ of Mr. Sadler's as long as he can +procure a volume of the Statutes at Large";[1] but we are afraid that we +should not be believed if we were to mention the books to which _we_ +have had recourse by way of occasional relief from the task of perusing +"George Eliot's" tales. + +[1] "Miscellaneous Writings," ii. 68. + +In the case of "these emmet-like Dodsons and Tullivers," the authoress +again defends her principle. "I share with you," she says, "the sense of +oppressive narrowness; but it is necessary that we should feel it, if we +care to understand how it acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie."[2] We +must confess that we care very little for Tom and Maggie, who, although +the inscription on their tombstone and the motto on the title-page of +the book tell us that "in their death they were not divided," do not +strike us as having been "lovely and pleasant in their lives." We do not +think the development of the brother and the sister a matter of any +great interest; and, if it were, we believe that a sufficient ground +might have been laid for our understanding it without so severely trying +our patience by the details of the "sordid life" amid which their early +years were spent. + +[2] "The Mill on the Floss," ii. 150. + +Another mistake, as it appears to us, is the too didactic strain into +which the authoress occasionally falls--writing as if for the purpose of +forcing lessons on children or the poor, rather than for grown-up and +educated readers. The story of "Janet's Repentance" might, with the +omission of a few passages such as the satirical flings at Mr. Tryan's +female worshippers, be made into a very edifying little tract for some +"evangelical" society. Mr. Tryan's opponents are all represented as +brutes and monsters, drunkards and unclean, enemies of all goodness; +while, with the usual unscrupulousness of party tract-writers, we are +required to choose between an alliance with such infamous company and +unreserved adhesion to the Calvanistic curate, without being allowed any +possibility of a third course. And, in addition to Mr. Tryan's victory, +there is the conversion of Mrs. Dempster, not only from drunkenness to +teetotalism (which might form the text for a set of illustrations by Mr. +Cruikshank, in the moral style of his later days), but from hatred to +love of the Gospel according to Mr. Tryan. In its place we should not +care to object to such a story, or to a great deal of the needless talk +which it contains both of sinners and of saints; but we _do_ object to +it in a book which is intended for the lighter reading of educated +people, and the more so because we know that it comes from a writer who +can feel nothing of the bitter but conscientious bigotry which the +composition of such a story in good faith implies.... + +In reading of Maggie's early indiscretions, we--hardened, grey-headed +reviewers as we are--feel something like a renewal of the shame and +mortification with which, long decades of years ago, we read of the +weaknesses of Frank and Rosamond,--as if we ourselves were the little +girl who made the mistake of choosing the big, bright-coloured bottle +from the chemist's window, or the little boy who allowed himself to be +deceived by the flattery of the lady in the draper's shop. In order that +her hair may have no chance of appearing in curls on a great occasion +(according to her mother's wish), Maggie plunges her head into a basin +of water. On getting an old dress and a bonnet from her unloved aunt +Glegg, she bastes the frock along with the roast beef on the following +Sunday, and souses the bonnet under the pump. In consequence of the +continual remarks of her mother and aunts, about the un-Dodsonlike +colour of her hair, she cuts it all off. She makes the most deplorable +exhibition of her literary vanity at every turn. Out of spite she pushes +her cousin Lucy, when arrayed in the prettiest of dresses, into the +"cow-trodden mud," and thereupon she runs off to a gang of gipsies, with +the intention of becoming their queen,--an adventure from which we are +glad that she is allowed to escape with less of suffering than Miss +Edgeworth might perhaps have felt it a matter of duty to inflict on her. +For the Toms and Maggies, the Franks and Rosamonds, of real life, such +monitory anecdotes as these may be very good and useful; but it seems to +us that they are out of place in a book intended for readers who have +got beyond the early domestic schoolroom. + +We cannot praise the construction of these tales. The plots are very +slight; the narrative drags painfully in some parts, and in other parts +the authoress has recourse to very violent expedients, as where she +brings in the "startling Adelphi stage-effect" of the flood to drown Tom +and Maggie, in order to escape from the unmanageable complication of her +story. Both in "Adam Bede" and in "The Mill on the Floss" the chief +interest is over long before the tale comes to an end; and in looking at +the whole series together we see something of repetition. Thus, both +Tina and Hetty set their hearts on a young man above their own position, +and turn a deaf ear to a longer-known, more suitable, and worthier +suitor. Each disappears at a critical time, and each, after a +disappointment in the higher quarter, falls back on a marriage with the +humbler admirer; with the difference, however, that, as Hetty had +committed murder, and as Tina had just been saved from doing so, the +marriage in the first case never actually takes place, and in the second +it ends after a few months. And as a smaller instance of repetition, we +may compare the bedroom visit of the seraphic Dinah Morris to the +earthly Hetty with that of the pattern Lucy Deane to the tempestuous +Maggie Tulliver. + +There is less of affectation in these books than in most of our recent +novels, yet there is by far too much. Among the portions which are most +infected by this sin we may mention the description of scenery,--thanks, +doubtless, in no small measure, to the influence of that very dangerous +model Mr. Ruskin.... + +Before concluding our article we must notice the authoress's views on +two important subjects which enter largely into her stories--love and +religion. That ladies, of their own accord and uninvited, fall in love +with gentlemen is a common circumstance in novels written by ladies; and +we are very much obliged to Madame D'Arblay, Miss Austen, and the other +writers of the softer sex, who have let us into the knowledge of the +important fact that such is the way in real life. But the peculiarity of +"George Eliot," among English novelists, is that in her books everybody +falls in love with the wrong person. She seems to be continually on the +point of showing us, with the author of "The Rovers"-- + + How two swains one nymph her vows may give, + And how two damsels with one lover live. + +Love is represented as a passion conceived without any ground of +reasonable preference, and as entirely irresistible in its sway. Tina +bestows her affections on Captain Wybrow, while the Captain, without +caring for anybody but himself, is paying his addresses to Miss Assher; +and Mr. Gilfil is pining for Tina, whom, if he had any discernment at +all, he could not but see to be quite unfitted for him. Adam Bede is in +love with the utterly undeserving Hetty, while Dinah Morris and Mary +Burge are both in love with Adam, Hetty with Arthur Donnithorne, and +Seth Bede with Dinah. At last, Hetty is got out of the way, Dinah comes +to a clearer understanding of her feelings towards Adam, and Adam, on +being made aware of this, is set on by his mother to make a successful +proposal; but "quiet Mary Burge" subsides into a bridesmaid, and Seth, +the "poor wool-gatherin' Methodist," is left without any other +consolation than that of worshipping his sister-in-law. + +But it is in "The Mill on the Floss" that the unwholesome view which we +have mentioned finds its most startling development. Maggie is in love +with Philip, and Philip with Maggie; Stephen Guest is in love with Lucy +Deane, and Lucy with Stephen, while at the same time she has an +undeclared admirer in Tom Tulliver. But as soon as Maggie and Stephen +become acquainted with each other, they exercise a powerful mutual +attraction, and the mischief of love (as the passion is represented by +our authoress) breaks loose in terrible force. The reproach which Tom +Tulliver had coarsely thrown in Philip's teeth, that he had taken +advantage of Maggie's inexperience to secure her affections before she +had had any opportunity of comparing him with other men, turns out to be +entirely just. Stephen is a mere underbred coxcomb, and is intended to +appear as such (for we do not think that the authoress has failed in any +attempt to make him a gentleman); his only merit, in so far as we can +discover, is a foolish talent for singing, and, except as to person, he +is infinitely inferior to Philip. But for this mere physical superiority +the lofty-souled Maggie prefers him to the lover whom she had before +loved for his deformity; and the passion is represented as one which no +considerations of moral or religious principle, no regard to the claims +of others, no training derived from the hardships of her former life or +from the ascetic system to which she had at one time been devoted, can +withstand. Here is a delicate scene, which is described as having taken +place in a conservatory, to which the pair had withdrawn on the night of +a ball:-- + + Maggie bent her arm a little upward towards the large half-opened rose + that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm? + --the unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled + elbow, and the varied gently-lessening curves down to the delicate + wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm + softness? + + A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted towards the arm and + showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist. + + But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glanced at him + like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation. + + "How dare you?" she spoke in a deeply-shaken, half-smothered voice: + "what right have I given you to insult me?" + + She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the + sofa panting and trembling.[1] + +[1] iii. 156. + +We should not have blamed the young lady if, like one of Mr. Trollope's +heroines, she had made her admirer feel not only "the beauty of a +woman's arm," but its weight. But, unwarned by the grossness of his +behaviour on this occasion, she is represented as admitting Stephen to +further intercourse; and, although she rescues herself at last, it is +not until after having occasioned irreparable scandal. A good-natured +ordinary novelist might have found an easy solution for the difficulties +of the case at an earlier stage by marrying Stephen to Maggie, and +handing over Lucy (who is far too amiable to object to such a transfer) +to her admiring cousin Tom; while Philip, left in celibacy, might either +have been invested with a pathetic interest, or represented as justly +punished for the offence of forestalling. But George Eliot has higher +aims than ordinary novelists, and to her the transfer which we have +suggested would appear as a profanation. Her characters, therefore, +plunge into all manner of sacrifices of reputation and happiness; and it +is not until Maggie and Tom have been drowned, and Philip's whole life +embittered, that we catch a final view of Mr. Stephen Guest visiting the +grave of the brother and sister in company with the amiable wife, _nĂ©e_ +Lucy Deane. If we are to accept the natural moral of this story, it +shows how coarse and immoral a very fastidious and ultra-refined +morality may become. + +It is with reluctance that we go on to notice the religion of these +books; but since religion appears so largely in them, we must not +decline the task. To us, at least, the theory of the writer's "High-Church +tendencies" could never have appeared plausible; for even in the +"Scenes of Clerical Life" the chief religious personage is the +"evangelical" curate Mr. Tryan, and whatever good there is in his parish +is confined to the circle of his partisans and converts; while in "Adam +Bede" the Methodess preacheress, Dinah Morris, is intended to shine with +spotless and incomparable lustre. Yet, although the highest characters, +in a religious view, are drawn from "evangelicism" and Methodism, we +find that neither of these systems is set forth as enough to secure the +perfection of everybody who may choose to profess it.... + +Mr. Parry, although agreeing with Mr. Tryan in opinion, is represented +as no less unpopular and inefficient than Mr. Tryan was the reverse; and +the Reverend Amos Barton is a hopeless specimen of that variety of +"evangelical" clergymen to which the late Mr. Conybeare gave the name of +"low and slow,"--a variety which, we believe, flourishes chiefly in the +midland counties. On the other hand, Mr. Gilfil and Mr. Irwine, +clergymen of the "old school," are held up as objects for our respect +and love; and Mr. Irwine is not only vindicated by Adam Bede in his old +age, in comparison with his evangelical successor Mr. Ryde, but the +question between high and low church, as represented by these two, is +triumphantly settled by a quotation which Adam brings from our old +friend Mrs. Poyser:-- + + Mrs. Poyser used to say--you know she would have her word about + everything--she said Mr. Irwine was like a good meal o' victual, you + were the better for him without thinking on it; and Mr. Ryde was like + a dose o' physic, he griped and worrited you, and after all he left + you much the same.[1] + +[1] "Adam Bede," i. 269. + +In "The Mill on the Floss," too, the "brazen" Mr. Stelling is +represented as "evangelical," in so far as he is anything; while Dr. +Kenn, a very high Anglican, is spoken of with all veneration; although, +perhaps, "George Eliot's" opinion as to the efficiency of the high +Anglican clergy may be gathered from the circumstance that when the +Doctor interferes for the benefit of Maggie Tulliver, he not only fails +to be of any use, but exposes himself to something like the same kind of +gossip which had arisen from Mr. Amos Barton's hospitality to Madame +Czerlaski. As to Methodism, again, the reader need hardly be reminded of +the sayings which we have quoted from Mrs. Poyser. And while the feeble +and "wool-gathering" Seth Bede becomes a convert, the strong-minded Adam +holds out, even although he is so tolerant as to marry a female +Methodist preacher, and to let her enjoy her "liberty of prophesying" +until stopped by a general order of the Wesleyan Conference. + +From all these things the natural inference would seem to be that the +authoress is neither High-Church nor Low-Church nor Dissenter, but a +tolerant member of what is styled the Broad-Church party--a party in +which we are obliged to say that breadth and toleration are by no means +universal. It would seem that, instead of being exclusively devoted to +any one of the religious types which she has embodied in the persons of +her tales (for as yet she has not presented us with a clergyman of any +liberal school), she regards each of them as containing an element of +pure Christianity, which, although in any one of them it may be alloyed +by its adjuncts and by the faults of individuals, is in itself of +inestimable value, and may be held alike by persons who differ widely +from each other as to the forms of religious polity and as to details of +Christian doctrine. + +But what is to be thought of the fact that the authoress of these tales +is also the translator of Strauss's notorious book? Is the Gospel which +she has represented in so many attractive lights nothing better to her, +after all, than "fabula ista de Christo"? Are the various forms under +which she has exhibited it no more for her than the Mahometan and Hindoo +systems were for the poet of Thalaba and Kehama? Has she been carrying +out in these novels the precepts of that chapter in which Dr. Strauss +teaches his disciples how, while believing the New Testament narrative +to be merely mythical, they may yet discharge the functions of the +Christian preacher without exposing themselves by their language to any +imputation of unsoundness? But, even apart from this distressing +question, there is much to interfere with the hope and the interest with +which we should wish to look forward to the future career of a writer so +powerful and so popular as the authoress of these books--much to awaken +very serious apprehensions as to the probable effect of her influence. +No one who has looked at all into our late fictitious literature can +have failed to be struck with the fondness of many of the writers of the +day for subjects which at an earlier time would not have been thought +of, or would have been carefully avoided. The idea that fiction should +contain something to soothe, to elevate, or to purify seems to be +extinct. In its stead there is a love for exploring what would be better +left in obscurity; for portraying the wildness of passion and the +harrowing miseries of mental conflict; for dark pictures of sin and +remorse and punishment; for the discussion of questions which it is +painful and revolting to think of. By some writers such themes are +treated with a power which fascinates even those who most disapprove the +manner in which it is exercised; by others with a feebleness which shows +that the infection has spread even to the most incapable of the +contributors to our circulating libraries. To us the influence of the +"Jack Shepherd" school of literature is really far less alarming than +that of a class of books which is more likely to find its way into the +circles of cultivated readers, and, most especially, to familiarize the +minds of our young women in the middle and higher ranks with matters on +which their fathers and brothers would never venture to speak in their +presence. It is really frightful to think of the interest which we have +ourselves heard such readers express in criminals like Paul Ferroll, and +in sensual ruffians like Mr. Rochester: and there is much in the +writings of "George Eliot" which, on like grounds, we feel ourselves +bound most earnestly to condemn. Let all honour be paid to those who in +our time have laboured to search out and to make known such evils of our +social condition as Christian sympathy may in some degree relieve or +cure. But we do not believe that any good end is to be effected by +fictions which fill the mind with details of imaginary vice and distress +and crime, or which teach it--instead of endeavouring after the +fulfilment of simple and ordinary duty--to aim at the assurance of +superiority by creating for itself fanciful and incomprehensible +perplexities. Rather we believe that the effect of such fictions must be +to render those who fall under their influence unfit for practical +exertion; while they most assuredly do grievous harm in many cases, by +intruding on minds which ought to be guarded from impurity the +unnecessary knowledge of evil. + + + + +BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE + +In the early days of the nineteenth century Edinburgh certainly aspired +to prouder eminence as a centre of light and learning than it has +continued to maintain. Tory energy, provoked by the arrogance of +Jeffrey, had found its earliest expression in London, but the northern +capital evidently determined not to be left behind in the game of +unprincipled vituperation. _Blackwood_, unlike its rivals in infancy, +was issued monthly, and its closely printed double columns add something +to the impression of heaviness in its satire. + +JOHN WILSON +(1785-1854) + +There is admittedly something incongruous in any association between the +genial and laughter-loving Christopher North and the reputation incurred +by the periodical with which he was long so intimately associated. He +had contributed--as few of his confederates would have been permitted-- +to the _Edinburgh_; but he was Literary Editor to _Blackwood_ from +October, 1817, to September, 1852. Originally a disciple of the Lake +School, at whom he was frequently girding, he migrated to Edinburgh +(where he became Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1820), and attracted +to himself many brilliant men of letters, including De Quincey. + +The "mountain-looking fellow," as Dickens called him, the patron of +"cock-fighting, wrestling, pugilistic contests, boat-racing, and +horse-racing" left his mark on his generation for a unique combination +of +boisterous joviality and hardhitting. Well known in the houses of the +poor; more than one observer has said that he reminded them of the +"first man, Adam." He "swept away all hearts, withersoever he would." +"Thor and Balder in one," "very Goth," "a Norse Demigod," "hair of the +true Sicambrian yellow"; Carlyle describes him as "fond of all +stimulating things; from tragic poetry down to whiskey-punch. He snuffed +and smoked cigars and drank liqueurs, and talked in the most +indescribable style.... He is a broad sincere man of six feet, with long +dishevelled flax-coloured hair, and two blue eyes keen as an eagle's ... +a being all split into precipitous chasms and the wildest volcanic +tumults ... a noble, loyal, and religious nature, not _strong_ enough to +vanquish the perverse element it is born into." + +The foundation of Wilson's criticism, unlike most of his contemporaries, +was generous and wide-minded appreciation, yet he "hacked about him, +distributing blows right and left, delivered sometimes for fun, though +sometimes with the most extraordinary impulse of perversity, in the +impetus of his career." With all a boy's love of a good fight, he shared +with youth its thoughtless indifference to the consequences. + +His not altogether unfriendly criticisms inspired one of Tennyson's +lightest effusions-- + + You did late review my lays, + Crusty Christopher; + You did mingle blame and praise + Rusty Christopher. + When I learnt from whence it came, + I forgave you all the blame, + Musty Christopher; + I could not forgive the praise + Fusty Christopher. + +The _Noctes Ambrosianae_ is certainly a unique production. Though +ostensibly a dialogue mainly between himself, Tickler (i.e., Lockhart), +and Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd--with other occasional dramatis personae; +the main bulk of them (including everything here quoted) was written by +Wilson himself--in this form, to produce an original effect. The +conversations are, for the most part, thoroughly dramatic, and cover +every conceivable subject from politics and literature to the beauty of +scenery, dress, cookery, and the various sports beloved of Christopher. +There is much boisterous interruption for eating, drinking, and personal +chaff. + +Of the longer quotations selected we would particularly draw attention +to the humorous and epigrammatic parody of Wordsworth, on whom Wilson +elsewhere bestows generous enthusiasm; and the broad-minded outlook +which can appreciate the contrasted virility of Byron and Dr. Johnson. +But it would be impossible to give an approximately fair impression of +the _Noctes_, without many examples of those paragraph criticisms +scattered broadcast on every page, which we have presented as "Crumbs" +from the feast. The magnificent recantation to Leigh Hunt--on whom +_Blackwood_ had bestowed even more than its share of abuse--has passed +into a proverb. + +ANONYMOUS + +As in the case of the _Quarterly_ these untraced effusions may be +assigned, with fair confidence, to the principal originators of the +magazine: Wilson himself, Lockhart, and William Maginn (1793-1842), a +thriftless Irishman who helped to start _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1830, and +stood for Captain Shandon in Pendennis; author of _Bob Burke's Duel with +Ensign Brady_, "perhaps the raciest Irish story ever written." + +They almost certainly combined in the heated attack on "The Cockney +School," of which Leigh Hunt's generous, but not always judicious, +advertisement was an obvious temptation to satire, embittered by +political bias. Coleridge, also, provided easy material for scorn from +vigorous manhood; and Shelley, as Wilson remarks elsewhere, was "the +greatest sinner of the oracular school--because the only true poet." + + + + +CHRISTOPHER NORTH ON POPE[1] +[1] A Discussion of the Edition by Bowles. + +[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, March, 1825] + + +_Tickler._ Pope was one of the most amiable men that ever lived. Fine +and delicate as were the temper and temperament of his genius, he had a +heart capable of the warmest human affection. He was indeed a loving +creature. + +_North._ Come, come, Timothy, you know you were sorely cut an hour or +two ago--so do not attempt characteristics. But, after all, Bowles does +not say that Pope was unamiable. + +_Tickler._ Yes, he does--that is to say, no man can read, even now, all +that he has written about Pope, without thinking on the whole, somewhat +indifferently of the man Pope. It is for this I abuse our friend Bowles. + +_Shepherd._ Ay, ay--I recollect now some of the havers o' Boll's about +the Blounts,--Martha and Theresa, I think you call them. Puir wee bit +hunched-backed, windle-strae-legged, gleg-eed, clever, acute, ingenious, +sateerical, weel-informed, warm-hearted, real philosophical, and maist +poetical creature, wi' his sounding translation o' a' Homer's works, +that reads just like an original War-Yepic,--His Yessay on Man that, in +spite o' what a set o' ignoramuses o' theological critics say about +Bolingbroke and Croussass, and heterodoxy and atheism, and like haven, +is just-ane o' the best moral discourses that ever I heard in or out o' +the poupit,--His yepistles about the Passions, and sic like, in the +whilk he goes baith deep and high, far deeper and higher baith than mony +a modern poet, who must needs be either in a diving-bell or a balloon,-- +His Rape o' the Lock o' Hair, wi' a' these Sylphs floating about in the +machinery o' the Rosicrucian Philosophism, just perfectly yelegant and +gracefu', and as gude, in their way, as onything o' my ain about +fairies, either in the _Queen's Wake_ or _Queen Hynde_,--His Louisa to +Abelard is, as I said before, coorse in the subject-matter, but, O sirs! +powerfu' and pathetic in execution--and sic a perfect spate o' +versification! His unfortunate lady, who sticked hersel for love wi' a +drawn sword, and was afterwards seen as a ghost, dim-beckoning through +the shade--a verra poetical thocht surely, and full both of terror and +pity.... + +_North._ Pope's poetry is full of nature, at least of what I have been +in the constant habit of accounting nature for the last threescore and +ten years. But (thank you, James, that snuff is really delicious) +leaving nature and art, and all that sort of thing, I wish to ask a +single question: what poet of this age, with the exception, perhaps, of +Byron, can be justly said, when put in comparison with Pope, to have +written the English language at all.... + +_Tickler._ What would become of Bowles himself, with all his elegance, +pathos, and true feeling? Oh! dear me, James, what a dull, dozing, +disjointed, dawdling, dowdy of a drawe would be his muse, in her very +best voice and tune, when called upon to get up and sing a solo after +the sweet and strong singer of Twickenham! + +_North._ Or Wordsworth--with his eternal--Here we go up, and up, and up, +and here we go down, down, and here we go roundabout, roundabout!--Look +at the nerveless laxity of his _Excursion!_--What interminable prosing!-- +The language is out of condition:--fat and fozy, thick-winded, purfled +and plethoric. Can he be compared with Pope?--Fie on't! no, no, no!-- +Pugh, pugh! + +_Tickler._ Southey--Coleridge--Moore? + +_North._ No; not one of them. They are all eloquent, diffusive, rich, +lavish, generous, prodigal of their words. But so are they all deficient +in sense, muscle, sinew, thews, ribs, spine. Pope, as an artist, beats +them hollow. Catch him twaddling. + +_Tickler._ It is a bad sign of the intellect of an age to depreciate the +genius of a country's classics. But the attempt covers such critics with +shame, and undying ridicule pursues them and their abettors. The Lake +Poets began this senseless clamour against the genius of Pope. + + + + +ON BYRON + +[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, October, 1825] + +_North._ People say, James, that Byron's tragedies are failures. Fools! +Is Cain, the dark, dim, disturbed, insane, hell-haunted Cain, a failure? +Is Sardanapalus, the passionate, princely, philosophical, joy-cheated, +throne-wearied voluptuary, a failure? Is Heaven and Earth, that +magnificent confusion of two worlds, in which mortal beings mingle in +love and hate, joy and despair, with immortal--the children of the dust +claiming alliance with the radiant progeny of the skies, till man and +angel seem to partake of one divine being, and to be essences eternal in +bliss or bale--is Heaven and Earth, I ask you, James, a failure? If so, +then Appollo has stopt payment--promising a dividend of one shilling in +the pound--and all concerned in that house are bankrupts. + +_Tickler._ You have nobly--gloriously vindicated Byron, North, and in +doing so, have vindicated the moral and intellectual character of our +country. Miserable and pernicious creed, that holds possible the lasting +and intimate union of the first, purest, highest, noblest, and most +celestial powers of soul and spirit, with confirmed appetencies, foul +and degrading lust, cowardice, cruelty, meanness, hypocrisy, avarice, +and impiety! You,--in a strong attempt made to hold up to execration the +nature of Byron as deformed by all these hideous vices,--you, my friend, +reverently unveiled the countenance of the mighty dead, and the +lineaments struck remorse into the heart of every asperser. + + + + +ON DR. JOHNSON + +[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, April, 1829] + +_North._ I forgot old Sam--a jewel rough set, yet shining like a star, +and though sand-blind by nature, and bigoted by Education, one of the +truly great men of England, and "her men are of men the chief," alike in +the dominions of the understanding, the reason, the passions, and the +imagination. No prig shall ever persuade me that _Rasselas_ is not a +noble performance--in design and execution. Never were the expenses of a +mother's funeral more gloriously defrayed by son, than the funeral of +Samuel Johnson's mother by the price of _Rasselas_, written for the +pious purpose of laying her head decently and honourably in the dust. + +_Shepherd._ Ay, that was pittin' literature and genius to a glorious +purpose indeed; and therefore nature and religion smiled on the wark, +and have stamped it with immortality. + +_North._ Samuel was seventy years old when he wrote the _Lives of the +Poets_. + +_Shepherd._ What a fine old buck! No unlike yoursel'. + +_North._ Would it were so! He had his prejudicies, and his partialities, +and his bigotries, and his blindnesses,--but on the same fruit-tree you +see shrivelled pears or apples on the same branch with jargonelles or +golden pippins worthy of paradise. Which would ye show to the +Horticultural Society as a fair specimen of the tree? + +_Shepherd._ Good, kit, good--philosophically picturesque. (_Mimicking +the old man's voice and manner._) + +_North._ Show me the critique that beats his on Pope, and on Dryden-- +nay, even on Milton; and hang me if you may not read his essay on +Shakespeare even after having read Charles Lamb, or heard Coleridge, +with increased admiration of the powers of all three, and of their +insight, through different avenues, and as it might seem almost with +different bodily and mental organs, into Shakespeare's "old exhausted," +and his "new imagined worlds." He was a critic and a moralist who would +have been wholly wise, had he not been partly--constitutionally insane. +For there is blood in the brain, James--even in the organ--the vital +principle of all our "eagle-winged raptures"; and there was a taint of +the black drop of melancholy in his. + +_Shepherd._ Wheesht--wheesht--let us keep aff that subject. All men ever +I knew are mad; and but for that law o' natur, never, never, in this +warld had there been a _Noctes Ambrosianae_. + + + + +CRUMBS FROM THE "NOCTES" + +MISS MITFORD + +_North._ Miss Mitford has not in my opinion either the pathos or humour +of Washington Irving; but she excels him in vigorous conception of +character, and in the truth of her pictures of English life and manners. +Her writings breathe a sound, pure, and healthy morality, and are +pervaded by a genuine rural spirit--the spirit of merry England. Every +line bespeaks the lady. + +_Shepherd._ I admire Miss Mitford just excessively. I dinna wunner at +her being able to write sae weel as she does about drawing-rooms wi' +sofas and settees, and about the fine folk in them seeing themsels in +lookin-glasses frae tap to tae; but what puzzles the like o' me, is her +pictures o' poachers, and tinklers, and pottery-trampers, and ither +neerdoweels, and o' huts and hovels without riggin' by the wayside, and +the cottages o' honest puir men, and byres, and barns, and stackyards, +and merry-makins at winter ingles, and courtship aneath trees, and at +the gable-end of farm houses, 'tween lads and lasses as laigh in life as +the servants in her father's ha'. That's the puzzle, and that's the +praise. But ae word explains a'--Genius--Genius, wull a' the +metafhizzians in the warld ever expound that mysterious monosyllable.-- +_Nov, 1826._ + +HAZLITT + +_Shepherd._. He had a curious power that Hazlitt, as he was ca'd, o' +simulatin' sowl. You could hae taen your Bible oath sometimes, when you +were readin him, that he had a sowl--a human sowl--a sowl to be saved-- +but then, heaven preserve us! in the verra middle aiblins o' a +paragraph, he grew transformed afore your verra face into something +bestial,--you heard a grunt that made ye grue, and there was an ill +smell in the room, as frae a pluff o' sulphur.--_April, 1827._ + +WORDSWORTH + +_Shepherd._ Wordsworth tells the world, in ane of his prefaces, that he +is a water-drinker--and its weel seen on him.--There was a sair want of +speerit through the haill o' yon lang "Excursion." If he had just made +the paragraphs about ae half shorter, and at the end of every ane taen a +caulker, like ony ither man engaged in geyan sair and heavy wark, think +na ye that his "Excursion" would hae been far less fatiguesome?--_April, +1827._ + +_North._ I confess that the "Excursion" is the worst poem, of any +character, in the English language. It contains about two hundred +sonorous lines, some of which appear to be fine, even in the sense, as +well as sound. The remaining seven thousand three hundred are quite +ineffectual. Then, what labour the builder of that lofty rhyme must have +undergone! It is, in its own way, a small tower of Babel, and all built +by a single man.--_Sept., 1825._ + +COLERIDGE + +_North._ James, you don't know S.T. Coleridge--do you? He writes but +indifferent books, begging his pardon: witness his "Friend," his "Lay +Sermons," and, latterly, his "Aids to Reflection"; but he becomes +inspired by the sound of his own silver voice, and pours out wisdom like +a sea. Had he a domestic Gurney, he might publish a Moral Essay, or a +Theological Discourse, or a Metaphysical Disquisition, or a Political +Harangue, every morning throughout the year during his lifetime. + +_Tickler._ Mr. Coleridge does not seem to be aware that he cannot write +a book, but opines that he absolutely has written several, and set many +questions at rest. There's a want of some kind or another in his mind; +but perhaps when he awakes out of his dream, he may get rational and +sober-witted, like other men, who are not always asleep. + +_Shepherd._ The author o' "Christabel," and "The Ancient Mariner," had +better just continue to see visions, and dream dreams--for he's no fit +for the wakin' world.--_April, 1827._ + +FASHIONABLE NOVELS + +_North._ James, I wish you would review for Maga all those fashionable +novels--Novels of High Life; such as _Pelham_--the _Disowned_. + +_Shepherd._ I've read thae twa, and they're baith gude. But the mair I +think on't, the profounder is my conviction that the strength o' human +nature lies either in the highest or lowest estate of life. Characters +in books should either be kings, and princes, and nobles, and on a level +with them, like heroes; or peasants, shepherds, farmers, and the like, +includin' a' orders amaist o' our ain working population. The +intermediate class--that is, leddies and gentlemen in general--are no +worth the Muse's while; for their life is made up chiefly o' mainners,-- +mainners,--mainners;--you canna see the human creters for their claes; +and should ane o' them commit suicide in despair, in lookin' on the dead +body, you are mair taen up wi' its dress than its decease.--_March, +1829._ + +WILL CARLETON + +_Shepherd._ What sort o' vols., sir, are the _Traits and Stories of the +Irish Peasantry_ [W. Carleton], published by Curry in Dublin. + +_North._ Admirable. Truly, intensely Irish. The whole book has the +brogue--never were the outrageous whimsicalities of that strange, wild, +imaginative people so characteristically displayed; nor, in the midst of +all the fun, frolic, and folly, is there any dearth of poetry, pathos, +and passion. The author's a jewel, and he will be reviewed next number. +--_May, 1830._ + +BURNS + +_Shepherd._ I shanna say ony o' mine's [songs] are as gude as some sax +or aucht o' Burns's--for about that number o' Robbie's are o' inimitable +perfection. It was heaven's wull that in them he should transcend a' the +minnesingers o' this warld. But they're too perfeckly beautifu' to be +envied by mortal man--therefore let his memory in them be hallowed for +evermair.--_August, 1834._ + +_Shepherd_. I was wrang in ever hintin ae word in disparagement o' +Burn's _Cottar's Saturday Night_. But the truth is, you see, that the +subjeck's sae heeped up wi' happiness, and sae charged wi' a' sort o' +sanctity--sae national and sae Scottish--that beautifu' as the poem is-- +and really, after a', naething can be mair beautifu'--there's nae +satisfying either paesant or shepherd by ony delineation o't, though +drawn in lines o' licht, and shinin' equally w' genius and wi' piety.-- +_Nov., 1834._ + + + + +LEIGH HUNT + +_Shepherd_. Leigh Hunt truly loved Shelley. + +_North_. And Shelley truly loved Leigh Hunt. Their friendship was +honourable to them both, for it was as disinterested as sincere; and I +hope Gurney will let a certain person in the City understand that I +treat his offer of a reviewal of Mr. Hunt's _London Journal_ with +disdain. If he has anything to say against us or against that gentleman, +either conjunctly or severally, let him out with it in some other +channel, and I promise him a touch and taste of the Crutch. He talks to +me of Maga's desertion of principle; but if he were a Christian--nay, a +man--his heart and head too would tell him that the Animosities are +mortal, but the Humanities live for ever--and that Leigh Hunt has more +talent in his little finger than the puling prig, who has taken upon +himself to lecture Christopher North in a scrawl crawling with forgotten +falsehoods. Mr. Hunt's _London Journal_, may dear James, is not only +beyond all comparison, but out of all sight, the most entertaining and +instructive of all the cheap periodicals; and when laid, as it duly is +once a week, on my breakfast table, it lies there--but is not permitted +to lie long--like a spot of sunshine dazzling the snow.--_Aug_., 1834. + + + + +ANONYMOUS ON COLERIDGE + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, October, 1817] + +SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE "BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA" OF S. T. COLERIDGE, +ESQ., 1817 + +When a man looks back on his past existence, and endeavours to recall +the incidents, events, thoughts, feelings, and passions of which it was +composed, he sees something like a glimmering land of dreams, peopled +with phantasms and realities undistinguishably confused and +intermingled--here illuminated with dazzling splendour, there dim with +melancholy mists,--or it may be shrouded in impenetrable darkness. To +bring, visibly and distinctly before our memory, on the one hand, all +our hours of mirth and joy, and hope and exultation,--and, on the other, +all our perplexities, and fears and sorrows, and despair and agony,-- +(and who has been so uniformly wretched as not to have been often +blest?--who so uniformly blest as not to have been often wretched?)-- +would be as impossible as to awaken, into separate remembrance, all the +changes and varieties which the seasons brought over the material +world,--every gleam of sunshine that beautified the Spring,--every cloud +and tempest that deformed the Winter. In truth, were this power and +domination over the past given unto us, and were we able to read the +history of our lives all faithfully and perspicuously recorded on the +tablets of the inner spirit,--those beings, whose existence had been +most filled with important events and with energetic passions, would be +the most averse to such overwhelming survey--would recoil from trains of +thought which formerly agitated and disturbed, and led them, as it were, +in triumph beneath the yoke of misery or happiness. The soul may be +repelled from the contemplation of the past as much by the brightness +and magnificence of scenes that shifted across the glorious drama of +youth, as by the storms that scattered the fair array into disfigured +fragments; and the melancholy that breathes from vanished delight is, +perhaps, in its utmost intensity, as unendurable as the wretchedness +left by the visitation of calamity. There are spots of sunshine sleeping +on the fields of past existence too beautiful, as there are caves among +its precipices too darksome to be looked on by the eyes of memory; and +to carry on an image borrowed from the analogy between the moral and +physical world, the soul may turn away in sickness from the untroubled +silence of a resplendent Lake, no less than from the haunted gloom of +the thundering Cataract. It is from such thoughts, and dreams, and +reveries, as these, that all men feel how terrible it would be to live +over again their agonies and their transports; that the happiest would +fear to do so as much as the most miserable; and that to look back to +our cradle seems scarcely less awful than to look forward to the grave. + +But if this unwillingness to bring before our souls, in distinct array, +the more solemn and important events of our lives, be a natural and +perhaps a wise feeling, how much more averse must every reflecting man +be to the ransacking of his inmost spirit for all its hidden emotions +and passions, to the tearing away that shroud which oblivion may have +kindly flung over his vices and his follies, or that fine and delicate +veil which Christian humility draws over his virtues and acts of +benevolence. To scrutinize and dissect the character of others is an +idle and unprofitable task; and the most skilful anatomist will often be +forced to withhold his hand when he unexpectedly meets with something he +does not understand--some confirmation of the character of his patient +which is not explicable on his theory of human nature. To become +operators on our own shrinking spirits is something worse; for by +probing the wounds of the soul, what can ensue but callousness or +irritability. And it may be remarked, that those persons who have busied +themselves most with inquiries into the causes, and motives, and +impulses of their actions, have exhibited, in their conduct, the most +lamentable contrast to their theory, and have seemed blinder in their +knowledge than others in their ignorance. + +It will not be supposed that any thing we have now said in any way bears +against the most important duty of self-examination. Many causes there +are existing, both in the best and the worst parts of our nature, which +must render nugatory and deceitful any continued diary of what passes +through the human soul; and no such confessions could, we humbly +conceive, be of use either to ourselves or to the world. But there are +hours of solemn inquiry in which the soul reposes on itself; the true +confessional is not the bar of the public, but it is the altar of +religion; there is a Being before whom we may humble ourselves without +being debased; and there are feelings for which human language has no +expression, and which, in the silence of solitude and of nature, are +known only unto the Eternal. + +The objections, however, which might thus be urged against the writing +and publishing accounts of all our feelings,--all the changes of our +moral constitution,--do not seem to apply with equal force to the +narration of our mere speculative opinions. Their rise, progress, +changes, and maturity may be pretty accurately ascertained; and as the +advance to truth is generally step by step, there seems to be no great +difficulty in recording the leading causes that have formed the body of +our opinions, and created, modified, and coloured our intellectual +character. Yet this work would be alike useless to ourselves and others, +unless pursued with a true magnanimity. It requires, that we should +stand aloof from ourselves, and look down, as from an eminence, on our +souls toiling up the hill of knowledge;--that we should faithfully +record all the assistance we received from guides or brother pilgrims;-- +that we should mask the limit of our utmost ascent, and, without +exaggeration, state the value of our acquisitions. When we consider how +many temptations there are even here to delude ourselves, and by a +seeming air of truth and candour to impose upon others, it will be +allowed, that, instead of composing memoirs of himself, a man of genius +and talent would be far better employed in generalizing the observations +and experiences of his life, and giving them to the world in the form of +philosophic reflections, applicable not to himself alone, but to the +universal mind of Man. + +What good to mankind has ever flowed from the confessions of Rousseau, +or the autobiographical sketch of Hume? From the first we rise with a +confused and miserable sense of weakness and of power--of lofty +aspirations and degrading appetencies--of pride swelling into blasphemy, +and humiliation pitiably grovelling in the dust--of purity of spirit +soaring on the wings of imagination, and grossness of instinct brutally +wallowing in "Epicurus' stye,"--of lofty contempt for the opinion of +mankind, yet the most slavish subjection to their most fatal prejudices-- +of a sublime piety towards God, and a wild violation of his holiest +laws. From the other we rise with feelings of sincere compassion for the +ignorance of the most enlightened. All the prominent features of Hume's +character were invisible to his own eyes; and in that meagre sketch +which has been so much admired, what is there to instruct, to rouse, or +to elevate--what light thrown over the duties of this life or the hopes +of that to come? We wish to speak with tenderness of a man whose moral +character was respectable, and whose talents were of the first order. +But most deeply injurious to every thing lofty and high-toned in human +Virtue, to every thing cheering, and consoling, and sublime in that +Faith which sheds over this Earth a reflection of the heavens, is that +memoir of a worldly-wise Man; in which he seems to contemplate with +indifference the extinction of his own immortal soul, and jibes and +jokes on the dim and awful verge of Eternity. + +We hope that our readers will forgive these very imperfect reflections +on a subject of deep interest, and accompany us now on our examination +of Mr. Coleridge's "Literary Life," the very singular work which caused +our ideas to run in that channel. It does not contain an account of his +opinions and literary exploits alone, but lays open, not unfrequently, +the character of the Man as well as of the Author; and we are compelled +to think, that while it strengthens every argument against the +composition of such Memoirs, it does, without benefiting the cause +either of virtue, knowledge, or religion, exhibit many mournful +sacrifices of personal dignity, after which it seems impossible that Mr. +Coleridge can be greatly respected either by the Public or himself. + +Considered merely in a literary point of view, the work is most +execrable. He rambles from one subject to another in the most wayward +and capricious manner; either from indolence, or ignorance, or weakness, +he has never in one single instance finished a discussion; and while he +darkens what was dark before into tenfold obscurity, he so treats the +most ordinary common-places as to give them the air of mysteries, till +we no longer know the faces of our old acquaintances beneath their cowl +and hood, but witness plain flesh and blood matters of fact miraculously +converted into a troop of phantoms. That he is a man of genius is +certain; but he is not a man of a strong intellect nor of powerful +talents. He has a great deal of fancy and imagination, but little or no +real feeling, and certainly no judgment. He cannot form to himself any +harmonious landscape such as it exists in nature, but beautified by the +serene light of the imagination. He cannot conceive simple and majestic +groupes of human figures and characters acting on the theatre of real +existence. But his pictures of nature are fine only as imaging the +dreaminess, and obscurity, and confusion of distempered sleep; while all +his agents pass before our eyes like shadows, and only impress and +affect us with a phantasmagorial splendour. + +It is impossible to read many pages of this work without thinking that +Mr. Coleridge conceives himself to be a far greater man than the Public +is likely to admit; and we wish to waken him from what seems to us a +most ludicrous delusion. He seems to believe that every tongue is +wagging in his praise--that every ear is open to imbibe the oracular +breathings of his inspiration. Even when he would fain convince us that +his soul is wholly occupied with some other illustrious character, he +breaks out into laudatory exclamations concerning himself; no sound is +so sweet to him as that of his own voice; the ground is hallowed on +which his footsteps tread; and there seems to him something more than +human in his very shadow. He will read no books that other people read; +his scorn is as misplaced and extravagant as his admiration; opinions +that seem to tally with his own wild ravings are holy and inspired; and +unless agreeable to his creed, the wisdom of ages is folly; and wits, +whom the world worship, dwarfed when they approach his venerable side. +His admiration of nature or of man, we had almost said his religious +feelings towards his God, are all narrowed, weakened, and corrupted, and +poisoned by inveterate and diseased egotism; and instead of his mind +reflecting the beauty and glory of nature, he seems to consider the +mighty universe itself as nothing better than a mirror in which, with a +grinning and idiot self-complacency, he may contemplate the Physiognomy +of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Though he has yet done nothing in any one +department of human knowledge, yet he speaks of his theories, and plans, +and views, and discoveries, as if he had produced some memorable +revolution in Science. He at all times connects his own name in Poetry +with Shakespeare, and Spenser, and Milton; in politics with Burke, and +Fox, and Pitt; in metaphysics with Locke, and Hartley, and Berkely, and +Kant--feeling himself not only to be the worthy compeer of those +illustrious Spirits, but to unite, in his own mighty intellect, all the +glorious powers and faculties by which they were separately +distinguished, as if his soul were endowed with all human power, and was +the depository of the aggregate, or rather the essence of all human +knowledge. So deplorable a delusion as this, has only been equalled by +that of Joanna Southcote, who mistook a complaint in the bowels for the +divine afflatus; and believed herself about to give birth to the +regenerator of the world, when sick unto death of an incurable and +loathsome disease. + +The truth is that Mr. Coleridge is but an obscure name in English +literature. In London he is well known in literary society, and justly +admired for his extraordinary loquacity: he has his own little circle of +devoted worshippers, and he mistakes their foolish babbling for the +voice of the world. His name, too, has been often foisted into Reviews, +and accordingly is known to many who never saw any of his works. In +Scotland few know or care any thing about him; and perhaps no man who +has spoken and written so much, and occasionally with so much genius and +ability, ever made so little impression on the public mind. Few people +know how to spell or pronounce his name; and were he to drop from the +clouds among any given number of well informed and intelligent men north +of the Tweed, he would find it impossible to make any intelligible +communication respecting himself; for of him and his writings there +would prevail only a perplexing dream, or the most untroubled ignorance. +We cannot see in what the state of literature would have been different +had he been cut off in childhood, or had he never been born; for except +a few wild and fanciful ballads, he has produced nothing worthy +remembrance. Yet, insignificant as he assuredly is, he cannot put pen to +paper without a feeling that millions of eyes are fixed upon him; and he +scatters his Sibylline Leaves around him, with as majestical an air as +if a crowd of enthusiastic admirers were rushing forward to grasp the +divine promulgations, instead of their being, as in fact they are, +coldly received by the accidental passenger, like a lying lottery puff +or a quack advertisement. + +This most miserable arrogance seems, in the present age, confined almost +exclusively to the original members of the Lake School, and is, we +think, worthy of especial notice, as one of the leading features of +their character. It would be difficult to defend it either in Southey or +Wordsworth; but in Coleridge it is altogether ridiculous. Southey has +undoubtedly written four noble Poems--Thalaba, Madoc, Kehama, and +Roderick; and if the Poets of this age are admitted, by the voice of +posterity, to take their places by the side of the Mighty of former +times in the Temple of Immortality, he will be one of that sacred +company. Wordsworth, too, with all his manifold errors and defects, has, +we think, won to himself a great name, and, in point of originality, +will be considered as second to no man of this age. They are entitled to +think highly of themselves, in comparison with their most highly gifted +contemporaries; and therefore, though their arrogance may be offensive, +as it often is, it is seldom or ever utterly ridiculous. But Mr. +Coleridge stands on much lower ground, and will be known to future times +only as a man who overrated and abused his talents--who saw glimpses of +that glory which he could not grasp--who presumptuously came forward to +officiate as High-Priest at mysteries beyond his ken--and who carried +himself as if he had been familiarly admitted into the Penetralia of +Nature, when in truth he kept perpetually stumbling at the very +Threshold. + +This absurd self-elevation forms a striking contrast with the dignified +deportment of all the other great living Poets. Throughout all the works +of Scott, the most original-minded man of this generation of Poets, +scarcely a single allusion is made to himself; and then it is with a +truly delightful simplicity, as if he were not aware of his immeasurable +superiority to the ordinary run of mankind. From the rude songs of our +forefathers he has created a kind of Poetry, which at once brought over +the dull scenes of this our unimaginative life all the pomp, and glory, +and magnificence of a chivalrous age. He speaks to us like some ancient +Bard awakened from his tomb, and singing of visions not revealed in +dreams, but contemplated in all the freshness and splendour of reality. +Since he sung his bold, and wild, and romantic lays, a more religious +solemnity breathes from our mouldering Abbeys, and a sterner grandeur +frowns over our time-shattered Castles. He has peopled our hills with +Heroes, even as Ossian peopled them; and, like a presiding spirit, his +Image haunts the magnificent cliffs of our Lakes and Seas. And if he be, +as every heart feels, the author of those noble Prose Works that +continue to flash upon the world, to him exclusively belongs the glory +of wedding Fiction and History in delighted union, and of embodying in +imperishable records the manners, character, soul, and spirit of +Caledonia; so that, if all her annals were lost, her memory would in +those tales be immortal. His truly is a name that comes to the heart of +every Briton with a start of exultation, whether it be heard in the hum +of cities or in the solitude of nature. What has Campbell ever obtruded +on the Public of his private history? Yet his is a name that will be +hallowed for ever in the souls of pure, and aspiring, and devout youth; +and to those lofty contemplations in which Poetry lends its aid to +Religion, his immortal Muse will impart a more enthusiastic glow, while +it blends in one majestic hymn all the noblest feelings which can spring +from earth, with all the most glorious hopes that come from the silence +of eternity. Byron indeed speaks of himself often, but his is like the +voice of an angel heard crying in the storm or the whirlwind; and we +listen with a kind of mysterious dread to the tones of a Being whom we +scarcely believe to be kindred to ourselves, while he sounds the depths +of our nature, and illuminates them with the lightnings of his genius. +And finally, who more gracefully unostentatious than Moore, a Poet who +has shed delight, and joy, and rapture, and exultation, through the +spirit of an enthusiastic People, and whose name is associated in his +native Land with every thing noble and glorious in the cause of +Patriotism and Liberty. We could easily add to the illustrious list; but +suffice it to say, that our Poets do in general bear their faculties +meekly and manfully, trusting to their conscious powers, and the +susceptibility of generous and enlightened natures, not yet extinct in +Britain, whatever Mr. Coleridge may think; for certain it is, that a +host of worshippers will crowd into the Temple, when the Priest is +inspired, and the flame he kindles is from Heaven. + +Such has been the character of great Poets in all countries and in all +times. Fame is dear to them as their vital existence--but they love it +not with the perplexity of fear, but the calmness of certain possession. +They know that the debt which nature owes them must be paid, and they +hold in surety thereof the universal passions of mankind. So Milton felt +and spoke of himself, with an air of grandeur, and the voice as of an +Archangel, distinctly hearing in his soul the music of after +generations, and the thunder of his mighty name rolling through the +darkness of futurity. So divine Shakespeare felt and spoke; he cared not +for the mere acclamations of his subjects; in all the gentleness of his +heavenly spirit he felt himself to be their prophet and their king, and +knew, + + When all the breathers of this world are dead, + That he entombed in men's eyes would lie. + +Indeed, who that knows any thing of Poetry could for a moment suppose it +otherwise? Whatever made a great Poet but the inspiration of delight and +love in himself, and an empassioned desire to communicate them to the +wide spirit of kindred existence? Poetry, like Religion, must be free +from all grovelling feelings; and above all, from jealousy, envy, and +uncharitableness. And the true Poet, like the Preacher of the true +religion, will seek to win unto himself and his Faith, a belief whose +foundation is in the depths of love, and whose pillars are the noblest +passions of humanity. + +It would seem that in truly great souls all feeling of self-importance, +in its narrower sense, must be incompatible with the consciousness of a +mighty achievement. The idea of the mere faculty or power is absorbed as +it were in the idea of the work performed. That work stands out in its +glory from the mind of its Creator; and in the contemplation of it, he +forgets that he himself was the cause of its existence, or feels only a +dim but sublime association between himself and the object of his +admiration; and when he does think of himself in conjunction with +others, he feels towards the scoffer only a pitying sorrow for his +blindness--being assured, that though at all times there will be +weakness, and ignorance, and worthlessness, which can hold no communion +with him or with his thoughts, so will there be at all times the pure, +the noble, and the pious, whose delight it will be to love, to admire, +and to imitate; and that never, at any point of time, past, present, or +to come, can a true Poet be defrauded of his just fame. + +But we need not speak of poets alone (though we have done so at present +to expose the miserable pretensions of Mr. Coleridge), but look through +all the bright ranks of men distinguished by mental power, in whatever +department of human science. It is our faith, that without moral there +can be no intellectual grandeur; and surely the self-conceit and +arrogance which we have been exposing, are altogether incompatible with +lofty feelings and majestic principles. It is the Dwarf alone who +endeavours to strut himself into the height of the surrounding company; +but the man of princely stature seems unconscious of the strength in +which nevertheless he rejoices, and only sees his superiority in the +gaze of admiration which he commands. Look at the most inventive spirits +of this country,--those whose intellects have achieved the most +memorable triumphs. Take, for example, Leslie in physical science, and +what airs of majesty does he ever assume? What is Samuel Coleridge +compared to such a man? What is an ingenious and fanciful versifier to +him who has, like a magician, gained command over the very elements of +nature,--who has realized the fictions of Poetry,--and to whom Frost and +Fire are ministering and obedient spirits? But of this enough.--It is a +position that doubtless might require some modification, but in the +main, it is and must be true, that real Greatness, whether in Intellect, +Genius, or Virtue, is dignified and unostentatious; and that no potent +spirit ever whimpered over the blindness of the age to his merits, and, +like Mr. Coleridge, or a child blubbering for the moon, with clamorous +outcries implored and imprecated reputation. + +The very first sentence of this Literary Biography shows how incompetent +Mr. Coleridge is for the task he has undertaken. + + It has been my lot to have had my name introduced both in conversation + and in print, more frequently than I find it easy to explain; _whether + I consider the fewness, unimportance, and limited circulation of my + writings, or the retirement and distance in which I have lived, both + from the literary and political world_. + +Now, it is obvious, that if his writings be few, and unimportant, and +unknown, Mr. Coleridge can have no reason for composing his Literary +Biography. Yet in singular contradiction to himself-- + +"If," says he, at p. 217, vol. i, "_the compositions which I have made +public_, and that too in a form the most certain of an extensive +circulation, though the least flattering to an author's self-love, had +been published in books, they _would have filled a respectable number of +volumes."_ + +He then adds, + + Seldom have I written that in a day, the acquisition or investigation + of which had not cost me _the precious labour of a month!_ + +He then bursts out into this magnificent exclamation, + + Would that the criterion of a scholar's ability were the number and + moral value of the truths which he has been the means of throwing + into general circulation! + +And he sums up all by declaring, + + By what I _have_ effected am I to be judged by my fellow men. + +The truth is, that Mr. Coleridge has lived, as much as any man of his +time, in literary and political society, and that he has sought every +opportunity of keeping himself in the eye of the public, as restlessly +as any charlatan who ever exhibited on the stage. To use his own words, +"In 1794, when I had barely passed the verge of manhood, I published a +small volume of juvenile poems." These poems, by dint of puffing, +reached a third edition; and though Mr. Coleridge pretends now to think +but little of them, it is amusing to see how vehemently he defends them +against criticism, and how pompously he speaks of such paltry trifles. +"They were marked _by an ease and simplicity_ which I have studied, +_perhaps with inferior success,_ to bestow on my latter compositions." +But he afterwards repents of this sneer at his later compositions, and +tells us, that they have nearly reached his standard of perfection! +Indeed, his vanity extends farther back than his juvenile poems; and he +says, "For a school boy, I was _above par in English versification_, and +had already produced two or three compositions, which I may venture to +say, _without reference to my age, were somewhat above mediocrity_." +Happily he has preserved one of those wonderful productions of his +precocious boyhood, and our readers will judge for themselves what a +clever child it was. + + Underneath a huge oak-tree, + There was of swine a huge company; + That grunted as they crunch'd the mast, + For that was ripe and fell full fast. + Then they trotted away for the wind grew high, + One acorn they left and no more might you spy. + +It is a common remark, that wonderful children seldom perform the +promises of their youth, and undoubtedly this fine effusion has not been +followed in Mr. Coleridge's riper years by works of proportionate merit. + +We see, then, that our author came very early into public notice; and +from that time to this, he has not allowed one year to pass without +endeavouring to extend his notoriety. His poems were soon followed (they +may have been preceded) by a tragedy, entitled, the "Fall of +Robespierre," a meagre performance, but one which, from the nature of +the subject, attracted considerable attention. He also wrote a whole +book, utterly incomprehensible to Mr. Southey, we are sure, on that +Poet's Joan of Arc; and became as celebrated for his metaphysical +absurdities, as his friend had become for the bright promise of genius +exhibited by that unequal, but spirited poem. He next published a Series +of political essays, entitled, the "Watchman," and "Conciones ad +Populum." He next started up, fresh from the schools of Germany, as the +principal writer in the Morning Post, a _strong opposition paper_. He +then published various outrageous political poems, some of them of a +gross personal nature. He afterwards assisted Mr. Wordsworth in planning +his Lyrical Ballads; and contributing several poems to that collection, +he shared in the notoriety of the Lake School. He next published a +mysterious periodical work, "The Friend," in which he declared it was +his intention to settle at once, and for ever, the principles of +morality, religion, taste, manners, and the fine arts, but which died of +a galloping consumption in the twenty-eighth week of its age. He then +published the tragedy of "Remorse," which dragged out a miserable +existence of twenty nights, on the boards of Drury-Lane, and then +expired for ever, like the oil of the orchestral lamps. He then forsook +the stage for the pulpit, and, by particular desire of his congregation, +published two "Lay Sermons." He then walked in broad day-light into the +shop of Mr. Murray, Albemarle Street, London, with two ladies hanging on +each arm, Geraldine and Christabel,--a bold step for a person at all +desirous of a good reputation, and most of the trade have looked shy at +him since that exhibition. Since that time, however, he has contrived +means of giving to the world a collected edition of all his poems, and +advanced to the front of the stage with a thick octavo in each hand, all +about himself and other Incomprehensibilities. We had forgot that he was +likewise a contributor to Mr. Southey's Omniana, where the Editor of the +Edinburgh Review is politely denominated an "ass," and then _became +himself a writer in the said Review_. And to sum up "the strange +eventful history" of this modest, and obscure, and retired person, we +must mention, that in his youth he held forth in a vast number of +Unitarian chapels--preached his way through Bristol, and "Brummagem," +and Manchester, in a "blue coat and white waistcoat"; and in after +years, when he was not so much afraid of "the scarlet woman," did, in a +full suit of sables, lecture on Poesy, to "crowded, and, need I add, +highly respectable audiences," at the Royal Institution. After this +slight and imperfect outline of his poetical, oratorical, metaphysical, +political, and theological exploits, our readers will judge, when they +hear him talking of "his retirement and distance from the literary and +political world," what are his talents for autobiography, and how far he +has penetrated into the mysterious non-entities of his own character. + +Mr. Coleridge has written conspicuously on the Association of Ideas, but +his own do not seem to be connected either by time, place, cause and +effect, resemblance, or contrast, and accordingly it is no easy matter +to follow him through all the vagaries of his Literary Life. We are +told, + + At school _I enjoyed the inestimable advantage_ of a very sensible, + though at the same time a very severe master.--I learnt from + him that Poetry, even that of the loftiest and wildest odes, had a + logic of its own as severe as that of science.--Lute, harp, and lyre; + muse, muses, and inspirations; Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene; + were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now + exclaiming, _"Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and Ink! Boy you mean! Muse! boy! + Muse! your Nurse's daughter you mean! Pierian Spring! O Aye! the + cloister Pump!"_--Our classical knowledge was the least of the good + gifts which we derived from his zealous and conscientious tutorage. + +With the then head-master of the grammar-school, Christ Hospital, we +were not personally acquainted; but we cannot help thinking that he has +been singularly unfortunate in his Eulogist. He seems to have gone out +of his province, and far out of his depth, when he attempted to teach +boys the profoundest principles of Poetry. But we must also add, that we +cannot credit this account of him; for this doctrine of poetry being at +all times logical, is that of which Wordsworth and Coleridge take so +much credit to themselves for the discovery; and verily it is one too +wilfully absurd and extravagant to have entered into the head of an +honest man, whose time must have been wholly occupied with the +instruction of children. Indeed Mr. Coleridge's own poetical practices +render this story incredible; for, during many years of his authorship, +his diction was wholly at variance with such a rule, and the strain of +his poetry as illogical as can be well imagined. When Mr. Bowyer +prohibited his pupils from using, in their themes, the above-mentioned +names, he did, we humbly submit, prohibit them from using the best means +of purifying their taste and exalting their imagination. Nothing could +be so graceful, nothing so natural, as classical allusions, in the +exercises of young minds, when first admitted to the fountains of Greek +and Latin Poetry; and the Teacher who could seek to dissuade their +ingenious souls from such delightful dreams, by coarse, vulgar, and +indecent ribaldry, instead of deserving the name of "sensible," must +have been a low-minded vulgar fellow, fitter for the Porter than the +Master of such an Establishment. But the truth probably is, that all +this is a fiction of Mr. Coleridge, whose wit is at all times most +execrable and disgusting. Whatever the merits of his Master were, Mr. +Coleridge, even from his own account, seems to have derived little +benefit from his instruction, and for the "inestimable advantage," of +which he speaks, we look in vain through this Narrative. In spite of so +excellent a teacher, we find Master Coleridge, + + Even before my fifteenth year, bewildered _in metaphysicks and in + theological controversy_. Nothing else pleased me. _History and + particular facts_ lost all interest in my mind. Poetry itself, yea + novels and romances, became insipid to me. This preposterous pursuit + was beyond doubt _injurious, both to my natural powers and to the + progress of my education._ + +This deplorable condition of mind continued "even unto my seventeenth +year." And now our readers must prepare themselves for a mighty and +wonderful change, wrought, all on a sudden, on the moral and +intellectual character of this metaphysical Greenhorn. _"Mr. Bowles' +Sonnets, twenty in number, and just then published in a quarto volume_ +(a most important circumstance!) _were put into my hand!"_ To those +sonnets, next to the School-master's lectures on Poetry, Mr. Coleridge +attributes the strength, vigour, and extension, of his own very original +Genius. + + By those works, year after year, I was enthusiastically delighted and + inspired. My earliest acquaintances will not have forgotten the + undisciplined eagerness and impetuous zeal with which I labored to + make proselytes, not only _of my companions, but of all with whom I + conversed, of whatever rank, and in whatever place._ As my school + finances did not permit me to purchase copies, I made, within less + than a year and a half, _more than forty transcriptions, as the best + presents I could make to those who had in any way won my regard._ My + obligations to Mr. Bowles were indeed important, and for radical good! + +There must be some grievous natural defect in that mind which, even at +the age of seventeen, could act so insanely; and we cannot but think, +that no real and healthy sensibility could have exaggerated to itself so +grossly the merits of Bowles' Sonnets. They are undoubtedly most +beautiful, and we willingly pay our tribute of admiration to the genius +of the amiable writer; but they neither did nor could produce any such +effects as are here described, except upon a mind singularly weak and +helpless. We must, however, take the fact as we find it; and Mr. +Coleridge's first step, after his worship of Bowles, was to see +distinctly into the defects and deficiencies of Pope (a writer whom +Bowles most especially admires, and has edited), and through all the +false diction and borrowed plumage of Gray! But here Mr. Coleridge drops +the subject of Poetry for the present, and proceeds to other important +matters. + +We regret that Mr. Coleridge has passed over without notice all the +years which he spent "in the happy quiet of ever-honoured Jesus College, +Cambridge." That must have been the most important period of his life, +and was surely more worthy of record than the metaphysical dreams or the +poetical extravagancies of his boyhood. He tells us, that he was sent to +the University "an excellent Greek and Latin scholar, and a tolerable +Hebraist"; and there might have been something rousing and elevating to +young minds of genius and power, in his picture of himself, pursuits, +visions, and attainments, during the bright and glorious morning of +life, when he inhabited a dwelling of surpassing magnificence, guarded +and hallowed, and sublimed by the Shadows of the Mighty. We should wish +to know what progress he made there in his own favourite studies; what +place he occupied, or supposed he occupied, among his numerous +contemporaries of talent; how much he was inspired by the genius of the +place; how far he "pierced the caves of old Philosophy," or sounded the +depths of the Physical Sciences. All this unfortunately is omitted, and +he hurries on to details often trifling and uninfluential, sometimes +low, vile, and vulgar, and, what is worse, occasionally inconsistent +with any feeling of personal dignity and self-respect. + +After leaving College, instead of betaking himself to some respectable +calling, Mr. Coleridge, with his characteristic modesty, determined to +set on foot a periodical work called "The Watchman," that through it +"_all might know the truth_." The price of this very useful article was +_"four-pence."_ Off he set on a tour to the north to procure +subscribers, "preaching in most of the great towns as a hireless +Volunteer, in a blue coat and white waistcoat, that not a rag of the +Woman of Babylon might be seen on me." In preaching, his object was to +show that our Saviour was the real son of Joseph, and that the +Crucifixion was a matter of small importance. Mr. Coleridge is now a +most zealous member of the Church of England--devoutly believes every +iota in the thirty-nine articles, and that the Christian Religion is +only to be found in its purity in the homilies and liturgy of that +Church. Yet, on looking back to his Unitarian zeal, he exclaims, + + O, never can I remember those days _with either shame or regret!_ + For I was _most sincere, most disinterested! Wealth, rank, life + itself,_ then seem'd cheap to me, compared with the interests of + truth, and the will of my Maker. I cannot even accuse myself of having + been actuated by _vanity!_ for in the expansion of my enthusiasm _I + did not think of myself at all!_ + + +This is delectable. What does he mean by saying that life seemed cheap? +What danger could there be in the performance of his exploits, except +that of being committed as a Vagrant? What indeed could rank appear to a +person thus voluntarily degraded? Or who would expect vanity to be +conscious of its own loathsomeness? During this tour he seems to have +been constantly exposed to the insults of the vile and the vulgar, and +to have associated with persons whose company must have been most odious +to a Gentleman. Greasy Tallow-chandlers, and pursey Woollen-drapers, and +grim-featured dealers in Hard-ware, were his associates at Manchester, +Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield; and among them the light of truth was +to be shed from its cloudy tabernacle in Mr. Coleridge's Pericranium. At +the house of a "Brummagem Patriot" he appears to have got dead drunk +with strong ale and tobacco, and in that pitiable condition he was +exposed to his disciples, lying upon a sofa, "with my face like a wall +that is white-washing, _deathly_ pale, and with the cold drops of +perspiration running down it from my forehead." Some one having said, +"Have you seen a paper to-day, Mr. Coleridge?" the wretched man replied, +with all the staring stupidity of his lamentable condition, "Sir! I am +far from convinced that a Christian is permitted to read either +newspapers, or any other works of merely political and temporary +interest." This witticism quite enchanted his enlightened auditors, and +they prolonged their festivities to an "early hour next morning." Having +returned to London with a thousand subscribers on his list, the +"Watchman" appeared in all his glory; but, alas! not on the day fixed +for the first burst of his effulgence; which foolish delay incensed many +of his subscribers. The Watchman, on his second appearance, spoke +blasphemously, and made indecent applications of Scriptural language; +then, instead of abusing Government and Aristocrats, as Mr. Coleridge +had pledged himself to his constituents to do, he attacked his own +Party; so that in seven weeks, before the shoes were old in which he +travelled to Sheffield, the Watchman went the way of all flesh, and his +remains were scattered "through sundry old iron shops," where for one +penny could be purchased each precious relic. To crown all, "his London +Publisher was a ----"; and Mr. Coleridge very narrowly escaped being +thrown into jail for this his heroic attempt to shed over the +manufacturing towns the illumination of knowledge. We refrain from +making any comments on this deplorable story. This Philosopher, and +Theologian, and Patriot, now retired to a village in Somersetshire, and, +after having sought to enlighten the whole world, discovered that he +himself was in utter darkness. + + Doubts rushed in, broke upon me from the fountains of the great + deep, and fell from the windows of heaven. The fontal truths of + natural Religion, and the book of Revelation, alike contributed to the + flood; and it was long ere my Ark touched upon Ararat, and rested. + My head was with Spinoza, though my heart was with Paul and John.... + +We have no room here to expose, as it deserves to be exposed, the +multitudinous political inconsistence of Mr. Coleridge, but we beg leave +to state one single fact: He abhorred, hated, and despised Mr. Pitt,-- +and he now loves and reveres his memory. By far the most spirited and +powerful of his poetical writings, is the War Eclogue, Slaughter, Fire, +and Famine; and in that composition he loads the Minister with +imprecations and curses, long, loud, and deep. But afterwards, when he +has thought it prudent to change his Principles, he denies that he ever +felt any indignation towards Mr. Pitt; and with the most unblushing +falsehood declares, that at the very moment his muse was consigning him +to infamy, death, and damnation, he would "have interposed his body +between him and danger." We believe that all good men, of all parties, +regard Mr. Coleridge with pity and contempt. + +Of the latter days of his literary life, Mr. Coleridge gives us no +satisfactory account. The whole of the second volume is interspersed +with mysterious inuendoes. He complains of the loss of all his friends, +not by death, but estrangement. He tries to account for the enmity of +the world to him, a harmless and humane man, who wishes well to all +created things, and "of his wondering finds no end." He upbraids himself +with indolence, procrastination, neglect of his worldly concerns, and +all other bad habits,--and then, with incredible inconsistency, vaunts +loudly of his successful efforts in the cause of Literature, Philosophy, +Morality, and Religion. Above all, he weeps and wails over the malignity +of Reviewers, who have persecuted him almost from his very cradle, and +seem resolved to bark him into the grave. He is haunted by the Image of +a Reviewer wherever he goes. They "push him from his stool," and by his +bedside they cry, "Sleep no more." They may abuse whomsoever they think +fit, save himself and Mr. Wordsworth. All others are fair game--and he +chuckles to see them brought down. But his sacred person must be +inviolate, and rudely to touch it, is not high treason, it is impiety. +Yet his "ever-honoured friend, the laurel-honouring Laureate," is a +Reviewer--his friend Mr. Thomas Moore is a Reviewer--his friend Dr. +Middleton, Bishop of Calcutta, was the Editor of a Review--almost every +friend he ever had is a Reviewer;--and to crown all, he himself is a +Reviewer. Every person who laughs at his silly Poems--and his +incomprehensible metaphysics, is malignant--in which case, there can be +little benevolence in this world; and while Mr. Francis Jeffrey is alive +and merry, there can be no happiness here below for Mr. Samuel +Coleridge. + +And here we come to speak of a matter, which, though somewhat of a +personal and private nature, is well deserving of mention in a Review of +Mr. Coleridge's Literary Life, for sincerity is the first of virtues, +and without it no man can be respectable or useful. He has, in this +Work, accused Mr. Jeffrey of meanness--hypocrisy--falsehood--and breach +of hospitality. That gentleman is able to defend himself--and his +defence is no business of ours. But we now tell Mr. Coleridge, that +instead of humbling his Adversary, he has heaped upon his own head the +ashes of disgrace--and with his own blundering hands, so stained his +character as a man of honour and high principles, that the mark can +never be effaced. All the most offensive attacks on the writings of +Wordsworth and Southey, had been made by Mr. Jeffrey before his visit to +Keswick. Yet, does Coleridge receive him with open arms, according to +his own account--listen, well-pleased, to all his compliments--talk to +him for hours on his Literary Projects--dine with him as his guest at an +Inn--tell him that he knew Mr. Wordsworth would be most happy to see +him--and in all respects behave to him with a politeness bordering on +servility. And after all this, merely because his own vile verses were +crumpled up like so much waste paper, by the grasp of a powerful hand in +the Edinburgh Review, he accuses Mr. Jeffrey of abusing hospitality +which he never received, and forgets, that instead of being the Host, he +himself was the smiling and obsequious Guest of the man he pretends to +have despised. With all this miserable forgetfulness of dignity and +self-respect, he mounts the high horse, from which he instantly is +tumbled into the dirt; and in his angry ravings collects together all +the foul trash of literary gossip to fling at his adversary, but which +is blown stifling back upon himself with odium and infamy. But let him +call to mind his own conduct, and talk not of Mr. Jeffrey. Many +witnesses are yet living of his own egotism and malignity; and often has +he heaped upon his "beloved Friend, the laurel-honouring Laureate," +epithets of contempt, and pity, and disgust, though now it may suit his +paltry purposes to worship and idolize. Of Mr. Southey we at all times +think, and shall speak, with respect and admiration; but his open +adversaries are, like Mr. Jeffrey, less formidable than his unprincipled +Friends. When Greek and Trojan meet on the plain, there is an interest +in the combat; but it is hateful and painful to think, that a hero +should be wounded behind his back, and by a poisoned stiletto in the +hand of a false Friend. + +The concluding chapter of this Biography is perhaps the most pitiful of +the whole, and contains a most surprising mixture of the pathetic and +the ludicrous. + + "Strange," says he, "as the delusion may appear, yet it is most + true, that three years ago I did not know or believe that I had an + enemy in the world; and now even my strongest consolations of + gratitude are mingled with fear, and I reproach myself for being too + often disposed to ask,--Have I one friend?" + +We are thus prepared for the narration of some grievous cruelty, or +ingratitude, or malice--some violation of his peace, or robbery of his +reputation; but our readers will start when they are informed, that this +melancholy lament is occasioned solely by the cruel treatment which his +poem of Christabel received from the Edinburgh Review and other +periodical Journals! It was, he tells us, universally admired in +manuscript--he recited it many hundred times to men, women, and +children, and always with an electrical effect--it was bepraised by most +of the great Poets of the day--and for twenty years he was urged to give +it to the world. But alas! no sooner had the Lady Christabel "come out," +than all the rules of good-breeding and politeness were broken through, +and the loud laugh of scorn and ridicule from every quarter assailed the +ears of the fantastic Hoyden. But let Mr. Coleridge be consoled. Mr. +Scott and Lord Byron are good-natured enough to admire Christabel, and +the Public have not forgotten that his Lordship handed her Ladyship upon +the stage. It is indeed most strange, that Mr., Coleridge is not +satisfied with the praise of those he admires,--but pines away for the +commendation of those he contemns. + +Having brought down his literary life to the great epoch of the +publication of Christabel, he there stops short; and that the world may +compare him as he appears at that aera to his former self, when "he set +sail from Yarmouth on the morning of the 10th September, 1798, in the +Hamburg Packet," he has republished, from his periodical work the +"Friend," seventy pages of Satyrane's Letters. As a specimen of his wit +in 1798, our readers may take the following:-- + +We were all on the deck, but in a short time I observed marks of + dismay. The Lady retired to the cabin in some confusion; and many + of the faces round me assumed a very doleful and frog-coloured + appearance; and within an hour the number of those on deck was + lessened by one half. I was giddy, but not sick; and the giddiness + soon went away, but left a feverishness and want of appetite, which I + attributed, in great measure, to the "_saeva mephitis_" of the + bilge-water; and it was certainly not decreased by the _exportations + from the cabin_. However, I was well enough to join the able-bodied + passengers, one of whom observed, not inaptly, that Momus might have + discovered an easier _way to see a man's inside_ than by placing a + window in his breast. He needed only have taken a salt-water trip in a + packet boat. I am inclined to believe, that a packet is far superior + to a stage-coach as a means of making men _open out to each other_! + +The importance of his observations during the voyage may be estimated by +this one:-- + + At four o'clock I observed a wild duck swimming on the waves,_a single + solitary wild duck!_ It is not easy to conceive how interesting a + thing it looked in that round objectless desert of waters! + +At the house of Klopstock, brother of the Poet, he saw a portrait of +Lessing, which he thus describes to the Public:--"His eyes were +uncommonly _like mine_! if any thing, rather larger and more prominent! +But the lower part of his face I and his nose--O what an exquisite +expression of elegance and sensibility!" He then gives a long account of +his interview with Klopstock the Poet, in which he makes that great man +talk in a very silly, weak, and ignorant manner. Mr. Coleridge not only +sets him right in all his opinions on English literature, but also is +kind enough to correct, in a very authoritative and dictatorial tone, +his erroneous views of the characteristic merits and defects of the most +celebrated German Writers. He has indeed the ball in his own hands +throughout the whole game; and Klopstock, who, he says, "was +seventy-four years old, with legs enormously swollen," is beaten to a +standstill. We are likewise presented with an account of a conversation +which his friend W. held with the German Poet, in which the author of +the Messiah makes a still more paltry figure. We can conceive nothing +more odious and brutal, than two young ignorant lads from Cambridge +forcing themselves upon the retirement of this illustrious old man, and, +instead of listening with love, admiration and reverence, to his +sentiments and opinions, insolently obtruding upon him their own crude +and mistaken fancies,--contradicting imperiously every thing he +advances,--taking leave of him with a consciousness of their own +superiority,--and, finally, talking of him and his genius in terms of +indifference bordering on contempt. This Mr. W. had the folly and the +insolence to say to Klopstock, who was enthusiastically praising the +Oberon of Wieland, that he never could see the smallest beauty in any +part of that Poem. + +We must now conclude our account of this "unaccountable" production. It +has not been in our power to enter into any discussion with Mr. +Coleridge on the various subjects of Poetry and Philosophy, which he +has, we think, vainly endeavoured to elucidate. But we shall, on a +future occasion, meet him on his own favourite ground. No less than 182 +pages of the second volume are dedicated to the poetry of Mr. +Wordsworth. He has endeavoured to define poetry--to explain the +philosophy of metre--to settle the boundaries of poetic diction--and to +show, finally, "What it is probable Mr. Wordsworth meant to say in his +dissertation prefixed to his Lyrical Ballads." As Mr. Coleridge has not +only studied the laws of poetical composition, but is a Poet of +considerable powers, there are, in this part of his Book, many acute, +ingenious, and even sensible observations and remarks; but he never +knows when to have done,--explains what requires no explanation,--often +leaves untouched the very difficulty he starts,--and when he has poured +before us a glimpse of light upon the shapeless form of some dark +conception, he seems to take a wilful pleasure in its immediate +extinction, and leads "us floundering on, and quite astray," through the +deepening shadows of interminable night. + +One instance there is of magnificent promise, and laughable +non-performance, unequalled in the annals of literary History. Mr. +Coleridge informs us, that he and Mr. Wordsworth (he is not certain which +is entitled to the glory of the first discovery) have found out the +difference between Fancy and Imagination. This discovery, it is +prophesied, will have an incalculable influence on the progress of all +the Fine Arts. He has written a long chapter purposely to prepare our +minds for the great discussion. The audience is assembled--the curtain +is drawn up--and there, in his gown, cap, and wig, is sitting Professor +Coleridge. In comes a servant with a letter; the Professor gets up, and, +with a solemn voice, reads to the audience.--It is from an enlightened +Friend; and its object is to shew, in no very courteous terms either to +the Professor or his Spectators, that he may lecture, but that nobody +will understand him. He accordingly makes his bow, and the curtain +falls; but the worst of the joke is, that the Professor pockets the +admittance-money,--for what reason, his outwitted audience are left, the +best way they can, to "fancy or imagine." + +But the greatest piece of Quackery in the Book is his pretended account +of the Metaphysical System of Kant, of which he knows less than nothing. +He wall not allow that there is a single word of truth in any of the +French Expositions of that celebrated System, nor yet in any of our +British Reviews. We do not wish to speak of what we do not understand, +and therefore say nothing of Mr. Coleridge's Metaphysics.... + +We have done. We have felt it our duty to speak with severity of this +book and its author--and we have given our readers ample opportunities +to judge of the justice of our strictures. We have not been speaking in +the cause of literature only, but, we conceive, in the cause of Morality +and Religion. For it is not fitting that He should be held up as an +example to the rising generation (but, on the contrary, it is most +fitting that he should be exposed as a most dangerous model), who has +alternately embraced, defended, and thrown aside all systems of +Philosophy--and all creeds of Religion,--who seems to have no power of +retaining an opinion,--no trust in the principles which he defends,--but +who fluctuates from theory to theory, according as he is impelled by +vanity, envy, or diseased desire of change,--and who, while he would +subvert and scatter into dust those structures of knowledge, reared by +the wise men of this and other generations, has nothing to erect in +their room but the baseless and air-built fabrics of a dreaming +Imagination. + + + + +ON THE COCKNEY SCHOOL OF POETRY + +No. I + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, October, 1817] + + Our talk shall be (a theme we never tire on) + Of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, + (Our England's Dante)--Wordsworth--HUNT, and KEATS, + The Muses' son of promise; and of what feats + He yet may do. + +CORNELIUS WEBB. + + +While the whole critical world is occupied with balancing the merits, +whether in theory or in execution, of what is commonly called THE LAKE +SCHOOL, it is strange that no one seems to think it at all necessary to +say a single word about another new school of poetry which has of late +sprung up among us. This school has not, I believe, as yet received any +name; but if I may be permitted to have the honour of christening it, it +may henceforth be referred to by the designation of THE COCKNEY SCHOOL. +Its chief Doctor and Professor is Mr. Leigh Hunt, a man certainly of +some talents, of extravagant pretensions both in wit, poetry, and +politics, and withal of exquisitely bad taste, and extremely vulgar +modes of thinking and manners in all respects. He is a man of little +education. He knows absolutely nothing of Greek, almost nothing of +Latin, and his knowledge of Italian literature is confined to a few of +the most popular of Petrarch's sonnets, and an imperfect acquaintance +with Ariosto, through the medium of Mr. Hoole. As to the French poets, +he dismisses them in the mass as a set of prim, precise, unnatural +pretenders. The truth is, he is in a state of happy ignorance about them +and all that they have done. He has never read ZaĂ¯re nor Phèdre. To +those great German poets who have illuminated the last fifty years with +a splendour to which this country has, for a long time, seen nothing +comparable, Mr. Hunt is an absolute stranger. Of Spanish books he has +read Don Quixote (in the translation of Motteux), and some poems of Lope +de Vega in the imitations of my Lord Holland. Of all the great critical +writers, either of ancient or of modern times, he is utterly ignorant, +excepting only Mr. Jeffrey among ourselves. + +With this stock of knowledge, Mr. Hunt presumes to become the founder of +a new school of poetry, and throws away entirely the chance which he +might have had of gaining some true poetical fame, had he been less +lofty in his pretensions. The story of Rimini is not wholly undeserving +of praise. It possesses some tolerable passages, which are all quoted in +the Edinburgh Reviewer's account of the poem, and not one of which is +quoted in the very illiberal attack upon it in the Quarterly. But such +is the wretched taste in which the greater part of the work is executed, +that most certainly no man who reads it once will ever be able to +prevail upon himself to read it again. One feels the same disgust at the +idea of opening Rimini, that impresses itself on the mind of a man of +fashion, when he is invited to enter, for a second time, the gilded +drawing-room of a little mincing boarding school mistress, who would +fain have an _At Home_ in her house. Every thing is pretence, +affectation, finery, and gaudiness. The beaux are attorneys' +apprentices, with chapeau bras and Limerick gloves--fiddlers, harp +teachers, and clerks of genius: the belles are faded fan-twinkling +spinsters, prurient vulgar misses from school, and enormous citizens' +wives. The company are entertained with lukewarm negus, and the sounds +of a paltry piano forte. + +All the great poets of our country have been men of some rank in +society, and there is no vulgarity in any of their writings; But Mr. +Hunt cannot utter a dedication, or even a note, without betraying the +_Shibboleth_ of low birth and low habits. He is the ideal of a Cockney +Poet. He raves perpetually about "greenfields," "jaunty streams," and +"o'er-arching leafiness," exactly as a Cheapside shop-keeper does about +the beauties of his box on the Camberwell road. Mr. Hunt is altogether +unacquainted with the face of nature in her magnificent scenes; he has +never seen any mountain higher than Highgate-hill, nor reclined by any +stream more pastoral than the Serpentine River. But he is determined to +be a poet eminently rural, and he rings the changes--till one is sick of +him, on the beauties of the different "high views" which he has taken of +God and nature, in the course of some Sunday dinner parties, at which he +has assisted in the neighbourhood of London. His books are indeed not +known in the country; his fame as a poet (and I might almost say, as a +politician too) is entirely confined to the young attorneys and +embryo-barristers about town. In the opinion of these competent judges, +London is the world--and Hunt is a Homer. + +Mr. Hunt is not disqualified by his ignorance and vulgarity alone, for +being the founder of a respectable sect in poetry. He labours under the +burden of a sin more deadly than either of these. The two great elements +of all dignified poetry, religious feeling, and patriotic feeling, have +no place in his mind. His religion is a poor tame dilution of the +blasphemies of the _Encyclopaedie_--his patriotism a crude, vague, +ineffectual, and sour Jacobinism. He is without reverence either for God +or man; neither altar nor throne have any dignity in his eyes. He speaks +well of nobody but two or three great dead poets, and in so speaking of +them he does well; but, alas! Mr. Hunt is no conjurer [Greek: technae ou +lanthanei]. He pretends, indeed, to be an admirer of Spencer and +Chaucer, but what he praises in them is never what is most deserving of +praise--it is only that which he humbly conceives, bears some +resemblance to the more perfect productions of Mr. Leigh Hunt; and we +can always discover, in the midst of his most violent ravings about the +Court of Elizabeth, and the days of Sir Philip Sidney, and the Fairy +Queen--that the real objects of his admiration are the Coterie of +Hampstead and the Editor of the Examiner. When he talks about chivalry +and King Arthur, he is always thinking of himself, and "_a small party +of friends, who meet once a-week at a Round Table, to discuss the merits +of a leg of mutton, and of the subjects upon which we are to write._"-- +Mr. Leigh Hunt's ideas concerning the sublime, and concerning his own +powers, bear a considerable resemblance to those of his friend Bottom, +the weaver, on the same subjects; "I will roar, that it shall do any +man's heart good to hear me."--"I will roar you an 'twere any +nightingale." + +The poetry of Mr. Hunt is such as might be expected from the personal +character and habits of its author. As a vulgar man is perpetually +labouring to be genteel--in like manner, the poetry of this man is +always on the stretch to be grand. He has been allowed to look for a +moment from the anti-chamber into the saloon, and mistaken the waving of +feathers and the painted floor for the _sine quĂ¢ non's_ of elegant +society. He would fain be always tripping and waltzing, and is sorry +that he cannot be allowed to walk about in the morning with yellow +breeches and flesh-coloured silk stockings. He sticks an artificial +rose-bud into his button hole in the midst of winter. He wears no +neckcloth, and cuts his hair in imitation of the Prints of Petrarch. In +his verses also he is always desirous of being airy, graceful, easy, +courtly, and ITALIAN. If he had the smallest acquaintance with the great +demigods of Italian poetry, he could never fancy that the style in which +he writes, bears any, even the most remote resemblance to the severe and +simple manner of Dante--the tender stillness of the lover of Laura--or +the sprightly and good-natured unconscious elegance of the inimitable +Ariosto. He has gone into a strange delusion about himself, and is just +as absurd in supposing that he resembles the Italian Poets as a greater +Quack still (Mr. Coleridge) is, in imagining that he is a Philosopher +after the manner of Kant or Mendelshon--and that "the eye of Lessing +bears a remarkable likeness to MINE," i.e., the eye of Mr. Samuel +Coleridge.[1] + +[1] Mr. Wordsworth (meaning, we presume, to pay Mr. Coleridge a + compliment), makes him look very absurdly, + + "A noticeable man, with _large grey eyes_." + + +The extreme moral depravity of the Cockney School is another thing which +is for ever thrusting itself upon the public attention, and convincing +every man of sense who looks into their productions, that they who sport +such sentiments can never be great poets. How could any man of high +original genius ever stoop publicly, at the present day, to dip his +fingers in the least of those glittering and rancid obscenities which +float on the surface of Mr. Hunt's Hippocrene? His poetry is that of a +man who has kept company with kept-mistresses. He talks indelicately +like a tea-sipping milliner girl. Some excuse for him there might have +been, had he been hurried away by imagination or passion. But with him +indecency is a disease, and he speaks unclean things from perfect +inanition. The very concubine of so impure a wretch as Leigh Hunt would +be to be pitied, but alas! for the wife of such a husband! For him there +is no charm in simple seduction; and he gloats over it only when +accompanied with adultery and incest. + +The unhealthy and jaundiced medium through which the Founder of the +Cockney School views every thing like moral truth, is apparent, not only +from his obscenity, but also from his want of respect for all that +numerous class of plain upright men, and unpretending women, in which +the real worth and excellence of human society consists. Every man is, +according to Mr. Hunt, a dull potato-eating blockhead--of no greater +value to God or man than any ox or dray-horse--who is not an admirer of +Voltaire's _romans_, a worshipper of Lord Holland and Mr. Haydon and a +quoter of John Buncle and Chaucer's Flower and Leaf. Every woman is +useful only as a breeding machine, unless she is fond of reading +Launcelot of the Lake, in an antique summer-house. + +How such a profligate creature as Mr. Hunt can pretend to be an admirer +of Mr. Wordsworth, is to us a thing altogether inexplicable. One great +charm of Wordsworth's noble compositions consists in the dignified +purity of thought, and the patriarchal simplicity of feeling, with which +they are throughout penetrated and imbued. We can conceive a vicious man +admiring with distant awe and spectacle of virtue and purity; but if he +does so sincerely, he must also do so with the profoundest feeling of +the error of his own ways, and the resolution to amend them. His +admiration must be humble and silent, not pert and loquacious. Mr. Hunt +praises the purity of Wordsworth as if he himself were pure, his dignity +as if he also were dignified. He is always like the ball of Dung in the +fable, pleasing himself, and amusing by-standers with his "nos poma +natamus." For the person who writes _Rimini_, to admire the Excursion, +is just as impossible as it would be for a Chinese polisher of +cherry-stones, or gilder of tea-cups, to burst into tears at the sight +of the Theseus or the Torso. + +The Founder of the Cockney School would fain claim poetical kindred with +Lord Byron and Thomas Moore. Such a connexion would be as unsuitable for +them as for William Wordsworth. The days of Mr. Moore's follies are long +since over; and, as he is a thorough gentleman, he must necessarily +entertain the greatest contempt for such an under-bred person as Leigh +Hunt. But Lord Byron! How must the haughty spirit of Lara and Harold +contemn the subaltern sneaking of our modern tuft-hunter. The insult +which he offered to Lord Byron in the dedication of Rimini,--in which +he, a paltry cockney newspaper scribbler, had the assurance to address +one of the most nobly-born of English Patricians, and one of the first +geniuses whom the world ever produced, as "My dear Byron," although it +may have been forgotten and despised by the illustrious person whom it +most nearly concerned,--excited a feeling of utter loathing and disgust +in the public mind, which will always be remembered whenever the name of +Leigh Hunt is mentioned. We dare say Mr. Hunt has some fine dreams about +the true nobility being the nobility of talent, and flatters himself, +that with those who acknowledge only that sort of rank, he himself +passes for being the _peer_ of Byron. He is sadly mistaken. He is as +completely a Plebeian in his mind as he is in his rank and station in +society. To that highest and unalienated nobility which the great Roman +satirist styles "sola atque unica," we fear his pretensions would be +equally unavailing. + +The shallow and impotent pretensions, tenets, and attempts, of this +man,--and the success with which his influence seems to be extending +itself among a pretty numerous, though certainly a very paltry and +pitiful, set of readers,--have for the last two or three years been +considered by us with the most sickening aversion. The very culpable +manner in which his chief poem was reviewed in the Edinburgh Review (we +believe it is no secret, at his own impatient and feverish request, by +his partner in the Round Table), was matter of concern to more readers +than ourselves. The masterly pen which inflicted such signal +chastisement on the early licentiousness of Moore, should not have been +idle on that occasion. Mr. Jeffrey does ill when he delegates his +important functions into such hands as Mr. Hazlitt. It was chiefly in +consequence of that gentleman's allowing Leigh Hunt to pass unpunished +through a scene of slaughter, which his execution might so highly have +graced that we came to the resolution of laying before our readers a +series of essays on _the Cockney School_--of which here terminates the +first. _Z_. + + + + +THE COCKNEY SCHOOL OF POETRY + +No. III + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, July, 1818] + +Our hatred and contempt of Leigh Hunt as a writer, is not so much owing +to his shameless irreverence to his aged and afflicted king--to his +profligate attacks on the character of the king's sons--to his low-born +insolence to that aristocracy with whom he would in vain claim the +alliance of one illustrious friendship--to his paid panderism to the +vilest passions of that mob of which he is himself a firebrand--to the +leprous crust of self-conceit with which his whole moral being is +indurated--to that loathsome vulgarity which constantly clings round him +like a vermined garment from St. Giles'--to that irritable temper which +keeps the unhappy man, in spite even of his vanity, in a perpetual fret +with himself and all the world beside, and that shews itself equally in +his deadly enmities and capricious friendships,--our hatred and contempt +of Leigh Hunt, we say, is not so much owing to these and other causes, +as to the odious and unnatural harlotry of his polluted muse. We were +the first to brand with a burning iron the false face of this +kept-mistress of a demoralizing incendiary. We tore off her gaudy veil and +transparent drapery, and exhibited the painted cheeks and writhing limbs +of the prostitute. We denounced to the execration of the people of +England, the man who had dared to write in the solitude of a cell, whose +walls ought to have heard only the sighs of contrition and repentance, a +lewd tale of incest, adultery, and murder, in which the violation of +Nature herself was wept over, palliated, justified, and held up to +imitation, and the violators themselves worshipped as holy martyrs. The +story of Rimini had begun to have its admirers; but their deluded minds +were startled at our charges,--and on reflecting upon the character of +the poem, which they had read with a dangerous sympathy, not on account +of its poetical merit, which is small indeed, but on account of those +voluptuous scenes, so dangerous even to a pure imagination, when +insidiously painted with the seeming colours of virtue,--they were +astounded at their own folly and their own danger, and consigned the +wretched volume to that ignominious oblivion, which, in a land of +religion and morality, must soon be the doom of all obscene and +licentious productions. + +The story of Rimini is heard of no more. But Leigh Hunt will not be +quiet. His hebdomadal hand [**Pointing hand symbol] is held up, even on +the Sabbath, against every man of virtue and genius in the land; but the +great defamer claims to himself an immunity from that disgrace which he +knows his own wickedness has incurred,--the Cockney calumniator would +fain hold his own disgraced head sacred from the iron fingers of +retribution. But that head shall be brought low--aye--low "as heaped up +justice" ever sunk that of an offending scribbler against the laws of +Nature and of God. + +Leigh Hunt dared not, Hazlitt dared not, to defend the character of the +"Story of Rimini." A man may venture to say that in verse which it is +perilous to utter in plain prose. Even they dared not to affirm to the +people of England, that a wife who had committed incest with her +husband's brother, ought on her death to be buried in the same tomb with +her fraticidal [Transcriber's note: sic] paramour, and that tomb to be +annually worshipped by the youths and virgins of their country. And +therefore Leigh Hunt flew into a savage passion against the critic who +had chastised his crime, pretended that he himself was insidiously +charged with the offences which he had applauded and celebrated in +others, and tried to awaken the indignation of the public against his +castigator, as if he had been the secret assassin of private character, +who was but the open foe of public enormity. The attempt was hopeless,-- +the public voice has lifted up against Hunt,--and sentence of +excommunication from the poets of England has been pronounced, enrolled, +and ratified. + +There can be no radical distinction allowed between the private and +public character of a poet. If a poet sympathizes with and justifies +wickedness in his poetry, he is a wicked man. It matters not that his +private life may be free from wicked actions. Corrupt his moral +principles must be,--and if his conduct has not been flagrantly immoral, +the cause must be looked for in constitution, &c., but not in +conscience. It is therefore of little or no importance, whether Leigh +Hunt be or be not a bad private character. He maintains, that he is a +most excellent private character, and that he would blush to tell the +world how highly he is thought of by an host of respectable friends. Be +it so,--and that his vanity does not delude him. But this is most sure, +that, in such a case, the world will never be brought to believe even +the truth. The world is not fond of ingenious distinctions between the +theory and the practice of morals. The public are justified in refusing +to hear a man plead in favour of his character, when they hold in their +hands a work of his in which all respect to character is forgotten. We +must reap the fruit of what we sow; and if evil and unjust reports have +arisen against Leigh Hunt as a man, and unluckily for him it is so, he +ought not to attribute the rise of such reports to the political +animosities which his virulence has excited, but to the real and obvious +cause--his voluptuous defence of crimes revolting to Nature. + +The publication of the voluptuous story of Rimini was followed, it would +appear, by mysterious charges against Leigh Hunt in his domestic +relations. The world could not understand the nature of his poetical +love of incest; and instead of at once forgetting both the poem and the +poet, many people set themselves to speculate, and talk, and ask +questions, and pry into secrets with which they had nothing to do, till +at last there was something like an identification of Leigh Hunt himself +with Paolo, the incestuous hero of Leigh Hunt's chief Cockney poem. This +was wrong, and, we believe, wholly unjust; but it was by no means +unnatural; and precisely what Leigh Hunt is himself in the weekly +practice of doing to other people without the same excuse. Leigh Hunt +has now spoken out so freely to the public on the subject, that there +can be no indelicacy in talking of it, in as far as it respects him, at +least.... + +There is no need for us to sink down this unhappy man into deeper +humiliation. Never before did the abuse and prostitution of talents +bring with them such prompt and memorable punishment. The pestilential +air which Leigh Hunt breathed forth into the world to poison and +corrupt, has been driven stiflingly back upon himself, and he who strove +to spread the infection of loathsome licentiousness among the tender +moral constitutions of the young, has been at length rewarded, as it was +fitting he should be, by the accusation of being himself guilty of those +crimes which it was the object of "The Story of Rimini" to encourage and +justify in others. The world knew nothing of him but from his works; and +were they blameable (even though they erred) in believing him capable of +any enormities in his own person, whose imagination feasted and gloated +on the disgusting details of adultery and incest? They were repelled and +sickened by such odious and unnatural wickedness--he was attracted and +delighted. What to them was the foulness of pollution, seemed to him the +beauty of innocence. What to them was the blast from hell, to him was +the air from heaven. They read and they condemned. They asked each other +"What manner of man is this?" The charitable were silent. It would +perhaps be hard to call them uncharitable who spoke aloud. Thoughts were +associated with his name which shall be nameless by us; and at last the +wretched scribbler himself has had the gross and unfeeling folly to +punish them all to the world, and that too in a tone of levity that +could have been becoming only on our former comparatively trivial +charges against him of wearing yellow breeches, and dispensing with the +luxury of a neckcloth. He shakes his shoulders, according to his rather +iniquitous custom, at being told that he is suspected of adultery and +incest! A pleasant subject of merriment, no doubt, it is--though +somewhat embittered by the intrusive remembrance of that unsparing +castigator of vice, Mr. Gifford, and clouded over by the melancholy +breathed from the shin-bone of his own poor old deceased grandmother. +What a mixture of the horrible and absurd! And the man who thus writes +is--not a Christian, for that he denies--but, forsooth, a poet! one of +the + + Great spirits who on earth are sojourning! + +But Leigh Hunt is not guilty, in the above paragraph, of shocking levity +alone,--he is guilty of falsehood. It is not true, that he learns for +the first time, from that anonymous letter (so vulgar, that we could +almost suspect him of having written it himself) what charges were in +circulation against him. He knew it all before. Has he forgotten to whom +he applied for explanation when Z.'s sharp essay on the Cockney Poetry +cut him to the heart? He knows what he said upon those occasions, and +let him ponder upon it. But what could induce him to suspect the amiable +Bill Hazlitt, "him, the immaculate," of being Z.? It was this,--he +imagined that none but that foundered artist could know the fact of his +feverish importunities to be reviewed by him in the Edinburgh Review. +And therefore, having almost "as fine an intellectual touch" as "Bill +the painter" himself, he thought he saw Z. lurking beneath the elegant +exterior of that highly accomplished man. + + Dear Hazlitt, whose tact intellectual is such, + That it seems to feel truth as one's fingers do touch. + +But, for the present, we have nothing more to add. Leigh Hunt is +delivered into our hands to do with him as we will. Our eyes shall be +upon him, and unless he amend his ways, to wither and to blast him. The +pages of the Edinburgh Review, we are confident, are henceforth shut +against him. One wicked Cockney will not again be permitted to praise +another in that journal, which, up to the moment when incest and +adultery were defended in its pages, had, however openly at war with +religion, kept at least upon decent terms with the cause of morality. It +was indeed a fatal day for Mr. Jeffrey, when he degraded both himself +and his original coadjutors, by taking into pay such an unprincipled +blunderer as Hazlitt. He is not a coadjutor, he is an accomplice. The +day is perhaps not far distant, when the Charlatan shall be stripped to +the naked skin, and made to swallow his own vile prescriptions. He and +Leigh Hunt are + + Arcades ambo + Et cantare pares-- + +Shall we add, + + et respondere parati? + + + + +Z. ON KEATS + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, August, 1818] + +COCKNEY SCHOOL OF POETRY + +No. IV + + ---- OF KEATS, + THE MUSES' SON OF PROMISE, AND WHAT FEATS + HE YET MAY DO, &C. + +CORNELIUS WEBB. + + +Of all the manias of this mad age, the most incurable, as well as the +most common, seems to be no other than the _Metromanie_. The just +celebrity of Robert Burns and Miss Baillie has had the melancholy effect +of turning the heads of we know not how many farm-servants and unmarried +ladies; our very footmen compose tragedies, and there is scarcely a +superannuated governess in the island that does not leave a roll of +lyrics behind her in her band-box. To witness the disease of any human +understanding, however feeble, is distressing; but the spectacle of an +able mind reduced to a state of insanity is of course ten times more +afflicting. It is with such sorrow as this that we have contemplated the +case of Mr. John Keats. This young man appears to have received from +nature talents of an excellent, perhaps even of a superior order-- +talents which, devoted to the purposes of any useful profession, must +have rendered him a respectable, if not an eminent citizen. His friends, +we understand, destined him to the career of medicine, and he was bound +apprentice some years ago to a worthy apothecary in town. But all has +been undone by a sudden attack of the malady to which we have alluded. +Whether Mr. John had been sent home with a diuretic or composing draught +to some patient far gone in the poetical mania, we have not heard. This +much is certain, that he has caught the infection, and that thoroughly. +For some time we were in hopes, that he might get off with a violent fit +or two; but of late the symptoms are terrible. The phrenzy of the +"Poems" was bad enough in its way; but it did not alarm us half so +seriously as the calm, settled, imperturbable drivelling idiocy of +"Endymion." We hope, however, that in so young a person, and with a +constitution originally so good, even now the disease is not utterly +incurable. Time, firm treatment, and rational restraint, do much for +many apparently hopeless invalids; and if Mr. Keats should happen, at +some interval of reason, to cast his eye upon our pages, he may perhaps +be convinced of the existence of his malady, which, in such cases, is +often all that is necessary to put the patient in a fair way of being +cured. + +The readers of the Examiner newspaper were informed, some time ago, by a +solemn paragraph, in Mr. Hunt's best style, of the appearance of two new +stars of glorious magnitude and splendour in the poetical horizon of the +land of Cockaigne. One of these turned out, by and by, to be no other +than Mr. John Keats. This precocious adulation confirmed the wavering +apprentice in his desire to quit the gallipots, and at the same time +excited in his too susceptible mind a fatal admiration for the character +and talents of the most worthless and affected of all the versifiers of +our time. One of his first productions was the following sonnet, +"_written on the day when Mr. Leigh Hunt left prison._" It will be +recollected, that the cause of Hunt's confinement was a series of libels +against his sovereign, and that its fruit was the odious and incestuous +"Story of Rimini." + + What though, for shewing truth to flattered state, + _Kind Hunt_ was shut in prison, yet has he, + In his immortal spirit been as free + As the sky-searching lark, and as elate. + Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait? + Think you he nought but prison walls did see, + Till, so unwilling, thou unturn'dst the key? + Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate! + _In Spenser's halls_! he strayed, and bowers fair, + Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew + _With daring Milton_! through the fields of air; + To regions of his own his genius true + Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair + When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew? + +The absurdity of the thought in this sonnet is, however, if possible, +surpassed in another, "_addressed to Haydon_" the painter, that clever, +but most affected artist, who as little resembles Raphael in genius as +he does in person, notwithstanding the foppery of having his hair curled +over his shoulders in the old Italian fashion. In this exquisite piece +it will be observed, that Mr. Keats classes together WORDSWORTH, HUNT, +and HAYDON, as the three greatest spirits of the age, and that he +alludes to himself, and some others of the rising brood of Cockneys, as +likely to attain hereafter an equally honourable elevation. Wordsworth +and Hunt! what a juxta-position! The purest, the loftiest, and, we do +not fear to say it, the most classical of living English poets, joined +together in the same compliment with the meanest, the filthiest, and the +most vulgar of Cockney poetasters. No wonder that he who could be guilty +of this should class Haydon with Raphael, and himself with Spenser. + + Great spirits now on earth are sojourning; + He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, + Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake, + Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing: + _He of the rose, the violet, the spring, + The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake_: + And lo!--whose steadfastness would never take + A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering. + And other spirits there are standing apart + Upon the forehead of the age to come; + These, these will give the world another heart, + And other pulses. _Hear ye not the hum + Of mighty workings_?-- + _Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb_. + +The nations are to listen and be dumb! and why, good Johnny Keats? +because Leigh Hunt is editor of the Examiner, and Haydon has painted the +judgment of Solomon, and you and Cornelius Webb, and a few more city +sparks, are pleased to look upon yourselves as so many future +Shakespeares and Miltons! The world has really some reason to look to +its foundations! Here is a _tempestas in matulĂ¢_ with a vengeance. At +the period when these sonnets were published, Mr. Keats had no +hesitation in saying, that he looked on himself as "_not yet_ a glorious +denizen of the wide heaven of poetry," but he had many fine soothing +visions of coming greatness, and many rare plans of study to prepare him +for it.... + +Having cooled a little from this "fine passion," our youthful poet +passes very naturally into a long strain of foaming abuse against a +certain class of English Poets, whom, with Pope at their head, it is +much the fashion with the ignorant unsettled pretenders of the present +time to undervalue. Begging these gentlemen's pardon, although Pope was +not a poet of the same high order with some who are now living, yet, to +deny his genius, it is just about as absurd as to dispute that of +Wordsworth, or to believe in that of Hunt. Above all things, it is most +pitiably ridiculous to hear men, of whom their country will always have +reason to be proud, reviled by uneducated and flimsy striplings, who are +not capable of understanding either their merits, or those of any other +_men of power_--fanciful dreaming tea-drinkers, who, without logic +enough to analyse a single idea, or imagination enough to form one +original image, or learning enough to distinguish between the written +language of Englishmen and the spoken jargon of Cockneys, presume to +talk with contempt of some of the most exquisite spirits the world ever +produced, merely because they did not happen to exert their faculties in +laborious affected descriptions of flowers seen in window-pots, or +cascades heard at Vauxhall; in short, because they chose to be wits, +philosophers, patriots, and poets, rather than to found the Cockney +school of versification, morality, and politics, a century before its +time. After blaspheming himself into a fury against Boileau, &c., Mr. +Keats comforts himself and his readers with a view of the present more +promising aspect of affairs; above all, with the ripened glories of the +poet of Rimini. Addressing the names of the departed chiefs of English +poetry, he informs them, in the following clear and touching manner, of +the existence of "him of the Rose," &c. + + From a thick brake, + Nested and quiet in a valley mild, + Bubbles a pipe; fine sounds are floating wild + About the earth. Happy are ye and glad.... + +From some verses addressed to various individuals of the other sex, it +appears, notwithstanding all this gossamer-work, that Johnny's +affectations are not entirely confined to objects purely etherial. Take, +by way of specimen, the following prurient and vulgar lines, evidently +meant for some young lady east of Temple-bar. + + Add too, the sweetness + Of thy honied voice; the neatness + Of thine ankle lightly turn'd: + With those beauties, scarce discerned, + Kept with such sweet privacy, + That they seldom meet the eye + Of the little loves that fly + Round about with eager pry. + Saving when, with freshening lave, + Thou dipp'st them in the taintless wave; + Like twin water lilies, born + In the coolness of the morn. + O, if thou hadst breathed then, + Now the Muses had been ten. + Couldst thou wish for lineage _higher_ + Than twin sister of _Thalia_? + At last for ever, evermore, + Will I call the Graces four. + +Who will dispute that our poet, to use his own phrase (and rhyme), + + Can mingle music fit for the soft _ear_ + Of Lady _Cytherea_. + +So much for the opening bud; now for the expanded flower. It is time to +pass from the juvenile "Poems," to the mature and elaborate "Endymion, a +Poetic Romance." The old story of the moon falling in love with a +shepherd, so prettily told by a Roman Classic, and so exquisitely +enlarged and adorned by one of the most elegant of German poets, has +been seized upon by Mr. John Keats, to be done with as might seem good +unto the sickly fancy of one who never read a single line either of Ovid +or of Wieland. If the quantity, not the quality, of the verses dedicated +to the story is to be taken into account, there can be no doubt that Mr. +Keats may now claim Endymion entirely to himself. To say the truth, we +do not suppose either the Latin or the German poet would be very anxious +to dispute about the property of the hero of the "Poetic Romance." Mr. +Keats has thoroughly appropriated the character, if not the name. His +Endymion is not a Greek shepherd, love of a Grecian goddess; he is +merely a young Cockney rhymster, dreaming a phantastic dream at the full +of the moon. Costume, were it worth while to notice such a trifle, is +violated in every page of this goodly octavo. From his prototype Hunt, +John Keats has acquired a sort of vague idea, that the Greeks were a +most tasteful people, and that no mythology can be so finely adapted for +the purposes of poetry as theirs. It is amusing to see what a hand the +two Cockneys make of this mythology; the one confesses that he never +read the Greek Tragedians, and the other knows Homer only from Chapman, +and both of them write about Apollo, Pan, Nymphs, Muses, and Mysteries, +as might be expected from persons of their education. We shall not, +however, enlarge at present upon this subject, as we mean to dedicate an +entire paper to the classical attainments and attempts of the Cockney +poets. As for Mr. Keats's "Endymion," it has just as much to do with +Greece as it has with "old Tartary the fierce"; no man, whose mind has +ever been imbued with the smallest knowledge or feeling of classical +poetry or classical history, could have stooped to profane and vulgarise +every association in the manner which has been adopted by this "son of +promise." Before giving any extracts, we must inform our readers, that +this romance is meant to be written in English heroic rhyme. To those +who have read any of Hunt's poems, this hint might indeed be needless. +Mr. Keats has adopted the loose, nerveless versification, and Cockney +rhymes of the poet of Rimini; but in fairness to that gentleman, we must +add, that the defects of the system are tenfold more conspicuous in his +disciples' work than in his own. Mr. Hunt is a small poet, but he is a +clever man. Mr. Keats is a still smaller poet, and he is only a boy of +pretty abilities, which he has done every thing in his power to +spoil.... + +After all this, however, the "modesty," as Mr. Keats expresses it, of +the Lady Diana prevented her from owning in Olympus her passion for +Endymion. Venus, as the most knowing in such matters, is the first to +discover the change that has taken place in the temperament of the +goddess. "An idle tale," says the laughter-loving dame, + + A humid eye, and steps luxurious, + When these are new and strange, are ominous. + +The inamorata, to vary the intrigue, carries on a romantic intercourse +with Endymion, under the disguise of an Indian damsel. At last, however, +her scruples, for some reason or other, are all overcome, and the Queen +of Heaven owns her attachment. + + She gave her fair hands to him, and behold, + Before three swiftest kisses he had told, + They vanish far away!--Peona went + Home through the gloomy wood in wonderment. + +And so, like many other romances, terminates the "Poetic Romance" of +Johnny Keats, in a patched-up wedding. + +We had almost forgotten to mention, that Keats belongs to the Cockney +School of Politics, as well as the Cockney School of Poetry. + +It is fit that he who holds Rimini to be the first poem, should believe +the Examiner to be the first politician of the day. We admire +consistency, even in folly. Hear how their bantling has already learned +to lisp sedition. + + There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men + With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen + Their baaing vanities, to browse away + The comfortable green and juicy hay + From human pastures; or, O torturing fact! + Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd + Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe + Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge + Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight + Able to face an owl's, they still are dight + By the blue-eyed nations in empurpled vests, + And crowns, and turbans. With unladen breasts, + Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount + To their spirit's perch, their being's high account, + Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones-- + Amid the fierce intoxicating tones. + Of trumpets, shoutings, and belaboured drums, + And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums, + In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone-- + Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon, + And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.-- + Are then regalities all gilded masks? + +And now, good-morrow to "the Muses' son of Promise"; as for "the feats +he yet may do," as we do not pretend to say, like himself, "Muse of my +native land am I inspired," we shall adhere to the safe old rule of +_pauca verba_. We venture to make one small prophecy, that his +bookseller will not a second time venture £50 upon any thing he can +write. It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starving apothecary than +a starved poet; so back to the shop Mr. John, back to plasters, pills, +and ointment boxes, &c. But, for Heaven's sake, young Sangrado, be a +little more sparing of extenuatives and soporifics in your practice than +you have been in your poetry. + +Z. + + + + +ON SHELLEY + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, September, 1820] + +"PROMETHEUS UNBOUND" + + +Whatever may be the difference of men's opinions concerning the measure +of Mr. Shelley's poetical power, there is one point in regard to which +all must be agreed, and that is his Audacity. In the old days of the +exulting genius of Greece, Aeschylus dared two things which astonished +all men, and which still astonish them--to exalt contemporary men into +the personages of majestic tragedies--and to call down and embody into +tragedy, without degradation, the elemental spirits of nature and the +deeper essences of Divinity. We scarcely know whether to consider the +_Persians_ or the _Prometheus Bound_ as the most extraordinary display +of what has always been esteemed the most audacious spirit that ever +expressed its workings in poetry. But what shall we say of the young +English poet who has now attempted, not only a flight as high as the +highest of Aeschylus, but the very flight of that father of tragedy--who +has dared once more to dramatise Prometheus--and, most wonderful of all, +to dramatise the _deliverance_ of Prometheus--which is known to have +formed the subject of a lost tragedy of Aeschylus no ways inferior in +mystic elevation to that of the [Greek: Desmotaes]. + +Although a fragment of that perished master-piece be still extant in the +Latin version of Attius--it is quite impossible to conjecture what were +the personages introduced in the tragedy of Aeschylus, or by what train +of passions and events he was able to sustain himself on the height of +that awful scene with which his surviving _Prometheus_ terminates. It is +impossible, however, after reading what is left of that famous +trilogy,[1] to suspect that the Greek poet symbolized any thing whatever +by the person of Prometheus, except the native strength of human +intellect itself--its strength of endurance above all others--its +sublime power of patience. STRENGTH and FORCE are the two agents who +appear on this darkened theatre to bind the too benevolent Titan--_Wit_ +and _Treachery_, under the forms of Mercury and Oceanus, endeavour to +prevail upon him to make himself free by giving up his dreadful secret;-- +but _Strength_ and _Force_, and _Wit_ and _Treason_, are all alike +powerless to overcome the resolution of that suffering divinity, or to +win from him any acknowledgment of the new tyrant of the skies. Such was +this simple and sublime allegory in the hands of Aeschylus. As to what +had been the original purpose of the framers of the allegory, that is a +very different question, and would carry us back into the most hidden +places of the history of mythology. No one, however, who compares the +mythological systems of different races and countries, can fail to +observe the frequent occurrence of certain great leading Ideas and +leading Symbolisations of ideas too--which Christians are taught to +contemplate with a knowledge that is the knowledge of reverence. Such, +among others, are unquestionably the ideas of an Incarnate Divinity +suffering on account of mankind--conferring benefits on mankind at the +expense of his own suffering;--the general idea of vicarious atonement +itself--and the idea of the dignity of suffering as an exertion of +intellectual might--all of which may be found, more or less obscurely +shadowed forth, in the original [Greek: Mythos] of Prometheus the Titan, +the enemy of the successful rebel and usurper Jove. We might have also +mentioned the idea of a _deliverer_, waited for patiently through ages +of darkness, and at least arriving in the person of the child of Io-- +but, in truth, there is no pleasure, and would be little propriety, in +seeking to explain all this at greater length, considering, what we +cannot consider without deepest pain, the very different views which +have been taken of the original allegory by Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley. + +[1] There was another and an earlier play of Aeschylus, Prometheus the + Fire-Stealer, which is commonly supposed to have made part of the + series; but the best critics, we think, are of opinion, that that + was entirely a satirical piece. + +It would be highly absurd to deny, that this gentleman has manifested +very extraordinary powers of language and imagination in his treatment +of the allegory, however grossly and miserably he may have tried to +pervert its purpose and meaning. But of this more anon. In the meantime, +what can be more deserving of reprobation than the course which he is +allowing his intellect to take, and that too at the very time when he +ought to be laying the foundations of a lasting and honourable name. +There is no occasion for going round about the bush to hint what the +poet himself has so unblushingly and sinfully blazoned forth in every +part of his production. With him, it is quite evident that the Jupiter +whose downfall has been predicted by Prometheus, means nothing more than +Religion in general, that is, every human system of religious belief; +and that, with the fall of this, he considers it perfectly necessary (as +indeed we also believe, though with far different feelings) that every +system of human government also should give way and perish. The patience +of the contemplative spirit in Prometheus is to be followed by the +daring of the active demagorgon, at whose touch all "old thrones" are at +once and for ever to be cast down into the dust. It appears too plainly, +from the luscious pictures with which his play terminates, that Mr. +Shelley looks forward to an unusual relaxation of all moral _rules_--or +rather, indeed, to the extinction of all moral feelings, except that of +a certain mysterious indefinable _kindliness_, as the natural and +necessary result of the overthrow of all civil government and religious +belief. It appears, still more wonderfully, that he contemplates this +state of things as the ideal SUMMUM BONUM. In short, it is quite +impossible that there should exist a more pestiferous mixture of +blasphemy, sedition, and sensuality, than is visible in the whole +structure and strain of this poem--which, nevertheless, and +notwithstanding all the detestation its principles excite, must and will +be considered by all that read it attentively, as abounding in poetical +beauties of the highest order--as presenting many specimens not easily +to be surpassed, of the moral sublime of eloquence--as overflowing with +pathos, and most magnificent in description. Where can be found a +spectacle more worthy of sorrow than such a man performing and glorying +in the performance of such things? His evil ambition,--from all he has +yet written, but most of all, from what he has last and best written, +his _Prometheus_,--appears to be no other, than that of attaining the +highest place among those poets,--enemies, not friends, of their +species, who, as a great and virtuous poet has well said (putting evil +consequence close after evil cause). + + Profane the God-given strength, and _mar the lofty line._ + +We should hold ourselves very ill employed, however, were we to enter at +any length into the reprehensible parts of this remarkable production. +It is sufficient to shew, that we have not been misrepresenting the +purpose of the poet's mind, when we mention, that the whole tragedy ends +with a mysterious sort of dance, and chorus of elemental spirits, and +other indefinable beings, and that the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR, one of the +most singular of these choral personages, tells us: + + I wandering went + Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind, + And first was disappointed not to see + Such mighty change as I had felt within + Expressed in other things; but soon I looked, + And behold! THRONES WERE KINGLESS, and men walked + One with the other, even as spirits do, etc. + + * * * * * + +We cannot conclude without saying a word or two in regard to an +accusation which we have lately seen brought against ourselves in some +one of the London Magazines; we forget which at this moment. We are +pretty sure we know who the author of that most false accusation is--of +which more hereafter. He has the audacious insolence to say, that we +praise Mr. Shelley, although we dislike his principles, just because we +know that he is not in a situation of life to be in any danger of +suffering pecuniary inconvenience from being run down by critics, and, +_vice versĂ¢_, abuse Hunt, Keats, and Hazlitt, and so forth, because we +know that they are poor men; a fouler imputation could not be thrown on +any writer than this creature has dared to throw on us; nor a more +utterly false one; we repeat the word again--than this is when thrown +upon us. + +We have no personal acquaintance with any of these men, and no personal +feelings in regard to any one of them, good or bad. We never even saw +any one of their faces. As for Mr. Keats, we are informed that he is in +a very bad state of health, and that his friends attribute a great deal +of it to the pain he has suffered from the critical castigation his +Endymion drew down on him in this magazine. If it be so, we are most +heartily sorry for it, and have no hesitation in saying, that had we +suspected that young author, of being so delicately nerved, we should +have administered our reproof in a much more lenient shape and style. +The truth is, we from the beginning saw marks of feeling and power in +Mr. Keats's verses, which made us think it very likely, he might become +a real poet of England, provided he could be persuaded to give up all +the tricks of Cockneyism, and forswear for ever the thin potations of +Mr. Leigh Hunt. We, therefore, rated him as roundly as we decently could +do, for the flagrant affectations of those early productions of his. In +the last volume he has published, we find more beauties than in the +former, both of language and of thought, but we are sorry to say, we +find abundance of the same absurd affectations also, and superficial +conceits, which first displeased us in his writings;--and which we are +again very sorry to say, must in our opinion, if persisted in, utterly +and entirely prevent Mr. Keats from ever taking his place among the pure +and classical poets of his mother tongue. It is quite ridiculous to see +how the vanity of these Cockneys makes them overrate their own +importance, even in the eyes of us, that have always expressed such +plain unvarnished contempt for them, and who do feel for them all, a +contempt too calm and profound, to admit of any admixture of any thing +like anger or personal spleen. We should just as soon think of being +wroth with vermin, independently of their coming into our apartment, as +we should of having any feelings at all about any of these people, other +than what are excited by seeing them in the shape of authors. Many of +them, considered in any other character than that of authors are, we +have no doubt, entitled to be considered as very worthy people in their +own way. Mr. Hunt is said to be a very amiable man in his own sphere, +and we believe him to be so willingly. Mr. Keats we have often heard +spoken of in terms of great kindness, and we have no doubt his manners +and feelings are calculated to make his friends love him. But what has +all this to do with our opinion of their poetry? What, in the name of +wonder, does it concern us, whether these men sit among themselves, with +mild or with sulky faces, eating their mutton steaks, and drinking their +porter at Highgate, Hampstead, or Lisson Green? What is there that +should prevent us, or any other person, that happens not to have been +educated in the University of Little Britain, from expressing a simple, +undisguised, and impartial opinion, concerning the merits or demerits of +men that we never saw, nor thought of for one moment, otherwise than as +in their capacity of authors? What should hinder us from saying, since +we think so, that Mr. Leigh Hunt is a clever wrong-headed man, whose +vanities have got inwoven so deeply into him, that he has no chance of +ever writing one line of classical English, or thinking one genuine +English thought, either about poetry or politics? What is the spell that +must seal our lips, from uttering an opinion equally plain and +perspicuous concerning Mr. John Keats, viz., that nature possibly meant +him to be a much better poet than Mr. Leigh Hunt ever could have been, +but that, if he persists in imitating the faults of that writer, he must +be contented to share his fate, and be like him forgotten? Last of all, +what should forbid us to announce our opinion, that Mr. Shelley, as a +man of genius, is not merely superior, either to Mr. Hunt, or to Mr. +Keats, but altogether out of their sphere, and totally incapable of ever +being brought into the most distant comparison with either of them. It +is very possible, that Mr. Shelley himself might not be inclined to +place himself so high above these men as we do, but that is his affair, +not ours. We are afraid that he shares, (at least with one of them) in +an abominable system of belief, concerning Man and the World, the +sympathy arising out of which common belief, may probably sway more than +it ought to do on both sides. But the truth of the matter is this, and +it is impossible to conceal it were we willing to do so, that Mr. +Shelley is destined to leave a great name behind him, and that we, as +lovers of true genius, are most anxious that this name should ultimately +be pure as well as great. + +As for the principles and purposes of Mr. Shelley's poetry, since we +must again recur to that dark part of the subject; we think they are on +the whole, more undisguisedly pernicious in this volume, than even in +his Revolt of Islam. There is an Ode to Liberty at the end of the +volume, which contains passages of the most splendid beauty, but which, +in point of meaning, is just as wicked as any thing that ever reached +the world under the name of Mr. Hunt himself. It is not difficult to +fill up the blank which has been left by the prudent bookseller, in one +of the stanzas beginning: + + O that the free would stamp the impious name, + Of ----- into the dust! Or write it there + So that this blot upon the page of fame, + Were as a serpent's path, which the light air + Erases, etc., etc. + +but the next speaks still more plainly: + + O that the WISE from their bright minds would kindle + Such lamps within the dome of this wide world, + That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle + Into the HELL from which it first was hurled! + +This is exactly a versification of the foulest sentence that ever issued +from the lips of Voltaire. Let us hope that Percy Bysshe Shelley is not +destined to leave behind him, like that great genius, a name for ever +detestable to the truly FREE and the truly WISE. He talks in his preface +about MILTON, as a "Republican," and a "bold inquirer into Morals and +religion." Could any thing make us despise Mr. Shelley's understanding, +it would be such an instance of voluntary blindness as this! Let us +hope, that ere long a lamp of genuine truth may be kindled within his +"bright mind"; and that he may walk in its light the path of the true +demigods of English genius, having, like them, learned to "fear God and +Honour the king." + + + + +THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW + +Started in 1824 to represent Radical opinions, the _Westminster_ was +associated, in its palmy days, with such "persons of importance" as +George Eliot, George Henry Lewes, and J.S. Mill, retaining to the +present moment an isolated preference for the expression of +unconventional, and often _outrĂ©_ opinions. It has always been somewhat +fanatical and, now that really distinguished writers seldom enter its +pages, has become associated, in the general view, with the promotion of +fads. + +JOHN STUART MILL + +(1806-1873) + +Though Mill's principle work was of a highly expert and technical +nature, he had the rare power of conveying accurate expressions of sound +thoughts in popular language; and he was conspicuous for the moral +fervour of his opinions in practical politics. His fascinating +autobiography is absolutely sincere, and very copious, in its +revelations. It has been said, moreover, that he was "more at pains to +conceal his originality" than "most writers are to set forth" this +quality: and it was this characteristic which inspired his broad-minded +conduct of the _London Review_, soon incorporated with the +_Westminster_, which, after ten years as a contributor, he edited from +1834, and owned from 1837 until 1840. Here he made "a noble experiment +to endeavour to combine opposites, and to maintain a perpetual attitude +of sympathy with hostile opinions." It was officially, the organ of +Utilitarianism; but articles were frequently inserted requiring the +editorial _caveat_. It was the friend of liberty in every shape and +form. + +In a philosophic writer whose style was admittedly always literary, it +is of special interest to notice that he so frequently chose a volume of +poetry to review himself: and no better example of this work can be +found than the following critique of Tennyson, which, again, may be most +profitably compared with Gladstone's. It proves that he loved poetry for +its own sake. + +The notice of Macaulay's Lays further illustrates his interesting +_theories_ of poetry. + +JOHN STERLING + +(1806-1844) + +It is the remarkable fate of Sterling, leaving behind him no work of +permanent distinction--to have been the subject of two biographies by +persons of far greater importance than his--Archdeacon Hare and Thomas +Carlyle. The editorial foot-note affixed to the following review, in +which Mill describes him as "one of our most valued contributors" +provides further evidence of what his contemporaries expected of "Poor +Sterling." "A loose, careless looking, thin figure," says Carlyle, "in +careless dim costume, sat, in a lounging posture, carelessly and +copiously talking. I was struck with the kindly but restless +swift-glancing eyes, which looked as if the spirits were all out coursing +like a pack of merry eager beagles, beating every bush.... A smile, half +of kindly impatience, half of real mirth, often sat on his face." + +Sterling wrote poetry, essays, and stories, largely inspired by +capricious enthusiasms. The son of an editor of _The Times_, he was, for +a short time owner of _The Athenaeum_, and also a curate under Hare. + +Since Carlyle's "extraordinary elegy, apology, eulogium" is itself a +classic, particular interest attaches itself to Sterling's generous +estimate of the man destined to make him immortal. + + + + +J.S. MILL ON TENNYSON + +[From _The Westminster Review_, January, 1831] + +_Poems, chiefly Lyrical._ By ALFRED TENNYSON. Wilson, 12 mo. 1830. + +It would be a pity that poetry should be an exception to the great law +of progression that obtains in human affairs; and it is not. The +machinery of a poem is not less susceptible of improvement than the +machinery of a cotton mill; nor is there any better reason why the one +should retrograde from the days of Milton, than the other from those of +Arkwright.... + +The old epics will probably never be surpassed, any more than the old +coats of mail; and for the same reason; nobody wants the article; its +object is accomplished by other means; they are become mere +curiosities.... + +Poetry, like charity, begins at home. Poetry, like morality, is founded +in the precept, know thyself. Poetry, like happiness, is in the human +heart. Its inspiration is of that which is in man, and it will never +fail because there are changes in costume and grouping. What is the +vitality of the Iliad? Character; nothing else. All the rest is only +read out of antiquarianism or of affectation. Why is Shakespeare the +greatest of poets? Because he was one of the greatest of philosophers. +We reason on the conduct of his characters with as little hesitation as +if they were real living human beings. Extent of observation, accuracy +of thought, and depth of reflection, were the qualities which won the +prize of sovereignty for his imagination, and the effect of these +qualities was practically to anticipate, so far as was needful for his +purposes, the mental philosophy of a future age. Metaphysics must be the +stem of poetry for the plant to thrive; but if the stem flourishes we +are not likely to be at a loss for leaves, flowers, and fruit. Now, +whatever theories may have come into fashion and gone out of fashion, +the real science of mind advances with the progress of society like all +other sciences. The poetry of the last forty years already shows +symptoms of life in exact proportion as it is imbued with this science. +There is least of it in the exotic legends of Southey, and the feudal +romances of Scott. More of it, though in different ways, in Byron and +Campbell. In Shelley there would have been more still, had he not +devoted himself to unsound and mystical theories. Most of all in +Coleridge and Wordsworth. They are all going or gone; but here is a +little book as thoroughly and unitedly metaphysical and poetical in its +spirit as any of them; and sorely shall we be disappointed in its author +if it be not the precursor of a series of productions which shall +beautifully illustrate our speculations, and convincingly prove their +soundness. + +Do not let our readers be alarmed. These poems are anything but heavy; +anything but stiff and pedantic, except in one particular, which shall +be noticed before we conclude; anything but cold and logical. They are +graceful, very graceful; they are animated, touching, and impassioned. +And they are so, precisely because they are philosophical; because they +are not made up of metrical cant and conventional phraseology; because +there is sincerity where the author writes from experience, and accuracy +whether he writes from experience or observation; and he only writes +from experience and observation, because he has felt and thought, and +learned to analyse thought and feeling; because his own mind is rich in +poetical associations, and he has wisely been content with its riches; +and because, in his composition, he has not sought to construct an +elaborate and artificial harmony, but only to pour forth his thoughts in +those expressive and simple melodies whose meaning, truth, and power, +are the soonest recognised, and the quickest felt.... + +Mr. Tennyson seems to obtain entrance into a mind as he would make his +way into a landscape; he climbs the pineal gland as if it were a hill in +the centre of the scene; looks around on all objects with their +varieties of form, their movements, their shades of colour, and their +mutual relations and influences, and forthwith produces as graphic a +delineation in the one case as Wilson or Gainsborough could have done in +the other, to the great enrichment of our gallery of intellectual +scenery.... + +Our author has the secret of the transmigration of the soul. He can cast +his own spirit into any living thing, real or imaginary.... + +"Mariana" is, we are disposed to think, although there are several poems +which rise up reproachfully in our recollection as we say so, +altogether, the most perfect composition in the volume. The whole of +this poem, of eighty-four lines, is generated by the legitimate process +of poetical creation, as that process is conducted in a philosophical +mind, from a half sentence in Shakespeare. There is no mere +samplification; it is all production, and production from that single +germ. That must be a rich intellect, in which thoughts thus take root +and grow.... + +A considerable number of the poems are amatory; they are the expression +not of heathen sensuality, nor of sickly refinement, nor of fantastic +devotion, but of manly love; and they illustrate the philosophy of the +passion while they exhibit the various phases of its existence and +embody its power.... + +Mr. Tennyson sketches females as well as ever did Sir Thomas Lawrence. +His portraits are delicate, his likenesses (we will answer for them), +perfect, and they have life, character, and individuality. They are +nicely assorted also to all the different gradations of emotion and +passion which are expressed in common with the descriptions of them. +There is an appropriate object for every shade of feeling, from the +light touch of a passing admiration, to the triumphant madness of soul +and sense, or the deep and everlasting anguish of survivorship.... + +That these poems will have a rapid and extensive popularity +we do not anticipate. Their very originality will prevent their being +appreciated for a time. But that time will come, we hope, to a not far +distant end. They demonstrate the possession of powers, to the future +direction of which we look with some anxiety. A genuine poet has deep +responsibilities to his country and the world, to the present and future +generations, to earth and heaven. He, of all men, should have distinct +and worthy objects before him, and consecrate himself to their +promotion. It is then he best consults the glory of his art, and his own +lasting fame. Mr. Tennyson has a dangerous quality in that facility of +impersonation on which we have remarked, and by which he enters so +thoroughly into the most strange and wayward idiosyncracies of other +men. It must not degrade him into a poetical harlequin. He has higher +work to do than that of disporting himself among "mystics" and "flowing +philosophers." He knows that "the poet's mind is holy ground"; He knows +that the poet's portion is to be + + Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, + The love of love; + +he has shown, in the lines from which we quote, his own just conception +of the grandeur of the poet's destiny; and we look to him for its +fulfilment. It is not for such men to sink into mere verse-makers for +the amusement of themselves or others. They can influence the +associations of unnumbered minds; they can command the sympathies of +unnumbered hearts; they can disseminate principles; they can give those +principles power over men's imaginations; they can excite in a good +cause the sustained enthusiasm that is sure to conquer; they can blast +the laurels of tyrants, and hallow the memories of the martyrs' +patriotism; they can act with a force, the extent of which it is +difficult to estimate, upon national feelings and character, and +consequently upon national happiness. + + + + +MILL ON MACAULAY'S "LAYS" + +[From _The Westminster Review_. February, 1843] + +It is with the two great masters of modern ballad poetry (Campbell and +Scott) that Mr. Macaulay's performances are really to be compared, and +not with the real ballads or epics of an early age. The "Lays," in point +of form, are not in the least like the genuine productions of a +primitive age or people, and it is no blame to Mr. Macaulay that they +are not. He professes imitation of Homer, but we really see no +resemblance, except in the nature of some of the incidents, and the +animation and vigour of the narrative; and the "Iliad," after all, is +not the original ballads of the Trojan War, but these ballads moulded +together, and wrought into the forms of a more civilised and cultivated +age. It is difficult to conjecture what the form of the old Roman ballad +may have been, and certain, that whatever they were, they could no more +satisfy the aesthetic requirements of modern culture, than an ear +accustomed to the great organs of Freyburg or Harlem could relish +Orpheus's hurdy-gurdy, although the airs which Orpheus played, if they +could be recovered, might perhaps be executed with great effect on the +more perfect instrument. + +The former of Mr. Macaulay's ballad poetry are essentially modern: they +are those of the romantic and chivalrous, not the classical ages, and +even in those they are a reproduction, not of the originals, but of the +imitations of Scott. In this we think he has done well, for Scott's +style is as near to that of the ancient ballad as we conceive to be at +all compatible with real popular effect on the modern mind. The +difference between the two may be seen by the most cursory comparison of +any real old ballad, "Chevy Chase," for instance, with last canto of +Marmion, or with any of these "Lays." Conciseness is the characteristic +of the real ballad, diffuseness of the modern adaptation. The old bard +did everything by single touches; Scott and Mr. Macaulay by repetition +and accumulation of particulars. They produce all their effect by what +they _say_; he by what he _suggested_; by what he stimulated the +imagination to paint for itself. But then the old ballads were not +written for the light reading of tired readers. To do the work in +_their_ way, they required to be brooded over, or had at least the aid +of tune and of impassioned recitation. Stories which are to be told to +children in the age of eagerness and excitability, or sung in banquet +halls to assembled warriors, whose daily ideas and feelings supply a +flood of comment ready to gush forth on the slightest hint of the poet, +cannot fly too swift and straight to the mark. But Mr. Macaulay wrote to +be only read, and by readers for whom it was necessary to do all. + +These poems, therefore, are not the worse for being un-Roman in their +form; and in their substance they are Roman to a degree which deserves +great admiration. Mr. Macaulay's prose writings had not prepared us for +the power which he has here manifested of identifying himself easily and +completely, with states of feeling and modes of life alien to modern +experience. Nobody could have previously doubted that he possessed +fancy, but he has added to it the higher faculty of Imagination. We have +not been able to detect, in the four poems, one idea or feeling which +was not, or might not have been Roman; while the externals of Roman +life, and the feelings characteristic of Rome and of that particular +age, are reproduced with great felicity, and without being made unduly +predominant over the universal features of human nature and human life. + +Independently therefore of their value as poems, these compositions are +a real service rendered to historical literature; and the author has +made this service greater by his prefaces, which will do more than the +work of a hundred dissertations in rendering that true conception of +early Roman history, the irrefragable establishment of which has made +Niebuhr illustrious, familiar to the minds of general readers. This is +no trifling matter, even in relation to present interests, for there is +no estimating the injury which the cause of popular institutions has +suffered, and still suffers from misrepresentations of the early +condition of the Roman and Plebs, and its noble struggles against its +taskmasters. And the study of the manner in which the heroic legends of +early Rome grew up as poetry and gradually became history, has important +bearings on the general laws of historical evidence, and on the many +things which, as philosophy advances, are more and more seen to be +therewith connected. On this subject Mr. Macaulay has not only +presented, in an agreeable form, the results of previous speculation, +but has, though in an entirely unpretending manner, thrown additional +light upon it by his own remarks: as where he shows, by incontestible +instances, that a similar transformation of poetic fiction into history +has taken place on various occasions in modern and sceptical times.... + +We are more disposed to break a lance with our author on the general +merits of Roman literature, which, by a heresy not new with him, he +sacrifices, in what appears to us a most unfair degree, on the score of +its inferior originality to the Grecian. It is true the Romans had no +Aeschylus nor Sophocles, and but a secondhand Homer, though this last +was not only the most finished but even the most original of imitators. +But where was the Greek model of the noble poem of Lucretius? What, +except the mere idea, did the Georgics borrow from Hesiod? and whoever +thinks of comparing the two poems? Where, in Homer or the Euripides, +will be found the original of the tender and pathetic passages in the +Aeneid, especially the exquisitely told story of Dido? There is no +extraordinary merit in the "Carmen Secculare" as we have it, the only +production of Horace which challenges comparison with Pindar; although +we are not among those who deem Pindar one of the brightest stars in the +Greek heaven. But from whom are the greater part of Horace's _Carmina_ +borrowed (they should never be termed Odes), any more than those of +Burns or BĂ©ranger, the analogous authors in modern times? and by what +Greek minor poems are they surpassed? We say nothing of Catullus, whom +some competent judges prefer to Horace. Does the lyric, then, or even +the epic poetry of the Romans, deserve no better title than that of "a +hot-house plant, which, in return for assiduous and skilful culture, +yielded only scanty and sickly fruits?" The complete originality and +eminent merit of their satiric poetry, Mr. Macaulay himself +acknowledges. As for prose, we give up Cicero as compared with +Demosthenes, but with no one else; and is Livy less original, or less +admirable, than Herodotus? Tacitus may have imitated, even to +affectation, the condensation of Thucydides, as Milton imitated the +Greek and Hebrew poets; but was the mind of the one as essentially +original as that of the other? Is the Roman less an unapprochable +master, in his peculiar line, that of sentimental history, than the +Grecian in his? and what Greek historian has written anything similar or +comparable to the sublime peroration of the _Life of Agricola_? The +Latin genius lay not in speculation, and the Romans did undoubtedly +borrow all their philosophical principles from the Greeks. Their +originality _there_, as is well said by a remarkable writer in the most +remarkable of his works,[1] consisted in taking these principles _au +serieux_. They _did_ what the others talked about. Zeno, indeed, was not +a Roman; but Poetus Thrasea and Marcus Antoninus were. + +[1] Mr. Maurice, in the essay on the history of moral speculation and + culture, which forms the article "Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy" + in the _Encyclopaedia Metropolitana._ + + + + +JOHN STERLING ON CARLYLE + +[From _London and Westminster Review_ October, 1839] + +All countries at all times require, and England perhaps at the present +not less than others, men having a faith at once distinct and large, the +expression of what is best in their times, and having also the courage +to proclaim it, and take their stand upon it.... + +But in our day such visionaries are less and less possible. The spread +of shallow but clear knowledge, like the cold snow-water issuing from +the glaciers, daily chills and disenchants the hearts of millions once +credulous. Daily, therefore, does it become more probable that millions +will follow in the track of those who are called their betters. Thus +will they find in the world nothing but an epicurean stye, to be +managed, with less dirt and better food, by patent steam-machinery; but +still a place for swine, though the swine may be washed, and their +victuals more equally divided. + +Is it not then strange that in such a world, in such a country, and +among those light-hearted Edinburgh Reviewers, a man should rise and +proclaim a creed; not a new and more ingenious form of words, but a +truth to be embraced with the whole heart, and in which the heart shall +find as he has found, strength for all combats, and consolation, though +stern not festal, under all sorrows? Amid the masses of English printing +sent forth every day, part designed for the most trivial entertainment, +part black with the narrowest and most lifeless sectarian dogmatism, +part, and perhaps the best, exhibiting only facts and theories in +physical science, and part filled with the vulgarest economical projects +and details, which would turn all life into a process of cookery, +culinary, political, or sentimental--how few writings are there that +contain like these a distinct doctrine as to the position and calling of +man, capable of affording nourishment to the heart, and support to the +will, and in harmony at the same time with the social state of the +world, and with the most enlarged and brightened insight which human +wisdom has yet attained to? + +We have been so little prepared to look for such an appearance that it +is difficult for us to realize the conception of a genuine coherent view +of life thus presented to us in a book of our day, which shall be +neither a slight compendium of a few moral truisms, flavoured with a few +immoral refinements and paradoxes, such as constitute the floating +ethics and religion of the time; nor a fierce and gloomy distortion of +some eternal idea torn from its pure sphere of celestial light to be +raved about by the ignorant whom it has half-enlightened, and half made +frantic. But here, in our judgment--that is, in the judgment of one man +who speaks considerately what he fixedly believes--we have the thought +of a wide, and above all, of a deep soul, which has expressed in fitting +words, the fruits of patient reflection, of piercing observation, of +knowledge many-sided and conscientious, of devoutest awe and +faithfullest love.... + +The clearness of the eye to see whatever is permanent and substantial, +and the fervour and strength of heart to love it as the sole good of +life, are, in our view, Mr. Carlyle's pre-eminent characteristics, as +those of every man entitled to the fame of the most generous order of +greatness. Not to paint the good which he sees and loves, or see it +painted, and enjoy the sight; not to understand it, and exult in the +knowledge of it; but to take his position upon it, and for it alone to +breathe, to move, to fight, to mourn, and die--this is the destination +which he has chosen for himself. His avowal of it and exhortation to do +the like is the object of all his writings. And, reasonably considered, +it is no small service to which he is thus bound. For the real, the +germinal truth of nature, is not a dead series of physical phenomena +into the like of which all phenomena are cunningly to be explained away. +This pulseless, rigid iron frame-work, on which the soft soil of human +life is placed, and above which its aĂ«rial flowers and foliage rise, +does not pass with him for the essential and innermost principle of all. +It is rather that which, being itself poorest, the poorest of faculties +can apprehend. As physical mechanism, it is that which is most palpable, +and undeniable by any, because it is that which lies nearest the +nothingness whence it has been hardly rescued, and is therefore, most +akin to minds in whose meanness of structure or culture, even human +existence might seem scarce better than nothingness. He knows, few in +our nation so well, that of a world of new machinery, the highest king +and priest would be the neatest clockwork figure. And in such a world, a +being feeling ever towards or somewhat beyond what he can weigh and +measure, and looking up to find above himself that which is too high for +him to understand, would be an anomaly as lawless and incredible as the +wildest fabled monster, the Minotaur or the Chimera, the Titan--the +Sphynx itself--nay a more delirious riddle than any that in dreams it +proposes to us. + +On the other hand, neither is for him the solid, abiding, inexhaustible, +that merely which is received as such by the popular acquiescence. It +must needs be a truth which the spirit, cleared and strengthened by +manifold knowledge and experience, and above all by steadfast endeavour, +can rest in and say: This I mean; not because it is told me, were my +informants all the schools of Rabbins or a hierarchy of angels; but +because I have looked into it, tried it, found it healthful and +sufficient, and thus know that it will stand the stress of life. We may +be right or wrong in our estimate of Mr. Carlyle, but we cannot be +mistaken in supposing that on this kind of anvil have all truly great +men been fashioned, and of metal thus honest and enduring. + +Further it must be said that, true as is his devotion to the truth, so +flaming and cordial is his hatred of the false, in whatever shapes and +names delusions may show themselves. Affectations, quackeries, tricks, +frauds, swindlings, commercial or literary, baseless speculations, loud +ear-catching rhetoric, melodramatic sentiment, moral drawlings and +hyperboles, religious cant, clever political shifts, and conscious or +half-conscious fallacies, all in his view, come under the same hangman's +rubric,--proceed from the same offal heart. However plausible, popular, +and successful, however dignified by golden and purple names, they are +lies against ourselves, against whatever in us is not altogether +reprobate and infernal. His great argument, theme of his song, spirit of +his language, lies in this, that there is a work for man worth doing, +which is to be done with the whole of his heart, not the half or any +other fraction. Therefore, if any reserve be made, any corner kept for +something unconnected with this true work and sincere purpose, the whole +is thereby vitiated and accurst. So far as his arm reaches he is undoing +whatever in nature is holy: ruining whatever is the real creation of the +great worker of all. This truth of purpose is to the soul what life is +to the body of man; that which unites and organises the mass, keeping +all the parts in due proportion and concord, and restraining them from +sudden corruption into worthless dust.... + +Anyone who should take up the writings themselves with no other +preconception than that which we have attempted to give him, would +doubtless be startled at the strangeness of the style which prevails +more or less throughout them. They are not careless, headstrong, +passionate, confused; but they bear a constant look of oddity which +seems at first mere wilful wantonness, and which we only afterwards find +to be the discriminating stamp of original and strong feeling. This-- +this feeling, rooted in profound susceptibility and matured into a +central vivifying power--is, we should say, the author's most +extraordinary distinction. For it is not the ostentatious, impetuous +sentiment, which calls, a sufficient audience being by, on heaven and +earth for sympathy, and would wish for that of Tartarus too, as an +additional acknowledgment of its sublime sincerity. Here, on the +contrary, the feeling is not that which the man is proud of, and would +fain exhibit. He shrinks from the profession, nay from the sense of it; +even painfully labours to trifle, and be at ease, that he may hide from +others, and may for himself forget, the thorny fagot load of his own +emotions. Yet make them known he must; for they are not those of some +private personal grief or passion, from which he may escape into +literature or science, and leave his pains and longings behind him; but +his sensibilities are burning with a slow, immense fire, kindled by the +very theme on which he writes, and compelling him to write. The +greatness and weakness, the infinite hopes and unquenchable reality of +human life; the aching pressure of the body and its wants on the myriads +of millions in whom celestial force sleeps and dreams of hell; the sight +of follies, frauds, cruelties, and lascivious luxury in the midst of a +race then endowed and thus suffering; and the unconquerable will and +thought with which the few work out the highest calling of all men; +these it is, and not self-indulging distresses and theatrical +aspirations of his own, which boil and storm within. Therefore does he +speak with the solid strength and energy, which gives so serious and +rugged an aspect to his sentences; while, perpetually checking himself, +from a wise man's shame at excessive emotion, and from the knowledge +that others will but half sympathise with him, he adds to his most +weighty utterances a turn of irony which relieves the excessive +strain.... Add to this, that Mr. Carlyle's resolution to convey his +meaning at all hazards, makes him seize the most effectual and sudden +words in spite of usage and fashionable taste; and that, therefore, when +he can get a brighter tint, a more expressive form, by means of some +strange--we must call it--Carlylism; English, Scotch, German, Greek, +Latin, French, Technical, Slang, American, or Lunar, or altogether +superlunar, transcendental, and drawn from the eternal nowhere--he uses +it with a courage which might blast an academy of lexicographers into a +Hades, void even of vocables.... + +Here must end our remarks on the admirable writings of a great man. +Could it be hoped, that by what has been said, any readers, and +especially any thinkers, will be led to give them the attention they +require, but also deserve, in this there would be ample repayment, even +were there not at all events a higher reward, for the labour, which is +not a slight one, of forming and assorting distinct opinions on a matter +so singular and so complex. For few bonds that unite human beings are +purer or happier than a common understanding and reverence of what is +truly wise and beautiful. This also is religion. Standing at the +threshold of these works, we may imitate the saying of the old +philosopher to the friends who visited him on their return from the +temples--Let us enter, for here too are gods. + + + + +FRASER'S MAGAZINE + +WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY + +(1811-1863) + +There can be no occasion to enlarge upon this generous tribute of one of +the greatest of our Victorian novelists to another. Considering how +inevitably the critic is driven to compare these two, if not to set one +up against the other, we can experience no feeling but pleasure and +pride in humanity, before the evidence of their mutual appreciation. +_The Cornhill_ "In Memoriam" article of Charles Dickens may well stand +beside this burst of glowing enthusiasm. + +We have retained, by way of illustrating our general subject, a +paragraph from the earlier part of the article, in which Thackeray falls +foul of reviewers in general, for characteristics from which he himself +was singularly free. + + +CHARLES KINGSLEY + +(1819-1875) + +The brilliant versatility of Kingsley's work will prepare us, in some +measure, for his virile impatience, here revealed, with elements in the +romantic revival of poetry among his contemporaries, which were an +offence to his "muscular" morality. "There are certain qualities which +may be called moral in all his work, evincing a literary faculty of the +highest kind. Always instructive without being exactly instructed, +always argumentative without being very guarded in argument, he yet +displays a marvellously contagious enthusiasm for his own creeds, and +surrounds his own ideals with an atmosphere of passionate nobility. We +forgive the partisanship for the sincerity of the partisan." + + * * * * * + +Alexander Smith (1830-1867) was a poet and essayist of some distinction; +though A. H. Clough also criticises his exclusive devotion to the +"writers of his own immediate time"; and calls him "the latest disciple +of the school of Keats." The volume of essays entitled _Dreamthorp_ +"entitles him to a place among the best writers of English prose." + + +ANONYMOUS + +There is a similarity, and a difference, between this summary of +Christmas literature and Thackeray's. The personal criticism lacks his +special geniality, revealing rather a tone which would have perfectly +suited Blackwood or the _Quarterly_. Lytton was a favourite subject of +abuse to his contemporaries. + + + + +THACKERAY ON DICKENS + +[From "A Box of Novels," _Fraser's Magazine_, February, 1844] + +MR. TITMARSH, in Switzerland, to MR. YORKE + +...This introduction, then, will have prepared you for an exceedingly +humane and laudatory notice of the packet of works which you were good +enough to send me, and which, though they doubtless contain a great deal +that the critic would not write (from the extreme delicacy of his taste +and the vast range of his learning) also contain, between ourselves, a +great deal that the critic _could_ not write if he would ever so; and +this is a truth which critics are sometimes apt to forget in their +judgments of works of fiction. As a rustical boy, hired at twopence a +week, may fling stones at the blackbirds and drive them off and possibly +hit one or two, yet if he get into the hedge and begin to sing, he will +make a wretched business of the music, and Labin and Colin and the +dullest swains of the village will laugh egregiously at his folly; so +the critic employed to assault the poet.... But the rest of the simile +is obvious, and will be apprehended at once by a person of your +experience. + +The fact is, that the blackbirds of letters--the harmless, kind singing +creatures who line the hedge-sides and chirp and twitter as nature bade +them (they can no more help singing, these poets, than a flower can help +smelling sweet), have been treated much too ruthlessly by the watch-boys +of the press, who have a love for flinging stones at the little +innocents, and pretend that it is their duty, and that every wren or +sparrow is likely to destroy a whole field of wheat, or to turn out a +monstrous bird of prey. Leave we these vain sports and savage pastimes +of youth, and turn we to the benevolent philosophy of maturer age. + + * * * * * + +And now there is but one book left in the box, the smallest one, but oh! +how much the best of all. It is the work of the master of all the +English humourists now alive; the young man who came and took his place +calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it. Think of all +we owe Mr. Dickens since these half-dozen years, the store of happy +hours that he has made us pass, the kindly and pleasant companions whom +he has introduced to us, the harmless laughter, the generous wit, the +frank, manly, human love which he has taught us to feel! Every month of +these years has brought us some kind token from this delightful genius. +His books may have lost in art, perhaps, but could we afford to wait? +Since the days when the _Spectator_ was produced by a man of kindred +mind and temper, what books have appeared that have taken so +affectionate a hold of the English public as these? They have made +millions of rich and poor happy; they might have been locked up for nine +years, doubtless, and pruned here and there, and improved (which I +doubt) but where would have been the reader's benefit all this time, +while the author was elaborating his performance? Would the +communication between the writer and the public have been what it is +now--something continual, confidential, something like personal +affection? I do not know whether these stories are written for future +ages; many sage critics doubt on this head. There are always such +conjurors to tell literary fortunes; and, to my certain knowledge, Boz, +according to them, has been sinking regularly these six years. I doubt +about that mysterious writing for futurity which certain big wigs +prescribe. Snarl has a chance, certainly. His works, which have not been +read in this age, _may_ be read in future; but the receipt for that sort +of writing has never as yet been clearly ascertained. Shakespeare did +not write for futurity, he wrote his plays for the same purpose which +inspires the pen of Alfred Bunn, Esquire, viz., to fill his Theatre +Royal. And yet we read Shakespeare now. Le Sage and Fielding wrote for +their public; and through the great Dr. Johnson put his peevish protest +against the fame of the latter, and voted him "a dull dog, sir,--a low +fellow," yet somehow Harry Fielding has survived in spite of the critic, +and Parson Adams is at this minute as real a character, as much loved by +us as the old doctor himself. What a noble, divine power of genius this +is, which, passing from the poet into his reader's soul, mingles with +it, and there engenders, as it were, real creatures; which is as strong +as history, which creates beings that take their place besides nature's +own. All that we know of Don Quixote or Louis XIV we got to know in the +same way--out of a book. I declare I love Sir Roger de Coverley quite as +much as Izaak Walton, and have just as clear a consciousness of the +looks, voice, habit, and manner of being of the one as of the other. + +And so with regard to this question of futurity; if any benevolent being +of the present age is imbued with a desire to know what his +great-great-grandchild will think of this or that author--of Mr. Dickens +especially, whose claims to fame have raised the question--the only way to +settle it is by the ordinary historic method. Did not your +great-great-grandfather love and delight in Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? +Have they lost their vitality by their age? Don't they move laughter and +awaken affection now as three hundred years ago? And so with Don Pickwick +and Sancho Weller, if their gentle humours and kindly wit, and hearty +benevolent natures, touch us and convince us, as it were, now, why should +they not exist for our children as well as for us, and make the +twenty-fifth century happy, as they have the nineteenth? Let Snarl console +himself, then, as to the future. + +As for the _Christmas Carol_, or any other book of a like nature which +the public takes upon itself to criticise, the individual critic had +quite best hold his peace. One remembers what Buonaparte replied to some +Austrian critics, of much correctness and acumen, who doubted about +acknowledging the French republic. I do not mean that the _Christmas +Carol_ is quite as brilliant or self-evident as the sun at noonday; but +it is so spread over England by this time, that no sceptic, no _Fraser's +Magazine_,--no, not even the godlike and ancient _Quarterly_ itself +(venerable, Saturnian, big-wigged dynasty!) could review it down. +"Unhappy people! deluded race!" One hears the cauliflowered god exclaim, +mournfully shaking the powder out of his ambrosial curls, "What strange +new folly is this? What new deity do you worship? Know ye what ye do? +Know ye that your new idol hath little Latin and less Greek? Know ye +that he has never tasted the birch at Eton, nor trodden the flags of +Carfax, nor paced the academic flats of Trumpington? Know ye that in +mathematics, or logic, this wretched ignoramus is not fit to hold a +candle to a wooden spoon? See ye not how, from describing law humours, +he now, forsooth, will attempt the sublime? Discern ye not his faults of +taste, his deplorable propensity to write blank verse? Come back to your +ancient, venerable, and natural instructors. Leave this new, low and +intoxicating draught at which ye rush, and let us lead you back to the +old wells of classic lore. Come and repose with us there. We are your +gods; we are the ancient oracles, and no mistake. Come listen to us once +more, and we will sing to you the mystic numbers of _as in presenti_ +under the arches of the _Pons asinorum_." But the children of the +present generation hear not; for they reply, "Rush to the Strand, and +purchase five thousand more copies of the _Christmas Carol_." + +In fact, one might as well detail the plot of the _Merry Wives of +Windsor_ or _Robinson Crusoe_, as recapitulate here the adventures of +Scrooge the miser, and his Christmas conversion. I am not sure that the +allegory is a very complete one, and protest, with the classics, against +the use of blank verse in prose; but here all objections stop. Who can +listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a +national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal +kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were women; neither +knew the other, or the author, and both said, by way of criticism, "God +bless him!" A Scotch philosopher, who nationally does not keep +Christmas, on reading the book, sent out for a turkey, and asked two +friends to dine--this is a fact! Many men were known to sit down after +perusing it, and write off letters to their friends, not about business, +but out of their fulness of heart, and to wish old acquaintances a happy +Christmas. Had the book appeared a fortnight earlier, all the prize +cattle would have been gobbled up in pure love and friendship, Epping +denuded of sausages, and not a turkey left in Norfolk. His royal +highness's fat stock would have fetched unheard of prices, and Alderman +Bannister would have been tired of slaying. But there is a Christmas for +1844 too; the book will be as early then as now, and so let speculators +look out. + +As for TINY TIM, there is a certain passage in the book regarding that +young gentleman, about which a man should hardly venture to speak in +print or in public, any more than he would of any other affections of +his private heart. There is not a reader in England but that little +creature will be a bond of union between the author and him; and he will +say of Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, "GOD BLESS HIM!" What a +feeling is this for a writer to be able to inspire, and what a reward to +reap. + +M. A. T. + + + + +CHARLES KINGSLEY ON ALEXANDER +SMITH AND ALEXANDER POPE + +[From _Fraser's Magazine_, October, 1853] + +_Poems_, by ALEXANDER SMITH. London, Bogue. 1853 + +On reading this little book, and considering all the exaggerated praise +and exaggerated blame which have been lavished on it, we could not help +falling into many thoughts about the history of English poetry for the +last forty years, and about its future destiny. Great poets, even true +poets, are becoming more and more rare among us. There are those even +who say that we have none; an assertion which, as long as Mr. Tennyson +lives, we shall take the liberty of denying. But, were he, which Heaven +forbid, taken from us, whom have we to succeed him? And he, too, is +rather a poet of the sunset than of the dawn--of the autumn than of the +spring. His gorgeousness is that of the solemn and fading year; not of +its youth, full of hope, freshness, gay and unconscious life. Like some +stately hollyhock or dahlia of this month's gardens, he endures while +all other flowers are dying; but all around is winter--a mild one, +perhaps, wherein a few annuals or pretty field weeds still linger on; +but, like all mild winters, especially prolific in fungi, which, too, +are not without their gaudiness, even their beauty, although bred only +from the decay of higher organisms, the plagiarists of the vegetable +world.... + +"What matter, after all?" one says to oneself in despair, re-echoing Mr. +Carlyle. "Man was not sent into this world to write poetry. What we want +is truth--what we want is activity. Of the latter we have enough in all +conscience just now. Let the former need be provided for by honest and +righteous history, and as for poets, let the dead bury their dead." ... +And yet, after all, man will write poetry, in spite of Mr. Carlyle: nay, +beings who are not men, but mere forked radishes, will write it. Man is +a poetry-writing animal. Perhaps he was meant to be one. At all events, +he can no more be kept from it than from eating. It is better, with Mr. +Carlyle's leave, to believe that the existence of poetry indicates some +universal human hunger, whether after "the beautiful," or after "fame," +or after the means of paying butchers' bills, and accepting it as a +necessary evil which must be committed, to see that it be committed as +well, or at least a little ill, as possible. In excuse of which we may +quote Mr. Carlyle against himself, reminding him of a saying in Goethe +once bepraised by him in print,--"we must take care of the beautiful for +the useful will take care of itself." + +And never, certainly, since Pope wrote his _Dunciad_, did the beautiful +require more taking care of, or evince less capacity for taking care of +itself, and never, we must add, was less capacity for taking care of it +evinced by its accredited guardians of the press than at this present +time, if the reception given to Mr. Smith's poem is to be taken as a +fair expression of "the public taste." + +Now, let it be fairly understood, Mr. Alexander Smith is not the object +of our reproaches: but Mr. Smith's models and flatterers. Against him we +have nothing whatever to say; for him, very much indeed.... + +What if he has often copied.... He does not more than all schools have +done, copy their own masters.... We by no means agree in the modern +outcry for "originality." ... + +As for manner, he does sometimes, in imitating his models, out-Herod +Herod. But why not? If Herod be a worthy king, let him be by all means +out-Heroded, if any man can do it. One cannot have too much of a good +thing. If it be right to bedizen verses with metaphors and similes which +have no reference, either in tone or in subject, to the matter in hand, +let there be as many of them as possible. If a saddle is a proper place +for jewels, then let the seat be paved with diamonds and emeralds, and +Runjeet Singh's harness maker be considered as a lofty artist, for whose +barbaric splendour Mr. Peat and his Melton customers are to forswear +pigskin and severe simplicity--not to say utility, and comfort. If +poetic diction be different in species from plain English, then let us +have it as poetical as possible, as unlike English: as ungrammatical, +abrupt, insolved, transposed, as the clumsiness, carelessness, or +caprice of man can make it. If it be correct to express human thought by +writing whole pages of vague and bald abstract metaphyric, and then +trying to explain them by concrete concetti; which bear an entirely +accidental and mystical likeness to the notion which they are to +illustrate, then let the metaphysic be as abstract as possible, the +concetti as fanciful and far-fetched as possible. If Marino and Cowley +be greater poets than Ariosto and Milton, let young poets imitate the +former with might and main, and avoid spoiling their style by any +perusal of the too-intelligible common sense of the latter. If Byron's +moral (which used to be thought execrable) be really his great +excellence, his style (which used to be thought almost perfect) unworthy +of this age of progress, then let us have his moral without his style, +his matter without his form; or--that we may be sure of never falling +for a moment into his besetting sin of terseness, grace, and +completeness--without any form at all. If poetry, in order to be worthy +of the nineteenth century, ought to be as unlike as possible to Homer or +Sophocles, Virgil or Horace, Shakespeare or Spenser, Dante or Tasso, let +those too idolised names be rased henceforth from the calendar; let the +_Ars Poetica_, be consigned to flames by Mr. Calcraft, and Bartinus +Scriblerus's _Art of Sinking_ placed forthwith on the list of the +Committee of the Council for Education, that not a working man in +England may be ignorant that, whatsoever superstitions about art may +have haunted the benighted heathens who built the Parthenon, _nous avons +changĂ©s tout cela_. In one word, if it be best and most fitting to write +poetry in the style in which almost everyone has been trying to write it +since Pope and plain sense went out, and Shelley and the seventh heaven +came in; let it be so written: and let him who most perfectly so "sets +the age to music," be presented by the assembled guild of critics, not +with the obsolete and too classical laurel, but with an electro-plated +brass medal, bearing the due inscription, _Ars est nescire artem_. And +when, in twelve months' time, he finds himself forgotten, perhaps +descried, for the sake of the next aspirant, let him reconsider himself, +try whether, after all, the common sense of the many will not prove a +juster and a firmer standing-ground than the sentimentality and bad +taste of the few, and read Alexander Pope. + +In Pope's writings, whatsoever he may not find, he will find the very +excellences after which our young poets strive in vain, produced by +their seeming opposites, which are now despised and discarded; +naturalness produced by studious art; daring sublimity by strict +self-restraint; depth by clear simplicity; pathos by easy grace; and a +morality infinitely more merciful, as well as more righteous, than the +one now in vogue among poetasters, by honest faith in God.... + +Yes, Pope knew, as well as Wordsworth and our "Naturalisti," that no +physical fact was so mean or coarse as to be below the dignity of +poetry--when in its right place. He could draw a pathos and sublimity +out of the dirty inn-chamber, such as Wordsworth never elicited from +tubs and daffodils--because he could use them according to the rules of +art, which are the rules of sound reason and of true taste.... + +The real cause of the modern vagueness is rather to be found in shallow +and unsound culture, and in that inability, or carelessness about seeing +any object clearly, which besets our poets just now; as the cause of +antique clearness lies in the nobler and healthier manhood, in the +severer and more methodic habits of thought, the sounder philosophic and +critical training which enabled Spenser and Milton to draw up a state +paper, or to discourse deep metaphysics, with the same manful possession +of their subject which gives grace and completeness to the _Penseroso_ +or the _Epithalmion_. And if our poets have their doubts, they should +remember, that those to whom doubt and enquiry are real and stern, are +not inclined to sing about them till they can sing poems of triumph over +them. There has no temptation taken our modern poets save that which is +common to man--the temptation of wishing to make the laws of the +universe and of art fit them, as they do not feel inclined to make +themselves fit the laws, or care to find them out.... + +The "poetry of doubt," however pretty, would stand us in little stead if +we were threatened with a second Armada. It will conduce little to the +valour, "virtues," manhood of any Englishman to be informed by any poet, +even in the most melodious verse, illustrated by the most startling and +pan-cosmic metaphors, "See what a highly organised and peculiar +stomach-ache I have had! Does it not prove indisputably that I am not as +other men are?" What gospel there can be in such a message to any honest +man who has either to till the earth, plan a railroad, colonise Australia, +or fight the despots, is hard to discover. Hard indeed to discover how +this most practical, and therefore most epical of ages, is to be "set to +music," when all those who talk about so doing persist obstinately in +poring, with introverted eyes, over the state of their own digestion, or +creed. + +What man wants, what art wants, perhaps what the maker of the both +wants, is a poet who shall begin by confessing that he is as other men +are, and sing about things which concern all men, in language which all +men can understand. This is the only road to that gift of prophecy which +most young poets are nowadays in such a hurry to arrogate to +themselves.... + +There is just now as wide a divorce between poetry and the commonsense +of all time, as there is between poetry and modern knowledge. Our poets +are not merely vague and confused, they are altogether fragmentary-- +_disjecta membra poetarum_; they need some uniting idea. And what idea? + +Our answer will probably be greeted with a laugh. Nevertheless we answer +simply. What our poets want is faith. There is little or no faith +nowadays. And without faith there can be no real art, for art is the +outward expression of firm, coherent belief.... + +In the meanwhile, poets write about poets, and poetry, and guiding the +age, and curbing the world, and waking it, and thrilling it, and making +it start, and weep, and tremble, and self-conceit only knows what else; +and yet the age is not guided, or the world curbed, or thrilled, or +waked, or anything else, by them. Why should it be? Curb and thrill the +world? The world is just now a most practical world; and these men are +utterly unpractical. The age is given up to physical science: these men +disregard and outrage it in every page by their false analogies.... + +Let the poets of the new school consider carefully Wolfe's "Sir John +Moore," Campbell's "Hohenlinden," "Mariners of England," and "Rule +Britannia," Hood's "Song of the Shirt" and "Bridge of Sighs," and then +ask themselves, as men who would be poets, were it not better to have +written any one of these glorious lyrics than all which John Keats has +left behind him; and let them be sure that, howsoever they may answer +the question to themselves, the sound heart of the English people has +already made its choice, and that when that beautiful "Hero and +Leander," in which Hood has outrivalled the conceit-mongers at their own +weapons, by virtue of that very terseness, clearness, and manliness +which they neglect, has been gathered to the limbo of the Crashawes and +Marines, his "Song of the Shirt" and his "Bridge of Sighs," will be +esteemed by great new English nations far beyond the seas, for what they +are--two of the most noble lyric poems ever written by an English pen. +If our poetasters talk with Wordsworth of the dignity and pathos of the +commonest human things, they will find them there in perfection; if they +talk about the cravings of the new time, they will find them there. If +they want the truly sublime and awful, they will find them there also. +But they will find none of their own favourite concetti; hardly even a +metaphor; no taint of this new poetic diction into which we have now +fallen, after all our abuse of the far more manly and sincere "poetic +diction" of the eighteenth century; they will find no loitering by the +way to argue and moralise, and grumble at Providence, and show off the +author's own genius and sensibility; they will find, in short, two real +works of art, earnest, melodious, self-forgetful, knowing clearly what +they want to say, saying it in the shortest, the simplest, the calmest, +the most finished words. Saying it--rather taught to say it. For if that +"divine inspiration of poets," of which the poetasters make such rash +and irreverent boastings, have, indeed, as all ages have held, any +reality corresponding to it, it will rather be bestowed on such works as +these, appeals from an unrighteous man to a righteous God, than on men +whose only claim to celestial help seems to be that mere passionate +sensibility, which our modern Draco once described when speaking of poor +John Keats, as "an infinite hunger after all manner of pleasant things, +crying to the universe, 'oh, that thou wert one great lump of sugar, +that I might suck thee!'" + + + + +ANONYMOUS + +NOVELS FOR CHRISTMAS, 1837 + +[From _Fraser's Magazine_, January, 1838] + + +If[1] against the inroads of the evangelical party the orthodox church +has need of a defender, it hardly would wish, we should think, to be +assisted _tali auxilio_. Mrs. Trollope has not exactly the genius which +is best calculated to support the Church of England, or to argue upon so +grave a subject as that on which she has thought proper to write. + +[1] _The Vicar of Wrexhill_. By Mrs. Trollope. London, 1837. + +With a keen eye, a very sharp tongue, a firm belief, doubtless, in the +high church doctrines, and a decent reputation from the authorship of +half-a-dozen novels, or other light works, Mrs. Trollope determined on +no less an undertaking than to be the champion of oppressed Orthodoxy. +These are feeble arms for one who would engage in such a contest, but +our fair Mrs. Trollope trusted entirely in her own skill, and the weapon +with which she proposed to combat a strong party is no more nor less +than this novel of _The Vicar of Wrexhill_. It is a great pity that the +heroine ever set forth on such a foolish errand; she has only harmed +herself and her cause (as a bad advocate always will), and had much +better have remained home, pudding-making or stocking-mending, than have +meddled with matters which she understands so ill. + +In the first place (we speak it with due respect for the sex), she is +guilty of a fault which is somewhat too common among them; and having +very little, except prejudice, on which to found an opinion, she makes +up for want of argument by a wonderful fluency of abuse. A woman's +religion is chiefly that of the heart, and not of the head. She goes +through, for the most part, no tedious process of reasoning, no dreadful +stages of doubt, no changes of faith: she loves God as she loves her +husband--by a kind of instinctive devotion. Faith is a passion with her, +not a calculation; so that, in the faculty of believing, though they far +exceed the other sex, in the power of convincing they fall far short of +them. + +Oh! we repeat once more, that ladies would make puddings and mend +stockings! that they would not meddle with religion (what is styled +religion, we mean), except to pray to God, to live quietly among their +families, and move lovingly among their neighbours! Mrs. Trollope, for +instance, who sees so keenly the follies of the other party--how much +vanity there is in Bible Meetings--how much sin even at Missionary +Societies--how much cant and hypocrisy there is among those who +desecrate the awful name of God, by mixing it with their mean interests +and petty projects--Mrs. Trollope cannot see that there is any hypocrisy +or bigotry on her part. She, who designates the rival party as false, +and wicked, and vain--tracing all their actions to the basest motives, +declaring their worship of God to be only one general hypocrisy, their +conduct at home one fearful scene of crime, is blind to the faults on +her own side. Always bitter against the Pharisees, she does as the +Pharisees do. It is vanity, very likely, which leads these people to use +God's name so often, and to devote all to perdition who do not coincide +in their peculiar notions. Is Mrs. Trollope less vain than they when she +declares, and merely _declares_, her own to be the real creed, and +stigmatises its rival so fiercely? Is Mrs. Trollope serving God, in +making abusive licencious pictures of those who serve Him in a different +way? Once, as Mrs. Trollope has read--it was a long time ago!--there was +a woman taken in sin; the people brought her before a great Teacher of +Truth, who lived in those days. Shall we not kill her? said they; the +laws command that all adulteresses be killed. We can fancy a Mrs. +Trollope in the crowd, shouting, "oh, the wretch! oh, the abominable +harlot! kill her, by all means--stoning is really too good for her!" But +what did the Divine Teacher say? He was quite as anxious to prevent the +crime as any Mrs. Trollope of them all; but he did not even make an +allusion to it--he did not describe the manner in which the poor +creature was caught--He made no speech to detail the indecencies which +she committed, or to raise the fury of the mob against her--He said "let +the man who is without sin himself throw the first stone!" Whereupon the +Pharisees and Mrs. Trollope slunk away, for they knew they were no +better than she. There was as great a sin in His eyes as that of the +poor erring woman--it was the sin of pride. + +Mrs. Trollope may make a licentious book, of which the heroes and +heroines are all of the evangelical party; and it may be true, that +there are scoundrels belonging to that party as to every other; but her +shameful error has been in fixing upon the evangelical _class_ as an +object of satire, making them necessarily licentious and hypocritical, +and charging everyone of them with the vices which belong to only a very +few of all sects.... + +There are some books, we are told, in the libraries of Roman Catholic +theologians, which, though written for the most devout purposes, are so +ingeniously obscene as to render them quite dangerous for common eyes. +The groom, in the old story, had never learned the art of greasing +horses' teeth, to prevent their eating oats, until the confessor, in +interrogating him as to his sins, asked him the question. The next time +the groom came to confess, he _had_ greased the horses' teeth. It was +the holy father who taught him, by the very fact of warning him against +it. By which we mean, that there are some scenes of which it is better +not to speak at all. + +Our fair moralist, however, has no such squeamishness. She will show up +these odious evangelicals; she will expose them and chastise them, +wherever they be. So have we seen, in that beautiful market in Thames +Street, whither the mariners of England bring the glittering produce of +their nets--so have we seen, we say, in Billingsgate, a nymph attacking +another of her sisterhood. How keenly she detects and proclaims the +number and enormity of her rival's faults! How eloquently she enlarges +upon the gin she has drunk, the children she has confided to the parish, +the watchmen whose noses she has broken, and the bridewells which she +has visited in succession! No one can but admire the lady's eloquence +and talent in conducting the case for the prosecution; no one will, +perhaps, doubt the guilt of the hapless object on whom her wrath is +vented. But, with all her rage for morality, had not that fair accused +have better left the matter alone? That torrent of slang and oath, O +nymph! falls ill from thy lips, which should never open but for a soft +word or a smile; that accurate description of vice, sweet orator [-tress +or-trix]! only shows that thou thyself art but too well acquainted with +scenes which thy pure eyes should never have beheld. And when we come to +the matter in dispute--a simple question of mackerel--O, Mrs. Trollope! +Why, why should you abuse other people's fish, and not content yourself +with selling your _own_.... + +There can be little doubt as to the cleverness of this novel, but, +coming from a women's pen, it is most odiously and disgustingly +indecent. As a party attack, it is an entire failure; and as a +representation of a very large portion of English Christians, a shameful +and wicked slander. + + + + +BULWER'S "ERNEST MALTRAVERS" + +To talk of _Ernest Maltravers_ now, is to rake up a dead man's ashes. +The poor creature came into the world almost still-born, and, though he +has hardly been before the public for a month, is forgotten as much as +_Rienzi_ or the _Disowned_. What a pity that Mr. Bulwer will not learn +wisdom with age, and confine his attention to subjects at once more +grateful to the public and more suitable to his own powers! He excels in +the _genre_ of Paul de Kock, and is always striving after the style of +Plato; he has a keen perception of the ridiculous and, like Liston or +Cruikshank, and other comic artists, persists that his real vein is the +sublime. What a number of sparkling magazine-papers, what an outpouring +of fun and satire, might we have had from Neddy Bulwer, had he not +thought fit to turn moralist, metaphysician, politician, poet, and be +Edward Lytton, Heaven--knows--what Bulwer, Esquire and M.P., a dandy, a +philosopher, a spouter at Radical meetings. We speak feelingly, for we +knew the youth at Trinity Hall, and have a tenderness even for his +tomfooleries. He has thrown away the better part of himself--his great +inclination for the LOW, namely; if he would but leave off scents for +his handkerchief, and oil for his hair; if he would but confine himself +to three clean shirts a week, a couple of coats in a year, a beefsteak +and onions for dinner, his beaker a pewter-pot, his carpet a sanded +floor, how much might be made of him even yet! An occasional pot of +porter too much--a black eye, in a tap-room fight with a carman--a night +in the watch-house--or a surfeit produced by Welsh-rabbit and gin and +beer, might, perhaps, redden his fair face and swell his slim waist; but +the _mental_ improvement which he would acquire under such treatment-- +the intellectual pluck and vigour which he would attain by the stout +diet--the manly sports and conversation in which he would join at the +Coal-Hole, or the Widow's, are far better for him than the feeble +fribble of the Reform Club (not inaptly called "The Hole in the Wall"); +the windy French dinners, which, as we take it, are his usual fare; and, +above all, the unwholesome Radical garbage which form the political food +of himself and his clique in the House of Commons. + +For here is the evil of his present artificial courses--the humbug +required to keep up his position as dandy, politician, and philosopher +(in neither of which latter characters the man is in earnest), must get +into _his heart_ at last; and then his trade is ruined. A little more +politics and Plato, and the natural disappears altogether from Mr. +Bulwer's writings: the individual man becomes as undistinguishable +amidst the farrago of philosophy in which he has chosen to envelope +himself, as a cutlet in the sauces of a French cook. The idiosyncracy of +the mutton perishes under the effects of the adjuncts: even so the +moralising, which may be compared to the mushrooms, of Mr. Bulwer's +style; the poetising, which may be likened unto the flatulent turnips +and carrots; and the politics, which are as the gravy, reeking of filthy +garlic, greasy with rancid oil;--even so, we say, pursuing this savoury +simile to its fullest extent, the natural qualities of young Pelham--the +wholesome and juicy _mutton of the mind_, is shrunk and stewed away. + +Or, to continue in this charming vein of parable, the author of _Pelham_ +may be likened to Beau Tibbs. Tibbs, as we all remember, would pass for +a pink of fashion, and had a wife whom he presented to the world as a +paragon of virtue and _ton_, and who was but the cast-off mistress of a +lord. Mr. Bulwer's philosophy is his Mrs. Tibbs; he thrusts her forward +into the company of her betters, as if her rank and reputation never +admitted of a question. To all his literary undertakings this goddess of +his accompanies him; what a cracked, battered truly she is! with a +person and morals that would suit Vinegar yard, and a chastity that +would be hooted in Drury Lane. + +The morality which Mr. Bulwer has acquired in his researches, political +and metaphysical, is of the most extraordinary nature. For one who is +always preaching of Truth of Beauty, the dulness of his moral sense is +perfectly ludicrous. He cannot see that the hero into whose mouth he +places his favourite metaphysical gabble--his dissertations about the +stars, the passions, the Greek plays, and what not--his eternal whine +about what he calls the good and the beautiful--is a fellow as mean and +paltry as can be well imagined; a man of rant, and not of action; +foolishly infirm of purpose, and strong only in desire; whose beautiful +is a tawdry strumpet, and whose good would be crime in the eyes of an +honest man. So much for the portrait of Ernest Maltravers: as for the +artist, we cannot conceive a man to have failed more completely. He +wishes to paint an amiable man, and he succeeds in drawing a scoundrel: +he says he will give us the likeness of a genius, and it is only the +picture of a _humbug_. + +Ernest Maltravers is an eccentric and enthusiastic young man, to whom we +are introduced upon his return from a German university. Fond of wild +adventure and solitary rambles, we find him upon a heath, wandering +alone, tired, and benighted. The two first chapters of the book are in +Mr. Bulwer's very best manner; the description of the lone hut to which +the lad comes--the ruffian who inhabits it--the designs which he has +upon the life of his new guest, and the manner in which his daughter +defeats them, are told with admirable liveliness and effect. The young +man escapes, and with him the girl who had prevented his murder. Both +are young, interesting, and tender hearted; she loves but him, and would +die of starvation without him. Ernest Maltravers cannot resist the claim +of so unprotected a creature; he hires a cottage for her, and a +writing-master. He is a young man of genius, and generous dispositions; he +is a Christian, and instructs the ignorant Alice in the awful truth of his +religion; moreover he is deep in poetry, philosophy, and the German +metaphysics. How should such a Christian instruct an innocent and +beautiful child, his pupil? What should such a philosopher do? Why +seduce her, to be sure! After a deal of namby-pamby Platonism, the girl, +as Mr. Bulwer says, "goes to the deuce." The expression is as charming +as the morality, and appears amidst a quantity of the very finest +writing about the good and the beautiful, youth, love, passion, nature +and so forth. It is curious how rapidly one turns from good to bad in +this book. How clever the descriptions are! how neatly some of the minor +events and personalities are hit off! and yet, how astonishingly vile +and contemptible the chief part of it is!--that part, we mean, which +contains the adventures of the hero, and, of course, the choice +reflections of the author. + +The declamations about virtue are endless, as soon as Maltravers appears +upon the scene; and yet we find him committing the agreeable little +_faux pas_ of which we have just spoken. In one place, we have him +making violent love to another man's wife; in another place, raging for +blood like a tiger and swearing for revenge.... + +It is curious and painful to read Mr. Bulwer's [philosophy], and to mark +the easy vanity with which virtue is assumed here, self-knowledge +arrogated, and a number of windy sentences, which really possess no +meaning, are gravely delivered with all the emphasis of truth and the +air of profound conviction. + +"I have learned," cries our precious philosopher, "to lean on my own +soul, and not look eleswhere [Transcriber's note: sic] for the reeds +that a wind can break!" And what has he learned by leaning on his own +soul? Is it to be happier than others? or to be better? Not he!--he is +as wretched and wicked a dog as any unhung. He "leans on his own soul," +and makes love to the Countess and seduces Alice Darvell. A ploughboy is +a better philosopher and moralist than this mouthing Maltravers, with +his boasted love of mankind (which reduces itself to a very coarse love +of _woman_kind), and his scorn of "the false gods and miserable creeds" +of the world, and his soul "lifting its crest to heaven!" A Catholic +whipping himself before a stone-image, a Brahmin dangling on a hook, or +standing on one leg for a year, has a higher notion of God than this +ranting fool, who is always prating about his own perfections and his +divine nature; the one is humble, at least, though blind; the other is +proud of his very imperfections and glories in his folly. What does this +creature know of virtue, who finds it _by leaning on his own soul_, +forsooth? What does he know of God, who, in looking for him, can see but +himself, steeped in sin, bloated and swollen with monstrous pride, and +strutting before the world and the creator as a maker of systems, a +layer down of morals, and a preacher of beauty and truth?... + +[Some of the] characters are excellently drawn; how much better than +"_their lips spake of sentiment, and their eyes applied it_!" How soon +these philosophers begin ogling! how charmingly their unceasing gabble +about beauty and virtue is exemplified in their actions! Mr. Bulwer's +philosophy is like a French palace--it is tawdry, shady, splendid; but, +_gare aux nez sensibles_! one is always reminded of the sewer. "Their +lips spoke sentiment, and their eyes applied it." O you naughty, naughty +Mr. Bulwer! + + + + +WILLIAM JOHN FOX + +The dedicatory inscription in the volume of _The Monthly Repository_, in +which the following review appears, will indicate--in a few words--the +motives inspiring the editor, W. J. Fox, in his journalistic career:-- +"To the Working People of Great Britain and Ireland; who, whether they +produce the means of physical support and enjoyment, or aid the progress +of moral, political, and social reform and improvement, are +fellow-labourers for the well-being of the entire community." + + * * * * * + +_Pauline_ was published, when Browning was 21, at his aunt's expense. It +secured only _one_ favourable notice, here printed; while the author and +his sister deliberately destroyed the unsold copies. + + + + +W. J. FOX ON BROWNING + +[From _The Monthly Repository_, 1833] + +_Pauline; A Fragment of a Confession_. London, Saunders & Otley. 1833 + +The most deeply interesting adventures, the wildest vicissitudes, the +most daring explorations, the mightiest magic, the fiercest conflicts, +the brightest triumphs, and the most affecting catastrophes, are those +of the spiritual world.... + +The knowledge of mind is the first of sciences; the records of its +formation and workings are the most important of histories; and it is +eminently a subject for poetical exhibition. The annals of a poet's mind +are poetry. Nor has there ever been a genuine bard, who was not himself +more poetical than any of his productions. They are emanations of his +essence. He himself is, or has been, all that he truly and touchingly, +_i.e._, poetically, describes. Wordsworth, indeed, never carried a +pedlar's pack, nor did Byron ever command a pirate ship, or Coleridge +shoot an albatross; but there were times and moods in which their +thoughts intently realised, and identified themselves with the +reflective wanderer, the impetuous Corsair, and the ancient mariner. +They felt _their_ feelings, thought _their_ thoughts, burned with +_their_ passions, dreamed _their_ dreams, and lived their lives, or died +their deaths. In relation to his creations, the poet is the omnific +spirit in whom they have their being. All their vitality must exist in +his life. He only, in them, displays to us fragments of himself. The +poem, in which a great poet should reveal the whole of himself to +mankind would be a study, a delight, and a power, for which there is yet +no parallel; and around which the noblest creations of the noblest +writers would range themselves as subsidiary luminaries. + +These thoughts have been suggested by the work before us, which, though +evidently a hasty and imperfect sketch, has truth and life in it, which +gave us the thrill, and laid hold of us with the power, the sensation of +which has never yet failed us as a test of genius. Whoever the anonymous +author may be, he is a poet. A pretender to science cannot always be +safely judged of by a brief publication, for the knowledge of some facts +does not imply the knowledge of other facts; but the claimant of poetic +honours may generally be appreciated by a few pages, often by a few +lines, for if they be poetry, he is a poet. We cannot judge of the house +by the brick, but we can judge of the statue of Hercules by its foot. We +felt certain of Tennyson, before we saw the book, by a few verses which +had straggled into a newspaper; we are not less certain of the author of +Pauline. + +Pauline is the recipient of the confessions: the hero is as anonymous as +the author, and this is no matter, for _poet_ is the title both of the +one and the other. The confessions have nothing in them which needs +names: the external world is only reflected in them in its faintest +shades; its influences are only described after they have penetrated +into the intellect. We have never read anything more purely +confessional. The whole composition is of the spirit, spiritual. The +scenery is in the chambers of thought: the agencies are powers and +passions; the events are transitions from one state of spiritual +existence to another. And yet the composition is not dreamy; there is on +it a deep stamp of reality. Still less is it characterised by coldness. +It has visions that we love to look upon, and tones that touch the +inmost heart till it responds. + +The poet's confessions are introduced with an analysis of his spiritual +constitution, in which he is described as having an intense +consciousness of individuality, combined with a sense of power, a +self-supremacy, and a "principle of restlessness which would be all, have, +see, know, taste, feel all"; of this essential self, imagination is +described as the characteristic quality; an imagination, steady and +unfailing in its power. A "yearning after God," or supreme and universal +good, unconsciously cherished through the earlier stages of the history, +keeps this mind from utterly dissipating itself; and, which seems to us +the only point in which the coherence fails, there is added an unaptness +for love, a mere perception of the beautiful, the perception being felt +more precious than its object.... + +And now when he has run the whole toilsome yet giddy round and arrived +at the goal, there arises, even though that goal be religion, or because +it is religion, a yearning after human sympathies and affections, which +would not have assorted with any state or moment of the previous +experience; he could not have loved before; at one time it would have +been only a fancy, a cold, and yet perhaps extravagant imagining; at +another, a low and selfish passion. Some souls are purified _by_ love, +others are purified _for_ love. Othello needed not Desdemona to listen +to his tale of disastrous chances; they were only external perils, rapid +by elevated station; but the mind that has gone through more than his +vicissitudes, been in deeper dangers, and deadlier struggles, even when +it rests at last in a far higher repose and dignity, yearns for some one +who will "seriously incline" to listen to the "strange eventful +history," one who will sympathise and soothe, who will receive the +confession, and give the absolution of heaven its best earthly +ratification, that of a pure and loving heart. The poem is addressed to +Pauline; with her it begins, and ends; and her presence is felt +throughout, as that of a second conscience, wounded by evil, but never +stern, and incorporate in a form of beauty, which blends and softens the +strong contrasts of different portions of the poem, so that all might be +murmured by the breath of affection. + +The author cannot expect such a poem as this to be popular, to make a +"hit," to produce a "sensation." The public are but slow in recognising +the claims of Tennyson whom in some respects he resembles; and the +common eye scarcely yet discerns among the laurel-crowned, the form of +Shelley, who seems (how justly, we stop not now to discuss), to have +been the god of his early idolatory. Whatever inspiration may have been +upon him from that deity, the mysticism of the original oracles has been +happily avoided. And whatever resemblance he may bear to Tennyson (a +fellow worshipper probably at the same shrine) he owes nothing of the +perhaps inferior melody of his verse to an employment of archaisms which +it is difficult to defend from the charge of affectation. But he has not +given himself the chance for popularity which Tennyson did, and which it +is evident that he easily might have done. His poem stands alone, with +none of those light but taking accompaniments, songs that sing +themselves, sketches that everybody knows, light little lyrics, floating +about like humming birds, around the trunk and foliage of the poem +itself; and which would attract so many eyes, and delight so many ears, +that will be slow to perceive the higher beauty of that composition, and +to whom a sycamore is no sycamore, unless it be "musical with bees." + + + + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY + +(1785-1859) + +De Quincey has been said to have "taken his place in our literature as +the author of about 150 magazine articles," and, though chiefly +remembered by his _Confessions of an Opium Eater_ and by his wonderful +experiments in "impassioned prose," there can be no question that his +critical work occupied much of his attention, and was nearly always +original. In many respects his point of view was perverse, and towards +his contemporaries occasionally spiteful; while his tendency to dwell +upon disputed points was apt to obscure the general impression. + + * * * * * + +It is interesting to compare his unmeasured condemnation of Pope with +Kingsley's eulogy: since both were, more or less, directly inspired by +the contrast of eighteenth century correctness to the poetical gospel of +the Lake Poets. From the two articles we can obtain a fair and emphatic +statement of "both sides of the case." + + + + +DE QUINCEY ON POPE + +[From _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_, May, 1851] + +Whom shall we pronounce a fit writer to be laid before an auditory of +working-men, as a model of what is just in composition--fit either for +conciliating their regard to literature at first or afterwards for +sustaining it? The qualifications for such a writer are apparently these +two; first, that he should deal chiefly with the elder and elementary +affections of man, and under those relations which concern man's +grandest capacities; secondly, that he should treat his subject with +solemnity, and not with sneer--with earnestness, as one under a +prophet's burden of impassioned truth, and not with the levity of a girl +hunting a chance-started caprice. I admire Pope in the very highest +degree; but I admire him as a pyrotechnic artist for producing brilliant +and evanescent effects out of elements that have hardly a moment's life +within them. There is a flash and a startling explosion, then there is a +dazzling coruscation, all purple and gold; the eye aches under the +suddenness of a display that, springing like a burning arrow out of +darkness, rushes back into the darkness with arrowy speed, and in a +moment is all over. Like festal shows, or the hurrying music of such +shows-- + + It _was_, and it is not. + +Untruly, therefore, was it ever fancied of Pope, that he +belonged by his classification to the family of the Drydens. Dryden had +within him a principle of continuity which was not satisfied without +lingering upon his own thoughts, brooding over them, and oftentimes +pursuing them through their unlinkings with the _sequaciousness_ (pardon +a Coleridgian word) that belongs to some process of creative nature, +such as the unfolding of a flower. But Pope was all jets and tongues of +flame; all showers of scintillation and sparkle. Dryden followed, +genially, an impulse of his healthy nature. Pope obeyed, spasmodically, +an overmastering febrile paroxysm. Even in these constitutional +differences between the two are written and are legible the +corresponding necessities of "utter falsehood in Pope, and of loyalty to +truth in Dryden." Strange it is to recall this one striking fact, that +if once in his life Dryden might reasonably have been suspected of +falsehood, it was in the capital matter of religion. He _ratted_ from +his Protestant faith; and according to the literal origin of that figure +he _ratted_; for he abjured it as rats abjure a ship in which their +instinct of divination has deciphered a destiny of ruin, and at the very +moment when Popery wore the promise of a triumph that might, at any +rate, have lasted his time. Dryden was a papist by apostacy; and +perhaps, not to speak uncharitably, upon some bias from self-interest. +Pope, on the other hand, was a Papist by birth, and by a tie of honour; +and he resisted all temptations to desert his afflicted faith, which +temptations lay in bribes of great magnitude prospectively, and in +persecutions for the present that were painfully humiliating. How base a +time-server does Dryden appear on the one side! on the other, how much +of a martyr should we be disposed to pronounce Pope! And yet, for all +that, such is the overruling force of a nature originally sincere, the +apostate Dryden wore upon his brow the grace of sincerity, whilst the +pseudo-martyr Pope, in the midst of actual fidelity to his church, was +at his heart a traitor--in the very oath of his allegiance to his +spiritual mistress had a lie upon his lips, scoffed at her while +kneeling in homage to her pretensions, and secretly forswore her +doctrines while suffering insults in her service. + +The differences as to truth and falsehood lay exactly where by all the +external symptoms they ought _not_ to have lain. But the reason for this +anomaly was that to Dryden sincerity had been a perpetual necessity of +his intellectual nature, whilst Pope, distracted by his own activities +of mind, living in an irreligious generation, and beset by infidel +friends, had early lost his anchorage of traditional belief; and yet, +upon honourable scruple of fidelity to the suffering Church of his +fathers, he sought often to dissemble the fact of his own scepticism, +which often he thirsted ostentatiously to parade. Through a motive of +truthfulness he became false. And in this particular instance he would, +at any rate, have become false, whatever had been the native +constitution of his mind. It was a mere impossibility to reconcile any +real allegiance to his church with his known irreverence to religion. +But upon far more subjects than this Pope was habitually false to the +quality of his thoughts, always insincere, never by any accident in +earnest, and consequently many times caught in ruinous self-contradiction. +Is that the sort of writer to furnish an advantageous study for the +precious leisure, precious as rubies, of the toil-worn artisan. + +The root and pledge of this falseness in Pope lay in a disease of his +mind, which he (like the Roman poet Horace) mistook for a feature of +praeter-natural strength; and this disease was the incapacity of +self-determination towards any paramount or abiding _principles_. Horace, +in a well-known passage, had congratulated himself upon this disease as +upon a trophy of philosophical emancipation: + + Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri, + Quo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes: + +which words Pope translates, and applies to himself in his +English adaptation of this epistle-- + + But ask not to what doctors I apply-- + Sworn to no master, of no sect am I. + As drives the storm, at any door I knock; + And house with Montaigne now, and now with Locke. + +That is, neither one poet nor the other having, as regarded philosophy, +any internal principle of gravitation or determining impulse to draw him +in one direction rather than another, was left to the random control of +momentary taste, accident, or caprice; and this indetermination of pure, +unballasted levity both Pope and Horace mistook for a special privilege +of philosophic strength. Others, it seems, were chained and coerced by +certain fixed aspects of truth, and their efforts were over-ruled +accordingly in one uniform line of direction. But _they_, the two +brilliant poets, fluttered on butterfly wings to the right and the left, +obeying no guidance but that of some instant and fugitive sensibility to +some momentary phasis of beauty. In this dream of drunken eclecticism, +and in the original possibility of such an eclecticism, lay the ground +of that enormous falsehood which Pope practised from youth to age. An +eclectic philosopher already, in the very title which he assumes, +proclaims his self-complacency in the large liberty of error purchased +by the renunciation of all controlling principles. Having served the +towing-line which connected him with any external force of guiding and +compulsory truth, he is free to go astray in any one of ten thousand +false radiations from the true centre of rest. By his own choice he is +wandering in a forest all but pathless, + + --ubi passim + Pallantes error recto de tramite pellit; + +and a forest not of sixty days' journey, like that old Hercynian +forest of Caesar's time, but a forest which sixty generations +have not availed to traverse or familiarise in any one direction.... + +_Here_ would be the most advantageous and _remunerative_ station to take +for one who should undertake a formal exposure of Pope's +hollow-heartedness; that is, it would most commensurately reward the pains +and difficulties of such an investigation. But it would be too long a task +for this situation, and it would be too polemic. It would move through a +jungle of controversies.... Instead of this I prefer, as more amusing, +as less elaborate, and as briefer, to expose a few of Pope's _personal_ +falsehoods, and falsehoods as to the notorieties of _fact_. Truth +speculative often-times, drives its roots into depth, so dark that the +falsifications to which it is liable, though detected, cannot always be +exposed to the light of day--the result is known, but not therefore +seen. Truth personal, on the other hand, may easily be made to confront +its falsifier, not with reputation only, but with the visible _shame_ of +refutation. Such shame would settle upon _every_ page of Pope's satires +and moral epistles, oftentimes upon every couplet, if any censor, armed +with an adequate knowledge of the facts, were to prosecute the inquest. +And the general impression from such an inquest would be, that Pope +never delineated a character, nor uttered a sentiment, nor breathed an +aspiration, which he would not willingly have recast, have retracted, +have abjured or trampled underfoot with the curses assigned to heresy, +if by such an act he could have added a hue of brilliancy to his +colouring or a new depth to his shadows. There is nothing he would not +have sacrificed, not the most solemn of his opinions, nor the most +pathetic memorial from his personal experience, in return for a +sufficient consideration, which consideration meant always with _him_ +poetic effect. It is not, as too commonly is believed, that he was +reckless of other people's feelings; so far from _that_, he had a morbid +_facility_ in his kindness; and in cases where he had no reason to +suspect any lurking hostility, he showed even a paralytic benignity. +But, simply and constitutionally, he was incapable of a sincere thought +or a sincere emotion. Nothing that ever he uttered, were it even a +prayer to God, but he had a fancy for reading it backwards. And he was +evermore false, not as loving or preferring falsehood, but as one who +could not in his heart perceive much real difference between what people +affected to call falsehood, and what they affected to call truth. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Famous Reviews, by Editor: R. Brimley Johnson + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11251 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fbc4d9a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #11251 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11251) diff --git a/old/11251-8.txt b/old/11251-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3d5da6c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11251-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19166 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Famous Reviews, by Editor: R. Brimley Johnson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Famous Reviews + +Author: Editor: R. Brimley Johnson + +Release Date: February 24, 2004 [EBook #11251] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS REVIEWS *** + + + + +Produced by Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +FAMOUS REVIEWS + + +_FROM THE SAME PUBLISHERS_ + + +FAMOUS SPEECHES. First Series. From Cromwell to Gladstone. Selected and +Edited with Introductory Notes by HERBERT PAUL. In demy 8vo, cloth, 470 +pp. 7s. 6d. net. + +FAMOUS SPEECHES. Second Series. From Lord Macaulay to Lord Rosebery. +Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes by HERBERT PAUL. In demy +8vo, cloth, 398 pp. 7s. 6d. net. + +FAMOUS SERMONS BY ENGLISH PREACHERS. From the VENERABLE BEDE to H.P. +LIDDON. Edited with Historical and Biographical Notes by Canon DOUGLAS +MACLEANE, M.A. In demy 8vo, cloth gilt. 6s. net. + + + + +FAMOUS REVIEWS + +SELECTED AND EDITED + +WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES + +BY + +R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON + + + + Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, + But are not critics to their judgment too? + _Pope_. + + +LONDON + +1914 + + + +CONTENTS + +PREFACE + +OF CRITICISM AND THE CRITIC + +THE EDINBURGH REVIEW: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Edinburgh Review_ +(founded 1802) + +LORD JEFFREY ON-- [SOUTHEY'S "THALABA" + [SOUTHEY'S LAUREATE LAYS + [THOMAS MOORE + [WORDSWORTH'S "EXCURSION" + ["ENDYMION" + +LORD BROUGHAM ON BYRON + +SYDNEY SMITH ON HANNAH MORE + +MACAULAY ON-- [SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES + [CROKER'S "BOSWELL" + [W. E. GLADSTONE + [MADAME D'ARBLAY + +ANONYMOUS ON-- [WORDSWORTH + [MATURIN'S "MELMOTH" + +THE QUARTERLY REVIEW: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Quarterly Review_ +(founded 1809) + +GIFFORD ON-- [WEBER'S "FORD" + [KEATS + +CROKER ON-- [SYDNEY SMITH + [MACAULAY + +LOCKHART ON-- [THE AUTHOR OF "VATHEK" + [S. T. COLERIDGE + +SIR WALTER SCOTT ON JANE AUSTEN + +ARCHBISHOP WHATELY ON JANE AUSTEN + +W. E. GLADSTONE ON TENNYSON'S POEMS + +CANON WILBERFORCE ON--[DARWIN + [CARDINAL NEWMAN + +ANONYMOUS ON SCOTT'S--["WAVERLEY" + ["TALES OF MY LANDLORD" + +ANONYMOUS ON-- [LEIGH HUNT'S "RIMINI" + ["SHAKESPEARE HIMSELF AGAIN" + [MOXON'S SONNETS + ["VANITY FAIR" AND "JANE EYRE" + [GEORGE ELIOT + +BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _Blackwood's Magazine_ +(founded 1817) + +PROFESSOR WILSON ON--[POPE AND WORDSWORTH +(_Christopher North_) [LORD BYRON + [DR. JOHNSON + [CRUMBS FROM THE "NOCTES" + +ANONYMOUS ON-- [S. T. COLERIDGE + [THE COCKNEY SCHOOL I + [" " " III + [" " " IV + [SHELLEY'S "PROMETHEUS" + +THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Westminster Review_ +(founded 1824) + +J. S. MILL ON-- [TENNYSON'S POEMS + [MACAULAY'S "LAYS" + +JOHN STERLING ON CARLYLE + +FRASER'S MAGAZINE: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _Fraser's Magazine_ + +THACKERAY ON DICKENS'S CHRISTMAS STORIES + +CHARLES KINGSLEY ON THE LAKE POETS + +ANONYMOUS ON CHRISTMAS BOOKS, 1837 + +W. F. FOX: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Monthly Repository_ +W. F. FOX ON BROWNING'S "PAULINE" + +DE QUINCEY: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From Tail's _Edinburgh Magazine_ + +DE QUINCEY ON POPE + + + + +PREFACE + +Although regular literary organs, and the critical columns of the press, +are both of comparatively recent origin, we find that almost from the +beginning our journalists aspired to be critics as well as newsmongers. +Under Charles II, Sir Roger L'Estrange issued his _Observator_ (1681), +which was a weekly review, not a chronicle; and John Dunton's _The +Athenian Mercury_ (1690), is best described as a sort of early "Notes +and Queries." Here, as elsewhere, Defoe developed this branch of +journalism, particularly in his _Review_ (1704), and in _Mist's Journal_ +(1714). And, again, as in all other departments, his methods were not +materially improved upon until Leigh Hunt, and his brother John, started +_The Examiner_ in 1808, soon after the rise of the Reviews. Addison and +Steele, of course, had treated literary topics in _The Spectator_ or +_The Tatler_; but the serious discussion of contemporary writers began +with the Whig _Edinburgh_ of 1802 and the Tory _Quarterly_ of 1809. + +By the end of George III's reign every daily paper had its column of +book-notices; while 1817 marks an epoch in the weekly press; when +William Jerdan started _The Observator_ (parent of our _Athenaeum_) in +order to furnish (for one shilling weekly) "a clear and instructive +picture of the moral and literary improvement of the time, and a +complete and authentic chronological literary record for reference." + +Though probably there is no form of literature more widely practised, +and less organised, than the review, it would be safe to say that every +example stands somewhere between a critical essay and a publisher's +advertisement. We need not, however, consider here the many influences +which may corrupt newspaper criticism to-day, nor concern ourselves with +those legitimate "notices of books" which only aim at "telling the +story" or otherwise offering guidance for an "order from the library." + +The question remains, on which we do not propose to dogmatise, whether +the ideal of a reviewer should be critical or explanatory: whether, in +other words, he should attempt final judgment or offer comment and +analysis from which we may each form our own opinion. Probably no hard +and fast line can be drawn between the review and the essay; yet a good +volume of criticism can seldom be gleaned from periodicals. For one +thing all journalism, whether consciously or unconsciously, must contain +an appeal to the moment. The reviewer is introducing new work to his +reader, the essayist, or critic proper, may nearly always assume some +familiarity with his subject. The one hazards prophecy; the other +discusses, and illumines, a judgment already formed, if not established. +It is obvious that such reviews as Macaulay's in the _Edinburgh_ were +often permanent contributions to critical history; while, on the other +hand, many ponderous effusions of the _Quarterly_ are only interesting +as a sign of the times. + +The fame of a review, however, does not always depend on merit. The +scandalous attacks on the Cockney school, for example, were neither good +literature nor honest criticism. We still pause in wonder before the +streams of virulent personal abuse and unbridled licence in temper which +disgrace the early pages of volumes we now associate with sound and +dignified, if somewhat conventional, utterances on the art of Literature +as viewed from the table-land of authority. And, as inevitably the most +famous reviews are those which attend the birth of genius, we must +include more respectable errors of judgment, if we find also several +remarkable appreciations which prove singular insight. + +Following the "early" reviews, whether distinguished for culpable +blindness, private hostility, or rare sympathy, we must depend for our +second main source of material upon that fortunate combination of +circumstances when one of the mighty has been invited to pass judgment +upon his peers. When Scott notices Jane Austen, Macaulay James Boswell, +Gladstone and John Stuart Mill Lord Tennyson, the article acquires a +double value from author and subject. Curiously enough, as it would seem +to us in these days of advertisement, many such treasures of criticism +were published anonymously; and accident has often aided research in the +discovery of their authorship. It is only too probable that more were +written than we have yet on record. + +In reviewing, as elsewhere, the growth of professionalism has tended to +level the quality of work. The mass of thoroughly competent criticism +issued to-day has raised enormously the general tone of the press; but +genuine men of letters are seldom employed to welcome, or stifle, a +newcomer; though Meredith, and more frequently Swinburne, have on +occasion elected to pronounce judgment upon the passing generation; as +Mrs. Meynell or Mr. G.K. Chesterton have sometimes said the right thing +about their contemporaries. The days when postcard notices from +Gladstone secured a record in sales are over; and, from whatever +combination of causes, we hear no more of famous reviews. + +R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON. + + +It is with regret that I have found it impossible to print more than a +few of the following reviews complete. The writing of those days was, in +almost every case, extremely prolix, and often irrelevant. It nearly +always makes heavy reading in the originals. The _principle_ of +selection adopted is to retain the most pithy, and attractive, portion +of each article: omitting quotations and the discussion of particular +passages. It therefore becomes necessary to remark--in justice to the +writers--that most of the criticisms here quoted were accompanied by +references to what was regarded by the reviewer as evidence supporting +them. Most of the authors, or books, noticed however, are sufficiently +well known for the reader to have no difficulty in judging for himself. + +R. B. J. + + + + +OF CRITICISM AND CRITIC + + +DR. JOHNSON + +There is a certain race of men, that either imagine it their duty, or +make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of +learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and +value themselves upon giving ignorance and envy the first notice of a +prey. + +To these men, who distinguish themselves by the appellation of Critics, +it is necessary for a new author to find some means of recommendation. +It is probable, that the most malignant of these persecutors might be +somewhat softened, and prevailed on, for a short time, to remit their +fury. Having for this purpose considered many expedients, I find in the +records of ancient times, that Argus was lulled by music, and Cerberus +quieted with a sop; and am, therefore, inclined to believe that modern +critics, who, if they have not the eyes, have the watchfulness of Argus, +and can bark as loud as Cerberus, though, perhaps, they cannot bite with +equal force, might be subdued by methods of the same kind. I have heard +that some have been pacified with claret and a supper, and others laid +asleep with the soft notes of flattery.--_The Rambler_. + + +CHRISTOPHER NORTH + +I care not one single curse for all the criticism that ever was canted +or decanted, or recanted. Neither does the world. The world takes a poet +as it finds him, and seats him above or below the salt. The world is as +obstinate as a million mules, and will not turn its head on one side or +another for all the shouting of the critical population that ever was +shouted. It is very possible that the world is a bad judge. Well, then-- +appeal to posterity, and be hanged to you--and posterity will affirm the +judgment, with costs.--_Noctes Ambrosianae, Sept_., 1825. + +Our current literature teems with thought and feeling,--with passion and +imagination. There was Gifford, and there are Jeffrey, and Southey ... +and twenty--forty--fifty--other crack contributors to the Reviews, +Magazines and Gazettes, who have said more tender, and true, and fine, +and deep things in the way of criticism, than ever was said before since +the reign of Cadmus, ten thousand times over,--not in long, dull, heavy, +formal, prosy theories--but flung off-hand, out of the glowing mint--a +coinage of the purest ore--and stamped with the ineffaceable impress of +genius.--_Noctes Ambrosianae_, April, 1829. + + +The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. +EDMUND BURKE. + + +We must not underrate him who uses wit for subsistence, and flies from +the ingratitude of the age even to a bookseller for redress. +OLIVER GOLDSMITH. + + +The critical faculty is a _rara avis_; almost as rare, indeed, as the +phoenix, which appears only once in five hundred years. ARTHUR +SCHOPENHAUER. + + +The Supreme Critic ... is ... that Unity, that Oversoul, within which +every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other. +R. W. EMERSON. + + +Criticism's best spiritual work which is to keep man from a +self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarising, to lead him +towards perfection, by making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in +itself, and the absolute beauty and fitness of things. +MATTHEW ARNOLD. + + +The whole history of criticism has been a triumph of authors over +critics. +R. G. MOULTON. + + +Our criticism is disabled by the unwillingness of the critic to learn +from an author, and his readiness to mistrust him. +D. H. HOWELLS. + + +We have too many small schoolmasters; yet not only do I not question in +literature the high utility of criticism, but I should be tempted to say +that the part it plays may be the supremely beneficent one when it +proceeds from deep sources, from the efficient combination of experience +and perception. In this light one sees the critic as the real helper of +mankind, a torch-bearing outrider, the interpreter _par excellence_. +HENRY JAMES. + + + + +FAMOUS REVIEWS + + * * * * * + +THE EDINBURGH REVIEW + +"A confederacy (the word _conspiracy_ may be libellous) to defend the +worst atrocities of the French, and to cry down every author to whom +England was dear and venerable. A better spirit now prevails in the +_Edinburgh Review_ from the generosity and genius of Macaulay. But in +the days when Brougham and his confederates were writers in it, more +falsehood and more malignity marked its pages than any other journal in +the language." + + +W.S. LANDOR. + +Landor is speaking, of course, with his usual impetuosity, particularly +moved by antipathy to Lord Brougham. A fairer estimate of the "bluff and +blue" exponent of Whig principles may be obtained from our brief +estimate of Jeffrey below. His was the informing spirit, at least in its +earliest days, and that spirit would brook no divided sway. + + +FRANCIS LORD JEFFREY +(1773-1850) + +Jeffrey was editor of the _Edinburgh Review_ from its foundation in +October 10th, 1802, till June, 1829; and continued to write for it until +June, 1848. He was more patronising in his abuse than either _Blackwood_ +or the _Quarterly_, and on the whole fairer and more dignified; though +he was considerably influenced by political bias. In fact, his +judgments--though versatile--were narrow, his most marked limitations +arising from blindness to the imaginative. + +The short, vivacious figure (so low that he might pass under your chin +without ever catching the eye even for a moment, says Lockhart), was far +more impressive when familiar than at first sight. Lord Cockburn praises +his legal abilities (whether as judge or advocate) almost without +qualification; but Wilson derides his appearance in the House:--"A cold +thin voice, doling out little, quaint, metaphysical sentences with the +air of a provincial lecturer on logic and _belles-lettres_. A few good +Whigs of the old school adjourned upstairs, the Tories began to converse +_de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_, the Radicals were either snoring +or grinning, and the great gun of the north ceased firing amidst such a +hubbub of inattention, that even I was not aware of the fact for several +minutes." + +He has been called "almost a lecturer in society," and it is clear that +his difficulty always was to cease talking. Men as different as Macaulay +and Charles Dickens have spoken with deep personal affection of his +memory. + +In one of Carlyle's inimitable "pen-portraits" he is described as "a +delicate, attractive, dainty little figure, as he merely walked about, +much more if he were speaking: uncommonly bright, black eyes, instinct +with vivacity, intelligence and kindly fire; roundish brow, delicate +oval face, full, rapid expression; figure light, nimble, pretty, though +so small, perhaps hardly five feet four in height.... His voice clear, +harmonious, and sonorous, had something of metallic in it, something +almost plangent ... a strange, swift, sharp-sounding, fitful modulation, +part of it pungent, _quasi latrant_, other parts of it cooing, bantery, +lovingly quizzical, which no charm of his fine ringing voice (_metallic_ +tenor, of sweet tone), and of his vivacious rapid looks and pretty +little attitudes and gestures, could altogether reconcile you to, but in +which he persisted through good report and bad." + + * * * * * + +Perhaps Jeffrey's most famous criticism was the "This will never do" on +Wordsworth; of which Southey wrote to Scott, "Jeffrey, I hear, has +written what his friends call a _crushing_ review of the Excursion. He +might as well seat himself on Skiddaw, and fancy that he crushed the +mountain." + +It is obvious, indeed, that the Lake poets had little respect for their +"superior" reviewers; whose opinions, on the other hand, were not +subject to influences from high places. It will be noticed that Jefferey +is even more severe on Southey's Laureate "Lays" than on his "Thalaba." + +The review on Moore, quoted below, was followed by formal arrangements +for a duel at Chalk Farm on 11th August, 1806; but the police had orders +to interrupt, and pistols were loaded with paper. Even the semblance of +animosity was not maintained, as we find Moore contributing to the +_Edinburgh_ before the end of the same year. + +We fear that the appreciation of Keats was partly influenced by +political considerations; since Leigh Hunt had so emphatically welcomed +him into the camp. It remains, however, a pleasing contrast to the +ferocious onslaught on _Endymion_ of Gifford printed below. + + +HENRY LORD BROUGHAM +(1779-1868) + +Brougham was intimately associated with Jeffrey in the foundation of the +_Edinburgh Review_: he is said to have written eighty articles in the +first twenty numbers, though like all his work, the criticism was spoilt +by egotism and vanity. The fact is that an over-brilliant versatility +injured his work. Combining "in his own person the characters of Solon, +Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Chesterfield, +and a great many more," his restless genius accomplished nothing +substantial or sound. His writing was far less careful than his oratory. +A man from whom almost everything was expected, and who was always +before the eye of the public; he has been described as "the God of +Whiggish idolatry," and as "impossible" in society. Harriet Martineau is +unsparing in her criticism of his manners and language; and evidently he +was an inveterate swearer. His enthusiasm for noble causes was +infectious; only, as Coleridge happily expressed it, "because his heart +was placed in what should have been his head, you were never sure of +him--you always doubted his sincerity." + +In the Opposition and at the Bar this eloquent energy had full scope, +"but as Lord Chancellor his selfish disloyalty offended his colleagues +while," as O'Connell remarked, "If Brougham knew a little of Law, he +would know a little of everything." Unquestionably his obvious failings +obscured his real eminence, and even hinder us, to-day, from doing full +justice to his memory. + + * * * * * + +It was the following, somewhat heavy-handed, review which inspired the +_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, with all its "extraordinary powers +of malicious statement"--truly a Roland for his Oliver. + + +SYDNEY SMITH +(1771-1845) + +The third founder of the _Edinburgh_ and one of its most aggressive +reviewers, until March, 1827, Sydney Smith has been described as "most +provokingly and audaciously personal in his strictures.... He was too +complacent, too aboundingly self-satisfied, too buoyantly full of +spirits, to hate anybody; but he burlesques them, derides them, and +abuses them with the most exasperating effrontery--in a way that is +great fun to the reader, but exquisite torture to the victim." At the +same time, his wit was always governed by commonsense (its most +prevailing distinction); and, though almost unique among humorists for +his personal gaiety, "his best work was done in promoting practical +ends, and his wit in its airiest gambols never escaped his control." +There was, in fact, considerable independence--and even courage--in his +seriously inspired attacks on various abuses, and on every form of +affectation and cant. Though his manners and conversation were not +precisely those we generally associate with the Cloth, Sydney Smith +published several volumes of sermons, and always accepted the +responsibilities of his position as a clergyman with becoming industry. +Croker's veiled sarcasm in the _Quarterly_ (printed below) was no more +bitter, or truthful, than similar utterances on any Whig. + + * * * * * + +We know little to-day of-- + + The sacred dramas of Miss Hannah More + Where Moses and the little muses snore, + +but, in her own day, she was flattered in society and a real influence +among the serious-minded. She understood the poor and gave them +practical advice. Sydney Smith, of course, would be in sympathy with her +"good works," but could not resist his joke. + + +THOMAS BABINGTON LORD MACAULAY +(1800-1859) + +To quote one of his own favourite expressions, "every schoolboy knows" +the outlines of Macaulay's life and work. We have recited the Lays, +probably read some of the History, possibly even heard of his eloquent +and unmeasured attacks on those whose literary work incurred his +displeasure. We know that his memory was phenomenal, if his statements +were not always accurate. The biographers tell us further that no one +could be more simple in private life, or more devoted to his own family: +his nephews and nieces having no idea that their favourite "Uncle Tom" +was a great man. Criticism, of course, is by no means so unanimous. Mr. +Augustine Birrell has wittily remarked that his "style is ineffectual +for the purpose of telling the truth about anything"; and James Thomson +epitomised his political bias in a biting paragraph:--"Macaulay, +historiographer in chief to the Whigs, and the great prophet of Whiggery +which never had or will have a prophet, vehemently judged that a man who +could pass over from the celestial Whigs to the infernal Tories must be +a traitor false as Judas, an apostate black as the Devil." Always a boy +at heart, and singularly careless of his appearance, Macaulay was so +phenomenally successful in every direction that envy may account for +most personal criticism not inspired by recognised opponents. Those who +called him a bore were most probably over-sensitive about their own +inability to hold up against arguments, or opinions, they longed to +combat. + +He was a student at Lincoln's Inn when the brilliant article on the +translation of a newly-found treatise by Milton on _Christian Doctrine_ +appeared in the _Edinburgh_ (1825), and inaugurated a new power in +English prose. Macaulay himself declared that it was "overloaded with +gaudy and ungraceful argument"; but it secured his literary reputation +and determined much of his career. He became an influence on the +_Edinburgh_, probably somewhat modifying its whole tone, and generally +identified with its reputation. "The son of a Saint," says Christopher +North, "who seems himself to be something of a reviewer, is insidious as +the serpent, but fangless, as the glow worm"; and the Tory press were, +naturally, up in arms against the champion critic of their pet +prodigies. + + * * * * * + +_Southey_ received, as we must now admit, more than his fair share of +abuse from the Liberal press, for the comfortable conservatism of his +maturity; and Macaulay did not love the Laureate. We note that +_Blackwood's_ defended him with spirit, and Wilson's protracted, and +furious, attack on Macaulay for this particular review may be found in +the _Nodes Ambrosianae_, April, 1830. + +_Croker_, in all probability, deserved much of the scorn here poured +upon his editorial labour (though it _had_ merits which his critic +deliberately ignores); Wilson, again _(Noctes Ambrosianae,_ November, +1831), examines, and professes to confute, almost every criticism in the +review. Croker himself found a convenient occasion for revenge in his +review of Macaulay's History printed below. + +The interesting recognition of _Gladstone_ awakes pleasanter sentiments; +especially when we notice the return compliment (in the same +_Quarterly_, but twenty-seven years later than Croker's attack) of the +statesman's generous tribute. "Macaulay," says Gladstone, "was +singularly free of vices ... one point only we reserve, a certain tinge +of occasional vindictiveness. Was he envious? Never. Was he servile? No. +Was he insolent? No.... Was he idle? The question is ridiculous. Was he +false? No; but true as steel and transparent as crystal. Was he vain? We +hold that he was not. At every point in the ugly list he stands the +trial." + + * * * * * + +ANONYMOUS + +This earlier notice of Wordsworth is certainly in exact sympathy with +Jeffrey on the Excursion, and may very well have come from the same pen. +At any rate, it introduces the Edinburgh attitude towards the Lakers. + +The criticism of Maturin has all the tone of moral authority which +provoked many readers of the Review, and was, probably, in part +responsible for the less "measured" attitude adopted by the _Quarterly_. + + + + +LORD JEFFREY ON SOUTHEY'S "THALABA" + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, October, 1802] + +_Thalaba, the Destroyer: A Metrical Romance_. By ROBERT SOUTHEY. 2 vols. +12 mo. London. + +Poetry has this much, at least, in common with religion, that its +standards were fixed long ago, by certain inspired writers, whose +authority it is no longer lawful to call in question; and that many +profess to be entirely devoted to it, who have no _good works_ to +produce in support of their pretensions. The catholic poetical church, +too, has worked but few miracles since the first ages of its +establishment; and has been more prolific, for a long time, of Doctors, +than of Saints: it has had its corruptions and reformation also, and has +given birth to an infinite variety of heresies and errors, the followers +of which have hated and persecuted each other as cordially as other +bigots. + +The author who is now before us, belongs to a _sect_ of poets, that has +established itself in this country within these ten or twelve years, and +is looked upon, we believe, as one of its chief champions and apostles. +The peculiar doctrines of this sect, it would not, perhaps, be very easy +to explain; but, that they are _dissenters_ from the established systems +in poetry and criticism, is admitted, and proved indeed, by the whole +tenor of their compositions. Though they lay claim, we believe, to a +creed and a revelation of their own, there can be little doubt, that +their doctrines are of _German_ origin, and have been derived from some +of the great modern reformers in that country. Some of their leading +principles, indeed, are probably of an earlier date, and seem to have +been borrowed from the great apostle of Geneva. As Mr. Southey is the +first author, of this persuasion, that has yet been brought before us +for judgment, we cannot discharge our inquisitorial office +conscientiously, without premising a few words upon the nature and +tendency of the tenets he has helped to promulgate. + +The disciples of this school boast much of its originality, and seem to +value themselves very highly, for having broken loose from the bondage +of ancient authority, and re-asserted the independence of genius. +Originality, however, we are persuaded, is rarer than mere alteration; +and a man may change a good master for a bad one, without finding +himself at all nearer to independence. That our new poets have abandoned +the old models, may certainly be admitted; but we have not been able to +discover that they have yet created any models of their own; and are +very much inclined to call in question the worthiness of those to which +they have transferred their admiration. The productions of this school, +we conceive, are so far from being entitled to the praise of +originality, that they cannot be better characterised, than by an +enumeration of the sources from which their materials have been derived. +The greater part of them, we apprehend, will be found to be composed of +the following elements: (1) The antisocial principles, and distempered +sensibility of Rousseau--his discontent with the present constitution of +society--his paradoxical morality, and his perpetual hankerings after +some unattainable state of voluptuous virtue and perfection. (2) The +simplicity and energy (_horresco referens_) of Kotzebue and Schiller. +(3) The homeliness and harshness of some of Cowper's language and +versification, interchanged occasionally with the _innocence_ of Ambrose +Philips, or the quaintness of Quarles and Dr. Donne. From the diligent +study of these few originals, we have no doubt that an entire art of +poetry may be collected, by the assistance of which, the very _gentlest_ +of our readers may soon be qualified to compose a poem as correctly +versified as Thalaba, and to deal out sentiment and description, with +all the sweetness of Lamb, and all the magnificence of Coleridge. + +The authors, of whom we are now speaking, have, among them, +unquestionably, a very considerable portion of poetical talent, and +have, consequently, been enabled to seduce many into an admiration of +the false taste (as it appears to us) in which most of their productions +are composed. They constitute, at present, the most formidable +conspiracy that has lately been formed against sound judgment in matters +poetical; and are entitled to a larger share of our censorial notice, +than could be spared for an individual delinquent. We shall hope for the +indulgence of our readers, therefore, in taking this opportunity to +inquire a little more particularly into their merits, and to make a few +remarks upon those peculiarities which seem to be regarded by their +admirers as the surest proofs of their excellence. + +Their most distinguishing symbol, is undoubtedly an affectation of great +simplicity and familiarity of language. They disdain to make use of the +common poetical phraseology, or to ennoble their diction by a selection +of fine or dignified expressions. There would be too much _art_ in this, +for that great love of nature with which they are all of them inspired; +and their sentiments, they are determined shall be indebted, for their +effect, to nothing but their intrinsic tenderness or elevation. There is +something very noble and conscientious, we will confess, in this plan of +composition; but the misfortune is, that there are passages in all +poems, that can neither be pathetic nor sublime; and that, on these +occasions, a neglect of the embellishments of language is very apt to +produce absolute meanness and insipidity. The language of passion, +indeed, can scarcely be deficient in elevation; and when an author is +wanting in that particular, he may commonly be presumed to have failed +in the truth, as well as in the dignity of his expression. The case, +however, is extremely different with the subordinate parts of a +composition; with the narrative and description, that are necessary to +preserve its connection; and the explanation, that must frequently +prepare us for the great scenes and splendid passages. In these, all the +requisite ideas may be conveyed, with sufficient clearness, by the +meanest and most negligent expressions; and if magnificence or beauty is +ever to be observed in them, it must have been introduced from some +other motive than that of adapting the style to the subject. It is in +such passages, accordingly, that we are most frequently offended with +low and inelegant expressions; and that the language, which was intended +to be simple and natural, is found oftenest to degenerate into mere +slovenliness and vulgarity. It is in vain, too, to expect that the +meanness of those parts may be redeemed by the excellence of others. A +poet, who aims at all at sublimity or pathos, is like an actor in a high +tragic character, and must sustain his dignity throughout, or become +altogether ridiculous. We are apt enough to laugh at the mock-majesty of +those whom we know to be but common mortals in private; and cannot +permit Hamlet to make use of a single provincial intonation, although it +should only be in his conversation with the grave-diggers. + +The followers of simplicity are, therefore, at all times in danger of +occasional degradation; but the simplicity of this new school seems +intended to ensure it. _Their_ simplicity does not consist, by any +means, in the rejection of glaring or superfluous ornament--in the +substitution of elegance to splendour, or in that refinement of art +which seeks concealment in its own perfection. It consists, on the +contrary, in a very great degree, in the positive and _bonâ fide_ +rejection of art altogether, and in the bold use of those rude and +negligent expressions, which would be banished by a little +discrimination. One of their own authors, indeed, has very ingeniously +set forth (in a kind of manifesto that preceded one of their most +flagrant acts of hostility), that it was their capital object "to adapt +to the uses of poetry, the ordinary language of conversation among the +middling and lower orders of the people." What advantages are to be +gained by the success of this project, we confess ourselves unable to +conjecture. The language of the higher and more cultivated orders may +fairly be presumed to be better than that of their inferiors: at any +rate, it has all those associations in its favour, by means of which, a +style can ever appear beautiful or exalted, and is adapted to the +purposes of poetry, by having been long consecrated to its use. The +language of the vulgar, on the other hand, has all the opposite +associations to contend with; and must seem unfit for poetry (if there +were no other reason), merely because it has scarcely ever been employed +in it. A great genius may indeed overcome these disadvantages; but we +can scarcely conceive that he should court them. We may excuse a certain +homeliness of language in the productions of a ploughman or a milkwoman; +but we cannot bring ourselves to admire it in an author, who has had +occasion to indite odes to his college bell, and inscribe hymns to the +Penates. + +But the mischief of this new system is not confined to the depravation +of language only; it extends to the sentiments and emotions, and leads +to the debasement of all those feelings which poetry is designed to +communicate. It is absurd to suppose, that an author should make use of +the language of the vulgar, to express the sentiments of the refined. +His professed object, in employing that language, is to bring his +compositions nearer to the true standard of nature; and his intention to +copy the sentiments of the lower orders, is implied in his resolution to +make use of their style. Now, the different classes of society have each +of them a distinct character, as well as a separate idiom; and the names +of the various passions to which they are subject respectively, have a +signification that varies essentially according to the condition of the +persons to whom they are applied. The love, or grief, or indignation of +an enlightened and refined character, is not only expressed in a +different language, but is in itself a different emotion from the love, +or grief, or anger, of a clown, a tradesman, or a market-wench. The +things themselves are radically and obviously distinct; and the +representation of them is calculated to convey a very different train of +sympathies and sensations to the mind. The question, therefore, comes +simply to be--which of them is the most proper object for poetical +imitation? It is needless for us to answer a question, which the +practice of all the world has long ago decided irrevocably. The poor and +vulgar may interest us, in poetry, by their _situation_; but never, we +apprehend, by any sentiments that are peculiar to their condition, and +still less by any language that is characteristic of it. The truth is, +that it is impossible to copy their diction or their sentiments +correctly, in a serious composition; and this, not merely because +poverty makes men ridiculous, but because just taste and refined +sentiment are rarely to be met with among the uncultivated part of +mankind; and a language, fitted for their expression, can still more +rarely form any part of their "ordinary conversation." + +The low-bred heroes, and interesting rustics of poetry, have no sort of +affinity to the real vulgar of this world; they are imaginary beings, +whose characters and language are in contrast with their situation; and +please those who can be pleased with them, by the marvellous, and not by +the nature of such a combination. In serious poetry, a man of the +middling or lower order _must necessarily_ lay aside a great deal of his +ordinary language; he must avoid errors in grammar and orthography; and +steer clear of the cant of particular professions, and of every +impropriety that is ludicrous or disgusting: nay, he must speak in good +verse, and observe all the graces in prosody and collocation. After all +this, it may not be very easy to say how we are to find him out to be a +low man, or what marks can remain of the ordinary language of +conversation in the inferior orders of society. If there be any phrases +that are not used in good society, they will appear as blemishes in the +composition, no less palpably, than errors in syntax or quality; and, if +there be no such phrases, the style cannot be characteristic of that +condition of life, the language of which it professes to have adopted. +All approximation to that language, in the same manner, implies a +deviation from that purity and precision, which no one, we believe, ever +violated spontaneously. + +It has been argued, indeed (for men will argue in support of what they +do not venture to practise), that as the middling and lower orders of +society constitute by far the greater part of mankind, so, their +feelings and expressions should interest more extensively, and may be +taken, more fairly than any other, for the standards of what is natural +and true. To this it seems obvious to answer, that the arts that aim at +exciting admiration and delight, do not take their models from what is +ordinary, but from what is excellent; and that our interest in the +representation of any event, does not depend upon our familiarity with +the original, but on its intrinsic importance, and the celebrity of the +parties it concerns. The sculptor employs his art in delineating the +graces of Antinous or Apollo, and not in the representation of those +ordinary forms that belong to the crowd of his admirers. When a +chieftain perishes in battle, his followers mourn more for him, than for +thousands of their equals that may have fallen around him. + +After all, it must be admitted, that there is a class of persons (we are +afraid they cannot be called _readers_), to whom the representation of +vulgar manners, in vulgar language, will afford much entertainment. We +are afraid, however, that the ingenious writers who supply the hawkers +and ballad-singers, have very nearly monopolised that department, and +are probably better qualified to hit the taste of their customers, than +Mr. Southey, or any of his brethren, can yet pretend to be. To fit them +for the higher task of original composition, it would not be amiss if +they were to undertake a translation of Pope or Milton into the vulgar +tongue, for the benefit of those children of nature. + +There is another disagreeable effect of this affected simplicity, which, +though of less importance than those which have been already noticed, it +may yet be worth while to mention: This is, the extreme difficulty of +supporting the same low tone of expression throughout, and the +inequality that is consequently introduced into the texture of the +composition. To an author of reading and education, it is a style that +must always be assumed and unnatural, and one from which he will be +perpetually tempted to deviate. He will rise, therefore, every now and +then, above the level to which he has professedly degraded himself; and +make amends for that transgression, by a fresh effort of descension. His +composition, in short, will be like that of a person who is attempting +to speak in an obsolete or provincial dialect; he will betray himself by +expressions of occasional purity and elegance, and exert himself to +efface that impression, by passages of unnatural meanness or absurdity. + +In making these strictures on the perverted taste for simplicity, that +seems to distinguish our modern school of poetry, we have no particular +allusion to Mr. Southey, or the production now before us: On the +contrary, he appears to us, to be less addicted to this fault than most +of his fraternity; and if we were in want of examples to illustrate the +preceding observations, we should certainly look for them in the +effusions of that poet who commemorates, with so much effect, the +chattering of Harry Gill's teeth, tells the tale of the one-eyed +huntsman "who had a cheek like a cherry," and beautifully warns his +studious friend of the risk he ran of "growing double." + + * * * * * + +The _style_ of our modern poets, is that, no doubt, by which they are +most easily distinguished: but their genius has also an internal +character; and the peculiarities of their taste may be discovered, +without the assistance of their diction. Next after great familiarity of +language, there is nothing that appears to them so meritorious as +perpetual exaggeration of thought. There must be nothing moderate, +natural, or easy, about their sentiments. There must be a "qu'il +mourut," and a "let there be light," in every line; and all their +characters must be in agonies and ecstasies, from their entrance to +their exit. To those who are acquainted with their productions, it is +needless to speak of the fatigue that is produced by this unceasing +summons to admiration, or of the compassion which is excited by the +spectacle of these eternal strainings and distortions. Those authors +appear to forget, that a whole poem cannot be made up of striking +passages; and that the sensations produced by sublimity, are never so +powerful and entire, as when they are allowed to subside and revive, in +a slow and spontaneous succession. It is delightful, now and then, to +meet with a rugged mountain, or a roaring stream; but where there is no +funny slope, nor shaded plain, to relieve them--where all is beetling +cliff and yawning abyss, and the landscape presents nothing on every +side but prodigies and terrors--the head is apt to gow giddy, and the +heart to languish for the repose and security of a less elevated region. + +The effect even of genuine sublimity, therefore, is impaired by the +injudicious frequency of its exhibition, and the omission of those +intervals and breathing-places, at which the mind should be permitted to +recover from its perturbation or astonishment: but, where it has been +summoned upon a false alarm, and disturbed in the orderly course of its +attention, by an impotent attempt at elevation, the consequences are +still more disastrous. There is nothing so ridiculous (at least for a +poet) as to fail in great attempts. If the reader foresaw the failure, +he may receive some degree of mischievous satisfaction from its punctual +occurrence; if he did not, he will be vexed and disappointed; and, in +both cases, he will very speedily be disgusted and fatigued. It would be +going too far, certainly, to maintain, that our modern poets have never +succeeded in their persevering endeavours at elevation and emphasis; but +it is a melancholy fact, that their successes bear but a small +proportion to their miscarriages; and that the reader who has been +promised an energetic sentiment, or sublime allusion, must often be +contented with a very miserable substitute. Of the many contrivances +they employ to give the appearance of uncommon force and animation to a +very ordinary conception, the most usual is, to wrap it up in a veil of +mysterious and unintelligible language, which flows past with so much +solemnity, that it is difficult to believe it conveys nothing of any +value. Another device for improving the effect of a cold idea, is, to +embody it in a verse of unusual harshness and asperity. Compound words, +too, of a portentous sound and conformation, are very useful in giving +an air of energy and originality; and a few lines of scripture, written +out into verse from the original prose, have been found to have a very +happy effect upon those readers to whom they have the recommendation of +novelty. + +The qualities of style and imagery, however, form but a small part of +the characteristics by which a literary faction is to be distinguished. +The subject and object of their compositions, and the principles and +opinions they are calculated to support, constitute a far more important +criterion, and one to which it is usually altogether as easy to refer. +Some poets are sufficiently described as the flatterers of greatness and +power, and others as the champions of independence. One set of writers +is known by its antipathy to decency and religion; another, by its +methodistical cant and intolerance. Our new school of poetry has a moral +character also; though it may not be possible, perhaps, to delineate it +quite so concisely. + +A splenetic and idle discontent with the existing institutions of +society, seems to be at the bottom of all their serious and peculiar +sentiments. Instead of contemplating the wonders and the pleasures which +civilization has created for mankind, they are perpetually brooding over +the disorders by which its progress has been attended. They are filled +with horror and compassion at the sight of poor men spending their blood +in the quarrels of princes, and brutifying their sublime capabilities in +the drudgery of unremitting labour. For all sorts of vice and profligacy +in the lower orders of society, they have the same virtuous horror, and +the same tender compassion. While the existence of these offences +overpowers them with grief and confusion, they never permit themselves +to feel the smallest indignation or dislike towards the offenders. The +present vicious constitution of society alone is responsible for all +these enormities: the poor sinners are but the helpless victims or +instruments of its disorders, and could not possibly have avoided the +errors into which they have been betrayed. Though they can bear with +crimes, therefore, they cannot reconcile themselves to punishments; and +have an unconquerable antipathy to prisons, gibbets, and houses of +correction, as engines of oppression, and instruments of atrocious +injustice. While the plea of moral necessity is thus artfully brought +forward to convert all the excesses of the poor into innocent +misfortunes, no sort of indulgence is shown to the offences of the +powerful and rich. Their oppressions, and seductions, and debaucheries, +are the theme of many an angry verse; and the indignation and abhorrence +of the reader is relentlessly conjured up against those perturbators of +society, and scourges of mankind. + +It is not easy to say, whether the fundamental absurdity of this +doctrine, or the partiality of its application, be entitled to the +severest reprehension. If men are driven to commit crimes, through a +certain moral necessity; other men are compelled, by a similar +necessity, to hate and despise them for their commission. The +indignation of the sufferer is at least as natural as the guilt of him +who makes him suffer; and the good order of society would probably be as +well preserved, if our sympathies were sometimes called forth in behalf +of the former. At all events, the same apology ought certainly to be +admitted for the wealthy, as for the needy offender. They are subject +alike to the overruling influence of necessity, and equally affected by +the miserable condition of society. If it be natural for a poor man to +murder and rob, in order to make himself comfortable, it is no less +natural for a rich man to gormandise and domineer, in order to have the +full use of his riches. Wealth is just as valid an excuse for the one +class of vices, as indigence is for the other. There are many other +peculiarities of false sentiment in the productions of this class of +writers, that are sufficiently deserving of commemoration; but we have +already exceeded our limits in giving these general indications of their +character, and must now hasten back to the consideration of the singular +performance which has given occasion to all this discussion. + +The first thing that strikes the reader of Thalaba, is the singular +structure of the versification, which is a jumble of all the measures +that are known in English poetry (and a few more), without rhyme, and +without any sort of regularity in their arrangement. Blank odes have +been known in this country about as long as English sapphics and +dactylics; and both have been considered, we believe, as a species of +monsters, or exotics, that were not very likely to propagate, or thrive, +in so unpropitious a climate. Mr. Southey, however, has made a vigorous +effort for their naturalisation, and generously endangered his own +reputation in their behalf. The melancholy fate of his English sapphics, +we believe, is but too generally known; and we can scarcely predict a +more favourable issue to the present experiment. Every combination of +different measures is apt to perplex and disturb the reader who is not +familiar with it; and we are never reconciled to a stanza of a new +structure, till we have accustomed our ear to it by two or three +repetitions. This is the case, even where we have the assistance of +rhyme to direct us in our search after regularity, and where the +definite form and appearance of a stanza assures us that regularity is +to be found. Where both of these are wanting, it may be imagined that +our condition will be still more deplorable; and a compassionate author +might even excuse us, if we were unable to distinguish this kind of +verse from prose. In reading verse, in general, we are guided to the +discovery of its melody, by a sort of preconception of its cadence and +compass; without which, it might often fail to be suggested by the mere +articulation of the syllables. If there be any one, whose recollection +does not furnish him with evidence of this fact, he may put it to the +test of experiment, by desiring any of his illiterate acquaintances to +read off some of Mr. Southey's dactylics, or Sir Philip Sidney's +hexameters. It is the same thing with the more unusual measures of the +ancient authors. We have never known any one who fell in, at the first +trial, with the proper rhyme and cadence of the _pervigilium Veneris_, +or the choral lyrics of the Greek dramatists. The difficulty, however, +is virtually the same, as to every new combination; and it is an +unsurmountable difficulty, where such new combinations are not repeated +with any degree of uniformity, but are multiplied, through the whole +composition, with an unbounded licence of variation. Such, however, is +confessedly the case with the work before us; and it really seems +unnecessary to make any other remark on its versification. + +The author, however, entertains a different opinion of it. So far from +apprehending that it may cost his readers some trouble to convince +themselves that the greater part of the book is not mere prose, written +out into the form of verse, he is persuaded that its melody is more +obvious and perceptible than that of our vulgar measures. "One +advantage," says Mr. Southey, "this metre _assuredly_ possesses; the +dullest reader cannot distort it into discord: he may read it with a +_prose mouth_, but its flow and fall will still be perceptible." We are +afraid, there are duller readers in the world than Mr. Southey is aware +of. + + * * * * * + +The subject of this poem is almost as ill chosen as the diction; and the +conduct of the fable as disorderly as the versification. The corporation +of magicians, that inhabit "the Domdaniel caverns, under the roots of +the ocean," had discovered, that a terrible _destroyer_ was likely to +rise up against them from the seed of Hodeirah, a worthy Arab, with +eight fine children. Immediately the murder of all those innocents is +resolved on; and a sturdy assassin sent with instructions to destroy the +whole family (as Mr. Southey has it) "root and branch." The good man, +accordingly, and seven of his children, are dispatched; but a cloud +comes over the mother and the remaining child; and the poem opens with +the picture of the widow and her orphan wandering, by night, over the +desarts of Arabia. The old lady, indeed, might as well have fallen under +the dagger of the Domdanielite; for she dies, without doing anything for +her child, in the end of the first book; and little Thalaba is left +crying in the wilderness. Here he is picked up by a good old Arab, who +takes him home, and educates him like a pious mussulman; and he and the +old man's daughter fall in love with each other, according to the +invariable custom in all such cases. The magicians, in the meantime, are +hunting him over the face of the whole earth; and one of them gets near +enough to draw his dagger to stab him, when a providential _simoom_ lays +him dead on the sand. From the dead sorcerer's finger, Thalaba takes a +ring, inscribed with some unintelligible characters, which he is enabled +to interpret by the help of some other unintelligible characters that he +finds on the forehead of a locust; and soon after takes advantage of an +eclipse of the sun, to set out on his expedition against his father's +murderers, whom he understands (we do not very well know how) he has +been commissioned to exterminate. Though they are thus seeking him, and +he seeking them, it is amazing what difficulty they find in meeting: +they do meet, however, every now and then, and many sore evils does the +Destroyer suffer at their hands. By faith and fortitude, however, and +the occasional assistance of the magic implements he strips them of, he +is enabled to baffle and elude their malice, till he is conducted, at +last, to the Domdaniel cavern, where he finds them assembled, and pulls +down the roof of it upon their heads and his own; perishing, like +Samson, in the final destruction of his enemies. + +From this little sketch of the story, our readers will easily perceive, +that it consists altogether of the most wild and extravagant fictions, +and openly sets nature and probability at defiance. In its action, it is +not an imitation of anything; and excludes all rational criticism, as to +the choice and succession of its incidents. Tales of this sort may amuse +children, and interest, for a moment, by the prodigies they exhibit, and +the multitude of events they bring together: but the interest expires +with the novelty; and attention is frequently exhausted, even before +curiosity has been gratified. The pleasure afforded by performances of +this sort, is very much akin to that which may be derived from the +exhibition of a harlequin farce; where, instead of just imitations of +nature and human character, we are entertained with the transformation +of cauliflowers and beer-barrels, the apparition of ghosts and devils, +and all the other magic of the wooden sword. Those who can prefer this +eternal sorcery, to the just and modest representation of human actions +and passions, will probably take more delight in walking among the holly +griffins, and yew sphinxes of the city gardener, than in ranging among +the groves and lawns which have been laid out by a hand that feared to +violate nature, as much as it aspired to embellish her; and disdained +the easy art of startling by novelties, and surprising by impropriety. + +Supernatural beings, though easily enough raised, are known to be very +troublesome in the management, and have frequently occasioned much +perplexity to poets and other persons who have been rash enough to call +for their assistance. It is no very easy matter to preserve consistency +in the disposal of powers, with the limits of which we are so far from +being familiar; and when it is necessary to represent our spiritual +persons as ignorant, or suffering, we are very apt to forget the +knowledge and the powers with which we had formerly invested them. The +ancient poets had several unlucky rencounters of this sort with Destiny +and the other deities; and Milton himself is not a little hampered with +the material and immaterial qualities of his angels. Enchanters and +witches may, at first sight, appear more manageable; but Mr. Southey has +had difficulty enough with them; and cannot be said, after all, to have +kept his fable quite clear and intelligible. The stars had said, that +the Destroyer might be cut off in that hour when his father and brethren +were assassinated; yet he is saved by a special interposition of heaven. +Heaven itself, however, had destined him to extirpate the votaries of +Eblis; and yet, long before this work is done, a special message is sent +to him, declaring, that, if he chooses, the death-angel is ready to take +him away instead of the sorcerer's daughter. In the beginning of the +story, too, the magicians are quite at a loss where to look for him; and +Abdaldar only discovers him by accident, after a long search; yet, no +sooner does he leave the old Arab's tent, than Lobaba comes up to him, +disguised and prepared for his destruction. The witches have also a +decoy ready for him in the desart; yet he sups with Okba's daughter, +without any of the sorcerers being aware of it; and afterwards proceeds +to consult the simorg, without meeting with any obstacle or molestation. +The simoom kills Abdaldar, too, in spite of that ring which afterwards +protects Thalaba from lightning, and violence, and magic. The +Destroyer's arrow then falls blunted from Lobaba's breast, who is +knocked down, however, by a shower of sand of his own raising; and this +same arrow, which could make no impression on the sorcerer, kills the +magic bird of Aloadin, and pierces the rebellious _spirit_ that guarded +the Domdaniel door. The whole infernal band, indeed, is very feebly and +heavily pourtrayed. They are a set of stupid, undignified, miserable +wretches, quarrelling with each other, and trembling in the prospect of +inevitable destruction. None of them even appears to have obtained the +price of their self-sacrifice in worldly honours and advancement, except +Mohareb; and he, though assured by destiny that there was one death-blow +appointed for him and Thalaba, is yet represented, in the concluding +scene, as engaged with him in furious combat, and aiming many a deadly +blow at that life on which his own was dependent. If the innocent +characters in this poem were not delineated with more truth and feeling, +the notoriety of the author would scarcely have induced us to bestow so +much time on its examination. + +Though the tissue of adventures through which Thalaba is conducted in +the course of this production, be sufficiently various and +extraordinary, we must not set down any part of the incidents to the +credit of the author's invention. He has taken great pains, indeed, to +guard against such a supposition; and has been as scrupulously correct +in the citation of his authorities, as if he were the compiler of a true +history, and thought his reputation would be ruined by the imputation of +a single fiction. There is not a prodigy, accordingly, or a description, +for which he does not fairly produce his vouchers, and generally lays +before his readers the whole original passage from which his imitation +has been taken. In this way, it turns out, that the book is entirely +composed of scraps, borrowed from the oriental tale books, and travels +into the Mahometan countries, seasoned up for the English reader with +some fragments of our own ballads, and shreds of our older sermons. The +composition and harmony of the work, accordingly, is much like the +pattern of that patch-work drapery that is sometimes to be met with in +the mansions of the industrious, where a blue tree overshadows a +shell-fish, and a gigantic butterfly seems ready to swallow up Palemon +and Lavinia. The author has the merit merely of cutting out each of his +figures from the piece where its inventor had placed it, and stitching +them down together in these judicious combinations. + +It is impossible to peruse this poem, with the notes, without feeling +that it is the fruit of much reading, undertaken for the express purpose +of fabricating some such performance. The author has set out with a +resolution to make an oriental story, and a determination to find the +materials of it in the books to which he had access. Every incident, +therefore, and description--every superstitious usage, or singular +tradition, that appeared to him susceptible of poetical embellishment, +or capable of picturesque representation, he has set down for this +purpose, and adopted such a fable and plan of composition, as might +enable him to work up all his materials, and interweave every one of his +quotations, without any _extraordinary_ violation of unity or order. +When he had filled his common-place book, he began to write; and his +poem is little else than his common-place book versified. + +It may easily be imagined, that a poem constructed upon such a plan, +must be full of cumbrous and misplaced description, and overloaded with +a crowd of incidents equally unmeaning and ill assorted. The tedious +account of the palace of Shedad, in the first book--the description of +the Summer and Winter occupations of the Arabs, in the third--the +ill-told story of Haruth and Maruth--the greater part of the occurrences +in the island of Mohareb--the paradise of Aloadin, etc., etc.--are all +instances of disproportioned and injudicious ornaments, which never +could have presented themselves to an author who wrote from the +suggestions of his own fancy; and have evidently been introduced, from +the author's unwillingness to relinquish the corresponding passages in +D'Herbelot, Sale, Volney, etc., which appeared to him to have great +capabilities for poetry. + +This imitation, or admiration of Oriental imagery, however, does not +bring so much suspicion on his taste, as the affection he betrays for +some of his domestic models. The former has, for the most part, the +recommendation of novelty; and there is always a certain pleasure in +contemplating the _costume_ of a distant nation, and the luxuriant +landscape of an Asiatic climate. We cannot find the same apology, +however, for Mr. Southey's partiality to the drawling vulgarity of some +of our old English ditties. + + * * * * * + +From the extracts and observations which we have hitherto presented to +our readers, it will be natural for them to conclude, that our opinion +of this poem is very decidedly unfavourable; and that we are not +disposed to allow it any sort of merit. This, however, is by no means +the case. We think it written, indeed, in a very vicious taste, and +liable, upon the whole, to very formidable objections: But it would not +be doing justice to the genius of the author, if we were not to add, +that, it contains passages of very singular beauty and force, and +displays a richness of poetical conception, that would do honour to more +faultless compositions. There is little of human character in the poem, +indeed; because Thalaba is a solitary wanderer from the solitary tent of +his protector: But the home group, in which his infancy was spent, is +pleasingly delineated; and there is something irresistibly interesting +in the innocent love, and misfortunes, and fate of his Oneiza. The +catastrophe of her story is given, it appears to us, with great spirit +and effect, though the beauties are of that questionable kind, that +trespass on the border of impropriety, and partake more of the character +of dramatic, than of narrative poetry. After delivering her from the +polluted paradise of Aloadin, he prevails on her to marry him before his +mission is accomplished. She consents with great reluctance; and the +marriage feast, with its processions, songs, and ceremonies, is +described in some joyous stanzas. The book ends with these verses-- + + And now the marriage feast is spread, + And from the finished banquet now + The wedding guests are gone. + * * * * * + Who comes from the bridal chamber? + It is Azrael, the Angel of Death. + +The next book opens with Thalaba lying distracted upon her grave, in the +neighbourhood of which he had wandered, till "the sun, and the wind, +and the rain, had rusted his raven locks"; and there he is found by the +father of his bride, and visited by her ghost, and soothed and +encouraged to proceed upon his holy enterprise. He sets out on his +lonely way, and is entertained the first night by a venerable dervise: +As they are sitting at meal, a _bridal procession_ passes by, with +dance, and song, and merriment. The old dervise blessed them as they +passed; but Thalaba looked on, "and breathed a low deep groan, and hid +his face." These incidents are skilfully imagined, and are narrated in a +very impressive manner. + +Though the _witchery_ scenes are in general but poorly executed, and +possess little novelty to those who have read the Arabian Nights +Entertainments, there is, occasionally, some fine description, and +striking combination. We do not remember any poem, indeed, that +presents, throughout, a greater number of lively images, or could afford +so many subjects for the pencil. + + * * * * * + +All the productions of this author, it appears to us, bear very +distinctly the impression of an amiable mind, a cultivated fancy, and a +perverted taste. His genius seems naturally to delight in the +representation of domestic virtues and pleasures, and the brilliant +delineation of external nature. In both these departments, he is +frequently very successful; but he seems to want vigour for the loftier +flights of poetry. He is often puerile, diffuse, and artificial, and +seems to have but little acquaintance with those chaster and severer +graces, by whom the epic muse would be most suitably attended. His +faults are always aggravated, and often created, by his partiality for +the peculiar manner of that new school of poetry, of which he is a +faithful disciple, and to the glory of which he has sacrificed greater +talents and acquisitions, than can be boasted of by any of his +associates. + + + +ON SOUTHEY'S LAUREATE LAYS + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, June, 1816] + +_The Lay of the Laureate. Carmen Nuptiale_. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq., +Poet Laureate, &c., &c. 12mo. pp. 78. London, 1816. + + +A poet laureate, we take it, is naturally a ridiculous person: and has +scarcely any safe course to follow, in times like the present, but to +bear his faculties with exceeding meekness, and to keep as much as +possible in the shade. A stipendiary officer of the Royal household, +bound to produce two lyrical compositions ever year, in praise of his +Majesty's person and government, is undoubtedly an object which it is +difficult to contemplate with gravity; and which can only have been +retained in existence, from that love of antique pomp and establishment +which has embellished our Court with so many gold-sticks and white rods, +and such trains of beef-eaters and grooms of the stole--though it has +submitted to the suppression of the more sprightly appendages of a +king's fool, or a court jester. That the household poet should have +survived the other wits of the establishment, can only be explained by +the circumstance of his office being more easily converted into one of +mere pomp and ceremony, and coming thus to afford an antient and +well-sounding name for a moderate sinecure. For more than a century, +accordingly, it has existed on this footing; and its duties, like those +of the other personages to whom we have just alluded, have been +discharged with a decorous gravity and unobtrusive quietness, which has +provoked no derision, merely because it has attracted no notice. + +The present possessor, however, appears to have other notions on the +subject; and has very distinctly manifested his resolution not to rest +satisfied with the salary, sherry, and safe obscurity of his +predecessors, but to claim a real power and prerogative in the world of +letters, in virtue of his title and appointment. Now, in this, we +conceive, with all due humility, that there is a little mistake of fact, +and a little error of judgment. The laurel which the King gives, we are +credibly informed, has nothing at all in common with that which is +bestowed by the Muses; and the Prince Regent's warrant is absolutely of +no authority in the court of Apollo. If this be the case, however, it +follows, that a poet laureate has no sort of precedency among poets,-- +whatever may be his place among pages and clerks of the kitchen;--and +that he has no more pretensions as an author, than if his appointment +had been to the mastership of the stag-hounds. When he takes state upon +him with the public, therefore, in consequence of his office, he really +is guilty of as ludicrous a blunder as the worthy American _Consul_, in +one of the Hanse towns, who painted the Roman _fasces_ on the pannel of +his buggy, and insisted upon calling his foot-boy and clerk his +_lictors_. Except when he is in his official duty, therefore, the King's +house-poet would do well to keep the nature of his office out of sight; +and, when he is compelled to appear in it in public, should try to get +through with the business as quickly and quietly as possible. The brawny +drayman who enacts the Champion of England in the Lord Mayor's show, is +in some danger of being sneered at by the spectators, even when he paces +along with the timidity and sobriety that becomes his condition; but if +he were to take it into his head to make serious boast of his prowess, +and to call upon the city bards to celebrate his heroic acts, the very +apprentices could not restrain their laughter,--and "the humorous man" +would have but small chance of finishing his part in peace. + +Mr. Southey could not be ignorant of all this; and yet it appears that +he could not have known it all. He must have been conscious, we think, +of the ridicule attached to his office, and might have known that there +were only two ways of counteracting it,--either by sinking the office +altogether in his public appearances, or by writing such very good +verses in the discharge of it, as might defy ridicule, and render +neglect impossible. Instead of this, however, he has allowed himself to +write rather worse than any Laureate before him, and has betaken himself +to the luckless and vulgar expedient of endeavouring to face out the +thing by an air of prodigious confidence and assumption:--and has had +the usual fortune of such undertakers, by becoming only more +conspicuously ridiculous. The badness of his official productions indeed +is something really wonderful,--though not more so than the amazing +self-complacency and self-praise with which they are given to the world. +With the finest themes in the world for that sort of writing, they are +the dullest, tamest, and most tedious things ever poor critic was +condemned, or other people vainly invited, to read. They are a great +deal more wearisome, and rather more unmeaning and unnatural, than the +effusions of his predecessors, Messrs. Pye and Whitehead; and are +moreover disfigured with the most abominable egotism, conceit and +dogmatism, than we ever met with in any thing intended for the public +eye. They are filled, indeed, with praises of the author himself, and +his works, and his laurel, and his dispositions; notices of his various +virtues and studies; puffs of the productions he is preparing for the +press, and anticipations of the fame which he is to reap by their means, +from a less ungrateful age; and all this delivered with such an oracular +seriousness and assurance, that it is easy to see the worthy Laureate +thinks himself entitled to share in the prerogatives of that royalty +which he is bound to extol, and has resolved to make it + + --his great example as it is his theme. + +For, as sovereign Princes are permitted, in their manifestoes and +proclamations, to speak of their own gracious pleasure and royal wisdom, +without imputation of arrogance, so, our Laureate has persuaded himself +that he may address the subject world in the same lofty strains, and +that they will listen with as dutiful an awe to the authoritative +exposition of his own genius and glory. What might have been the success +of the experiment, if the execution had been as masterly as the design +is bold, we shall not trouble ourselves to conjecture; but the contrast +between the greatness of the praise and the badness of the poetry in +which it is conveyed, and to which it is partly applied, is abundantly +decisive of its result in the present instance, as well as in all the +others in which the ingenious author has adopted the same style. We took +some notice of the _Carmen Triumphale_, which stood at the head of the +series. But of the Odes which afterwards followed to the Prince Regent, +and the Sovereigns and Generals who came to visit him, we had the +charity to say nothing; and were willing indeed to hope, that the +lamentable failure of that attempt might admonish the author, at least +as effectually as any intimations of ours. Here, however, we have him +again, with a _Lay of the Laureate_, and a _Carmen Nuptiale_, if +possible still more boastful and more dull than any of his other +celebrations. It is necessary, therefore, to bring the case once more +before the Public, for the sake both of correction and example; and as +the work is not likely to find many readers, and is of a tenor which +would not be readily believed upon any general representation, we must +now beg leave to give a faithful analysis of its different parts, with a +few specimens of the taste and manner of its execution. + +Its object is to commemorate the late auspicious marriage of the +presumptive Heiress of the English crown with the young Prince of +Saxe-Cobourg; and consists of a Proem, a Dream, and an Epilogue--with a +L'envoy, and various annotations. The Proem, as was most fitting, is +entirely devoted to the praise of the Laureate himself; and contains an +account, which cannot fail to be very interesting, both to his Royal +auditors and to the world at large, of his early studies and +attainments--the excellence of his genius--the nobleness of his views-- +and the happiness that has been the result of these precious gifts. Then +there is mention made of his pleasure in being appointed Poet Laureate, +and of the rage and envy which that event excited in all the habitations +of the malignant. This is naturally followed up by a full account of all +his official productions, and some modest doubts whether his genius is +not too heroic and pathetic for the composition of an _Epithalamium,_-- +which doubts, however, are speedily and pleasingly resolved by the +recollection, that as Spenser made a hymn on his own marriage, so, there +can be nothing improper in Mr. Southey doing as much on that of the +Princess Charlotte. This is the general argument of the Proem. But the +reader must know a little more of the details. In his early youth, the +ingenious author says he aspired to the fame of a poet; and then Fancy +came to him, and showed him the glories of his future career, addressing +him in these encouraging words-- + + Thou whom rich Nature at thy happy birth + Blest in her bounty with the largest dower + That Heaven indulges to a child of earth! + +Being fully persuaded of the truth of her statements, we have then the +satisfaction of learning that he has lived a very happy life; and that, +though time has made his hair a little grey, it has only matured his +understanding; and that he is still as habitually cheerful as when he +was a boy. He then proceeds to inform us, that he sometimes does a +little in poetry still; but that, of late years, he spends most of his +time in writing histories--from which he has no doubt that he will one +day or another acquire great reputation. + + Thus in the ages which are past I live, + And those which are to come my sure reward will give.... + +We come next, of course, to the Dream; and nothing more stupid or heavy, +we will venture to say, ever arose out of sleep, or tended to sleep +again. The unhappy Laureate, it seems, just saw, upon shutting his eyes, +what he might have seen as well if he had been able to keep them open--a +great crowd of people and coaches in the street, with marriage favours +in their bosoms; church bells ringing merrily, and _feux-de-joie_ firing +in all directions. Eftsoons, says the dreaming poet, I came to a great +door, where there were guards placed to keep off the mob; but when they +saw my Laurel crown, they made way for me, and let me in!-- + + But I had entrance through that guarded door, + In honour to the Laureate crown I wore. + +When he gets in, he finds himself in a large hall, decorated with +trophies, and pictures, and statues, commemorating the triumphs of +British valour, from Aboukir to Waterloo. The room, moreover, was filled +with a great number of ladies and gentlemen very finely dressed; and in +two chairs, near the top, were seated the Princess Charlotte and Prince +Leopold. Hitherto, certainly, all is sufficiently plain and probable;-- +nor can the Muse who dictated this to the slumbering Laureate be accused +of any very extravagant or profuse invention. We come, now, however, to +allegory and learning in abundance. In the first place, we are told, +with infinite regard to the probability as well as the novelty of the +fiction, that in this drawing-room there were two great lions couching +at the feet of the Royal Pair;--the Prince's being very lean and in poor +condition, with the hair rubbed off his neck as if from a heavy collar-- +and the Princess's in full vigour, with a bushy mane, and littered with +torn French flags. Then there were two heavenly figures stationed on +each side of the throne, one called Honour, and the other Faith;--so +very like each other, that it was impossible not to suppose them brother +and sister. It turns out, however, that they were only second cousins; +or so at least we interpret the following precious piece of theogony. + + Akin they were,--yet not as thus it seemed, + For he of VALOUR was the eldest son, + From Areté in happy union sprung. + But her to Phronis Eusebeia bore, + She whom her mother Dicé sent to earth; + What marvel then if thus their features wore + Resemblant lineaments of kindred birth? + Dicé being child of Him who rules above, + VALOUR his earth-born son; so both derived from Jove. + p. 29. + +This, we think, is delicious; but there is still more goodly stuff +toward. The two heavenly cousins stand still without doing any thing; +but then there is a sound of sweet music, and a whole "heavenly company" +appear, led on by a majestic female, whom we discover, by the emblems on +our halfpence, to be no less a person than Britannia, who advances and +addresses a long discourse of flattery and admonition to the Royal +bride; which, for the most part, is as dull and commonplace as might be +expected from the occasion; though there are some passages in which the +author has reconciled his gratitude to his Patron, and his monitory duty +to his Daughter, with singular spirit and delicacy. After enjoining to +her the observance of all public duties, and the cultivation of all +domestic virtues, Britannia is made to sum up the whole sermon in this +emphatic precept-- + + Look to thy Sire, and in his steady way + --learn thou to tread. + +Now, considering that Mr. Southey was at all events incapable of +sacrificing truth to Court favour, it cannot but be regarded as a rare +felicity in his subject, that he could thus select a pattern of private +purity and public honour in the person of the actual Sovereign, without +incurring the least suspicion either of base adulation or lax +morality.... + +It is impossible to feel any serious or general contempt for a person of +Mr. Southey's genius;--and, in reviewing his other works, we hope we +have shown a proper sense of his many merits and accomplishments. But +his Laureate odes are utterly and intolerably bad; and, if he had never +written any thing else, must have ranked him below Colley Cibber in +genius, and above him in conceit and presumption. We have no toleration +for this sort of perversity, or prostitution of great gifts; and do not +think it necessary to qualify the expression of opinions which we have +formed with as much positiveness as deliberation.--We earnestly wish he +would resign his livery laurel to Lord Thurlow, and write no more odes +on Court galas. We can assure him too, most sincerely, that this wish is +not dictated in any degree by envy, or any other hostile or selfish +feeling. We are ourselves, it is but too well known, altogether without +pretensions to that high office--and really see no great charms either +in the salary or the connexion--and, for the glory of writing such +verses as we have now been reviewing, we do not believe that there is a +scribbler in the kingdom so vile as to think it a thing to be coveted. + + + + +ON THOMAS MOORE + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, July, 1806] + +_Epistles, Odes, and other Poems_. By THOMAS MOORE, Esq. 4to. pp. 350. +London, 1806. + + +A singular sweetness and melody of versification,--smooth, copious, and +familiar diction,--with some brilliancy of fancy, and some show of +classical erudition, might have raised Mr. Moore to an innocent +distinction among the song-writers and occasional poets of his day: But +he is indebted, we fear, for the celebrity he actually enjoys to +accomplishments of a different description; and may boast, if the boast +can please him, of being the most licentious of modern versifiers, and +the most poetical of those who, in our times, have devoted their talents +to the propagation of immorality. We regard his book, indeed, as a +public nuisance; and would willingly trample it down by one short +movement of contempt and indignation, had we not reason to apprehend, +that it was abetted by patrons who are entitled to a more respectful +remonstrance, and by admirers who may require a more extended exposition +of their dangers. + +There is nothing, it will be allowed, more indefensible than a +cold-blooded attempt to corrupt the purity of an innocent heart; and we +can scarcely conceive any being more truly despicable, than he who, +without the apology of unruly passion or tumultuous desires, sits down +to ransack the impure places of his memory for inflammatory images and +expressions, and commits them laboriously to writing, for the purpose of +insinuating pollution into the minds of unknown and unsuspecting +readers. + +This is almost a new crime among us. While France has to blush for so +many tomes of "Poesies Erotiques," we have little to answer for, but the +coarse indecencies of Rochester and Dryden; and these, though +sufficiently offensive to delicacy and good taste, can scarcely be +regarded as dangerous. There is an antidote to the poison they contain, +in the open and undisguised profligacy with which it is presented. If +they are wicked, they have the honesty at least to profess wickedness. +The mark of the beast is set visibly on their foreheads; and though they +have the boldness to recommend vice, they want the effrontery to make +her pass for virtue. In their grossest immoralities, too, they scarcely +ever seem to be perfectly in earnest; and appear neither to wish nor to +hope to make proselytes. They indulge their own vein of gross riot and +debauchery; but they do not seek to corrupt the principles of their +readers; and are contented to be reprobated as profligate, if they are +admired at the same time for wit and originality. + +The immorality of Mr. Moore is infinitely more insidious and malignant. +It seems to be his aim to impose corruption upon his readers, by +concealing it under the mask of refinement; to reconcile them +imperceptibly to the most vile and vulgar sensuality, by blending its +language with that of exalted feeling and tender emotion; and to steal +impurity into their hearts, by gently perverting the most simple and +generous of their affections. In the execution of this unworthy task, he +labours with a perseverance at once ludicrous and detestable. He may be +seen in every page running round the paltry circle of his seductions +with incredible zeal and anxiety, and stimulating his jaded fancy for +new images of impurity, with as much melancholy industry as ever outcast +of the muses hunted for epithets or metre. + +It is needless, we hope, to go deep into the inquiry, why certain +compositions have been reprobated as licentious, and their authors +ranked among the worst enemies of morality. The criterion by which their +delinquency may be determined, is fortunately very obvious: no scene can +be tolerated in description, which could not be contemplated in reality, +without a gross violation of propriety: no expression can be pardoned in +poetry to which delicacy could not listen in the prose of real life. + +No writer can transgress those limits, and be held guiltless; but there +are degrees of guiltiness, and circumstances of aggravation or apology, +which ought not to be disregarded. A poet of a luxuriant imagination may +give too warm a colouring to the representation of innocent endearments, +or be betrayed into indelicacies in delineating the allurements of some +fair seducer, while it is obviously his general intention to give +attraction to the picture of virtue, and to put the reader on his guard +against the assault of temptation. Mr. Moore has no such apology;--he +takes care to intimate to us, in every page that the raptures which he +celebrates do not spring from the excesses of an innocent love, or the +extravagance of a romantic attachment; but are the unhallowed fruits of +cheap and vulgar prostitution, the inspiration of casual amours, and the +chorus of habitual debauchery. He is at pains to let the world know that +he is still fonder of roving, than of loving; and that all the Caras and +the Fannys, with whom he holds dalliance in these pages, have had each a +long series of preceding lovers, as highly favoured as their present +poetical paramour: that they meet without any purpose of constancy, and +do not think it necessary to grace their connexion with any professions +of esteem or permanent attachment. The greater part of the book is +filled with serious and elaborate description of the ecstasies of such +an intercourse, and with passionate exhortations to snatch the joys, +which are thus abundantly poured forth from "the fertile fount of +sense." + +To us, indeed, the perpetual kissing, and twining, and panting of these +amorous persons, is rather ludicrous than seductive; and their eternal +sobbing and whining, raises no emotion in our bosoms, but those of +disgust and contempt. Even to younger men, we believe, the book will not +be very dangerous: nor is it upon their account that we feel the +indignation and alarm which we have already endeavoured to express. The +life and conversation of our sex, we are afraid is seldom so pure as to +leave them much to learn from publications of this description; and they +commonly know enough of the reality, to be aware of the absurd illusions +and exaggerations of such poetical voluptuaries. In them, therefore, +such a composition can work neither corruption nor deception; and it +will, in general, be despised and thrown aside, as a tissue of sickly +and fantastical conceits, equally remote from truth and respectability. +It is upon the other sex, that we conceive its effects may be most +pernicious; and it is chiefly as an insult upon their delicacy, and an +attack upon their purity, that we are disposed to resent its +publication. + +The reserve in which women are educated; the natural vivacity of their +imaginations; and the warmth of their sensibility, renders them +peculiarly liable to be captivated by the appearance of violent +emotions, and to be misled by the affectation of tenderness or +generosity. They easily receive any impression that is made under the +apparent sanction of these feelings; and allow themselves to be seduced +into any thing, which they can be persuaded is dictated by disinterested +attachment, and sincere and excessive love. It is easy to perceive how +dangerous it must be for such beings to hang over the pages of a book, +in which supernatural raptures, and transcendent passion, are +counterfeited in every page; in which, images of voluptuousness are +artfully blended with expressions of refined sentiment, and delicate +emotion; and the grossest sensuality is exhibited in conjunction with +the most gentle and generous affections. They who have not learned from +experience, the impossibility of such an union, are apt to be captivated +by its alluring exterior. They are seduced by their own ignorance and +sensibility; and become familiar with the demon, for the sake of the +radiant angel to whom he has been linked by the malignant artifice of +the poet. + +We have been induced to enter this strong protest, and to express +ourselves thus warmly against this and the former publications of this +author, both from what we hear of the circulation which they have +already obtained, and from our conviction that they are calculated, if +not strongly denounced to the public, to produce, at this moment, +peculiar and irremediable mischief. The style of composition, as we have +already hinted, is almost new in this country: it is less offensive than +the old fashion of obscenity; and for these reasons, perhaps, is less +likely to excite the suspicion of the moralist, or to become the object +of precaution to those who watch over the morals of the young and +inexperienced. We certainly have known it a permitted study, where +performances, infinitely less pernicious, were rigidly interdicted. + +There can be no time in which the purity of the female character can +fail to be of the first importance to every community; but it appears to +us, that it requires at this moment to be more carefully watched over +than at any other; and that the constitution of society has arrived +among us to a sort of crisis, the issue of which may be powerfully +influenced by our present neglect or solicitude. From the increasing +diffusion of opulence, enlightened or polite society is greatly +enlarged, and necessarily becomes more promiscuous and corruptible; and +women are now beginning to receive a more extended education, to venture +more freely and largely into the fields of literature, and to become +more of intellectual and independent creatures, than they have yet been +in these islands. In these circumstances, it seems to be of incalculable +importance, that no attaint should be given to the delicacy and purity +of their expanding minds; that their increasing knowledge should be of +good chiefly, and not of evil; that they should not consider modesty as +one of the prejudices from which they are now to be emancipated; nor +found any part of their new influence upon the licentiousness of which +Mr. Moore invites them to be partakers. The character and the morality +of women exercises already a mighty influence upon the happiness and the +respectability of the nation; and it is destined, we believe, to +exercise a still higher one: But if they should ever cease to be the +pure, the delicate, and timid creatures that they now are--if they +should cease to overawe profligacy, and to win and to shame men into +decency, fidelity, and love of unsullied virtue--it is easy to see that +this influence, which has hitherto been exerted to strengthen and refine +our society, will operate entirely to its corruption and debasement; +that domestic happiness and private honour will be extinguished, and +public spirit and national industry most probably annihilated along with +them. + +There is one other consideration which has helped to excite our +apprehension on occasion of this particular performance. Many of the +pieces are dedicated to persons of the first consideration in the +country, both for rank and accomplishments; and the author appears to +consider the greater part of them as his intimate friends, and undoubted +patrons and admirers. Now, this we will confess is to us a very alarming +consideration. By these channels, the book will easily pass into +circulation in those classes of society, which it is of most consequence +to keep free of contamination; and from which its reputation and its +influence will descend with the greatest effect to the great body of the +community. In this reading and opulent country, there are no fashions +which diffuse themselves so fast, as those of literature and immorality: +there is no palpable boundary between the _noblesse_ and the +_bourgeoisie_, as in old France, by which the corruption and +intelligence of the former can be prevented from spreading to the +latter. All the parts of the mass, act and react upon each other with a +powerful and unintermitted agency; and if the head be once infected, the +corruption will spread irresistibly through the whole body. It is doubly +necessary, therefore, to put the law in force against this delinquent, +since he has not only indicated a disposition to do mischief, but seems +unfortunately to have found an opportunity. + + + + +ON WORDSWORTH'S "THE +EXCURSION" + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, November, 1814] + +_The Excursion, being a portion of the Recluse, a Poem_. By WILLIAM +WORDSWORTH. 4to. pp. 447. London, 1814. + + +This will never do. It bears no doubt the stamp of the author's heart +and fancy; but unfortunately not half so visibly as that of his peculiar +system. His former poems were intended to recommend that system, and to +bespeak favour for it by their individual merit;--but this, we suspect, +must be recommended by the system--and can only expect to succeed where +it has been previously established. It is longer, weaker, and tamer, +than any of Mr. Wordsworth's other productions; with less boldness of +originality, and less even of that extreme simplicity and lowliness of +tone which wavered so prettily, in the Lyrical Ballads, between +silliness and pathos. We have imitations of Cowper, and even of Milton +here, engrafted on the natural drawl of the Lakers--and all diluted into +harmony by that profuse and irrepressible wordiness which deluges all +the blank verse of this school of poetry, and lubricates and weakens the +whole structure of their style. + +Though it fairly fills four hundred and twenty good quarto pages, +without note, vignette, or any sort of extraneous assistance, it is +stated in the title--with something of an imprudent candour--to be but +"a portion" of a larger work; and in the preface, where an attempt is +rather unsuccessfully made to explain the whole design, it is still more +rashly disclosed, that it is but "a part of the second part of a _long_ +and laborious work"--which is to consist of three parts. + +What Mr. Wordsworth's ideas of length are, we have no means of +accurately judging; but we cannot help suspecting that they are liberal, +to a degree that will alarm the weakness of most modern readers. As far +as we can gather from the preface, the entire poem--or one of them, for +we really are not sure whether there is to be one or two--is of a +biographical nature; and is to contain the history of the author's mind, +and of the origin and progress of his poetical powers, up to the period +when they were sufficiently matured to qualify him for the great work on +which he has been so long employed. Now, the quarto before us contains +an account of one of his youthful rambles in the vales of Cumberland, +and occupies precisely the period of three days; so that, by the use of +a very powerful _calculus_, some estimate may be formed of the probable +extent of the entire biography. + +This small specimen, however, and the statements with which it is +prefaced, have been sufficient to set our minds at rest in one +particular. The case of Mr. Wordsworth, we perceive, is now manifestly +hopeless; and we give him up as altogether incurable, and beyond the +power of criticism. We cannot indeed altogether omit taking precautions +now and then against the spreading of the malady;--but for himself, +though we shall watch the progress of his symptoms as a matter of +professional curiosity and instruction, we really think it right not to +harass him any longer with nauseous remedies,--but rather to throw in +cordials and lenitives, and wait in patience for the natural termination +of the disorder. In order to justify this desertion of our patient, +however, it is proper to state why we despair of the success of a more +active practice. + +A man who has been for twenty years at work on such matter as is now +before us, and who comes complacently forward with a whole quarto of it +after all the admonitions he has received, cannot reasonably be expected +to "change his hand, or check his pride," upon the suggestion of far +weightier monitors than we can pretend to be. Inveterate habit must now +have given a kind of sanctity to the errors of early taste; and the very +powers of which we lament the perversion, have probably become incapable +of any other application. The very quantity, too, that he has written, +and is at this moment working up for publication upon the old pattern, +makes it almost hopeless to look for any change of it. All this is so +much capital already sunk in the concern; which must be sacrificed if it +be abandoned: and no man likes to give up for lost the time and talent +and labour which he has embodied in any permanent production. We were +not previously aware of these obstacles to Mr. Wordsworth's conversion; +and, considering the peculiarities of his former writings merely as the +result of certain wanton and capricious experiments on public taste and +indulgence, conceived it to be our duty to discourage their repetition +by all the means in our power. We now see clearly, however, how the case +stands;--and, making up our minds, though with the most sincere pain and +reluctance, to consider him as finally lost to the good cause of poetry, +shall endeavour to be thankful for the occasional gleams of tenderness +and beauty which the natural force of his imagination and affections +must still shed over all his productions,--and to which we shall ever +turn with delight, in spite of the affectation and mysticism and +prolixity, with which they are so abundantly contrasted. + +Long habits of seclusion, and an excessive ambition of originality, can +alone account for the disproportion which seems to exist between this +author's taste and his genius; or for the devotion with which he has +sacrificed so many precious gifts at the shrine of those paltry idols +which he has set up for himself among his lakes and his mountains. +Solitary musings, amidst such scenes, might no doubt be expected to +nurse up the mind to the majesty of poetical conception,--(though it is +remarkable, that all the greater poets lived or had lived, in the full +current of society):--But the collision of equal minds,--the admonition +of prevailing impressions--seems necessary to reduce its redundancies, +and repress that tendency to extravagance or puerility, into which the +self-indulgence and self-admiration of genius is so apt to be betrayed, +when it is allowed to wanton, without awe or restraint, in the triumph +and delight of its own intoxication. That its flights should be graceful +and glorious in the eyes of men, it seems almost to be necessary that +they should be made in the consciousness that men's eyes are to behold +them,--and that the inward transport and vigour by which they are +inspired, should be tempered by an occasional reference to what will be +thought of them by those-ultimate dispensers of glory. An habitual and +general knowledge of the few settled and permanent maxims, which form +the canon of general taste in all large and polished societies--a +certain tact, which informs us at once that many things, which we still +love and are moved by in secret, must necessarily be despised as +childish, or derided as absurd, in all such societies--though it will +not stand in the place of genius, seems necessary to the success of its +exertions; and though it will never enable any one to produce the higher +beauties of art, can alone secure the talent which does produce them, +from errors that must render it useless. Those who have most of the +talent, however, commonly acquire this knowledge with the greatest +facility;--and if Mr. Wordsworth, instead of confining himself almost +entirely to the society of the dalesmen and cottagers, and little +children, who form the subjects of his book, had condescended to mingle +a little more with the people that were to read and judge of it, we +cannot help thinking, that its texture would have been considerably +improved: At least it appears to us to be absolutely impossible, that +any one who had lived or mixed familiarly with men of literature and +ordinary judgment in poetry (of course we exclude the coadjutors and +disciples of his own school), could ever have fallen into such gross +faults, or so long mistaken them for beauties. His first essays we +looked upon in a good degree as poetical paradoxes,--maintained +experimentally, in order to display talent, and court notoriety;--and so +maintained, with no more serious belief in their truth, than is usually +generated by an ingenious and animated defence of other paradoxes. But +when we find, that he has been for twenty years exclusively employed +upon articles of this very fabric, and that he has still enough of raw +material on hand to keep him so employed for twenty years to come, we +cannot refuse him the justice of believing that he is a sincere convert +to his own system, and must ascribe the peculiarities of his +composition, not to any transient affectation, or accidental caprice of +imagination, but to a settled perversity of taste or understanding, +which has been fostered, if not altogether created, by the circumstances +to which we have already alluded. + +The volume before us, if we were to describe it very shortly, we should +characterize as a tissue of moral and devotional ravings, in which +innumerable changes are rung upon a few very simple and familiar ideas: +--but with such an accompaniment of long words, long sentences, and +unwieldy phrases--such a hubbub of strained raptures and fantastical +sublimities, that it is often extremely difficult for the most skilful +and attentive student to obtain a glimpse of the author's meaning--and +altogether impossible for an ordinary reader to conjecture what he is +about. Moral and religious enthusiasm, though undoubtedly poetical +emotions, are at the same time but dangerous inspirers of poetry; +nothing being so apt to run into interminable dulness or mellifluous +extravagance, without giving the unfortunate author the slightest +intimation of his danger. His laudable zeal for the efficacy of his +preachments, he very naturally mistakes for the ardour of poetical +inspiration;--and, while dealing out the high words and glowing phrases +which are so readily supplied by themes of this description, can +scarcely avoid believing that he is eminently original and impressive:-- +All sorts of commonplace notions and expressions are sanctified in his +eyes, by the sublime ends for which they are employed; and the mystical +verbiage of the methodist pulpit is repeated, till the speaker +entertains no doubt that he is the elected organ of divine truth and +persuasion. But if such be the common hazards of seeking inspiration +from those potent fountains, it may easily be conceived what chance Mr. +Wordsworth had of escaping their enchantment,--with his natural +propensities to wordiness, and his unlucky habit of debasing pathos with +vulgarity. The fact accordingly is, that in this production he is more +obscure than a Pindaric poet of the seventeenth century; and more +verbose "than even himself of yore"; while the wilfulness with which he +persists in choosing his examples of intellectual dignity and tenderness +exclusively from the lowest ranks of society, will be sufficiently +apparent, from the circumstance of his having thought fit to make his +chief prolocutor in this poetical dialogue, and chief advocate of +Providence and Virtue, _an old Scotch Pedlar_--retired indeed from +business--but still rambling about in his former haunts, and gossiping +among his old customers, without his pack on his shoulders. The other +persons of the drama are, a retired military chaplain, who has grown +half an atheist and half a misanthrope--the wife of an unprosperous +weaver--a servant girl with her infant--a parish pauper, and one or two +other personages of equal rank and dignity. + +The character of the work is decidedly didactic; and more than nine-tenths +of it are occupied with a species of dialogue, or rather a series +of long sermons or harangues which pass between the pedlar, the author, +the old chaplain, and a worthy vicar, who entertains the whole party at +dinner on the last day of their excursion. The incidents which occur in +the course of it are as few and trifling as can be imagined;--and those +which the different speakers narrate in the course of their discourses, +are introduced rather to illustrate their arguments or opinions, than +for any interest they are supposed to possess of their own.--The +doctrine which the work is intended to enforce, we are by no means +certain that we have discovered. In so far as we can collect, however, +it seems to be neither more nor less than the old familiar one, that a +firm belief in the providence of a wise and beneficent Being must be our +great stay and support under all afflictions and perplexities upon +earth--and that there are indications of his power and goodness in all +the aspects of the visible universe, whether living or inanimate--every +part of which should therefore be regarded with love and reverence, as +exponents of those great attributes. We can testify, at least, that +these salutary and important truths are inculcated at far greater +length, and with more repetitions, than in any ten volumes of sermons +that we ever perused. It is also maintained, with equal conciseness and +originality, that there is frequently much good sense, as well as much +enjoyment, in the humbler conditions of life; and that, in spite of +great vices and abuses, there is a reasonable allowance both of +happiness and goodness in society at large. If there be any deeper or +more recondite doctrines in Mr. Wordsworth's book, we must confess that +they have escaped us;--and, convinced as we are of the truth and +soundness of those to which we have alluded, we cannot help thinking +that they might have been better enforced with less parade and +prolixity. His effusions on what may be called the physiognomy of +external nature, or its moral and theological expression, are eminently +fantastic, obscure, and affected.--It is quite time, however, that we +should give the reader a more particular account of this singular +performance. + +It opens with a picture of the author toiling across a bare common in a +hot summer day, and reaching at last a ruined hut surrounded with tall +trees, where he meets by appointment with a hale old man, with an +iron-pointed staff lying beside him. Then follows a retrospective account +of their first acquaintance--formed, it seems, when the author was at a +village school; and his aged friend occupied "one room,--the fifth part +of a house" in the neighbourhood. After this, we have the history of +this reverend person at no small length. He was born, we are happy to +find, in Scotland--among the hills of Athol; and his mother, after his +father's death, married the parish schoolmaster--so that he was taught +his letters betimes: But then, as it is here set forth with much +solemnity, + + + From his sixth year, the boy, of whom I speak, + In summer, tended cattle on the hills. + +And again, a few pages after, that there may be no risk of mistake as to +a point of such essential importance-- + + From early childhood, even, as hath been said, + From his _sixth year_, he had been sent abroad, + _In summer_, to tend herds: Such was his task! + +In the course of this occupation, it is next recorded, that he acquired +such a taste for rural scenery and open air, that when he was sent to +teach a school in a neighbouring village, he found it "a misery to him," +and determined to embrace the more romantic occupation of a Pedlar--or, +as Mr. Wordsworth more musically expresses it, + + A vagrant merchant bent beneath his load; + +--and in the course of his peregrinations had acquired a very large +acquaintance, which, after he had given up dealing, he frequently took a +summer ramble to visit. The author, on coming up to this interesting +personage, finds him sitting with his eyes half shut;--and, not being +quite sure whether he's asleep or awake, stands "some minutes space" in +silence beside him. "At length," says he, with his own delightful +simplicity-- + + At length I hailed him--_seeing that his hat + Was moist_ with water-drops, as if the brim + Had newly scooped a running stream!-- + --"'Tis," said I, "a burning day; + My lips are parched with thirst;--but you, I guess, + Have somewhere found relief." + +Upon this, the benevolent old man points him out a well in a corner, to +which the author repairs; and, after minutely describing its situation, +beyond a broken wall, and between two alders that "grew in a cold damp +nook," he thus faithfully chronicles the process of his return-- + + My thirst I slaked--and from the cheerless spot + Withdrawing, straightway to the shade returned, + Where sate the old man on the cottage bench. + +The Pedlar then gives an account of the last inhabitants of the deserted +cottage beside them. These were, a good industrious weaver and his wife +and children. They were very happy for a while; till sickness and want +of work came upon them; and then the father enlisted as a soldier, and +the wife pined in the lonely cottage--growing every year more careless +and desponding, as her anxiety and fears for her absent husband, of whom +no tidings ever reached her, accumulated. Her children died, and left +her cheerless and alone; and at last she died also; and the cottage fell +to decay. We must say, that there is very considerable pathos in the +telling of this simple story; and that they who can get over the +repugnance excited by the triteness of its incidents, and the lowness of +its objects, will not fail to be struck with the author's knowledge of +the human heart, and the power he possesses of stirring up its deepest +and gentlest sympathies. His prolixity, indeed, it is not so easy to get +over. This little story fills about twenty-five quarto pages; and +abounds, of course, with mawkish sentiment, and details of preposterous +minuteness. When the tale is told, the travellers take their staffs, and +end their first day's journey, without further adventure, at a little +inn. + +The Second book sets them forward betimes in the morning. They pass by a +Village Wake; and as they approach a more solitary part of the +mountains, the old man tells the author that he is taking him to see an +old friend of his, who had formerly been chaplain to a Highland +regiment--had lost a beloved wife--been roused from his dejection by the +first euthusiasm [Transcriber's note: sic] of the French Revolution--had +emigrated on its miscarriage to America--and returned disgusted to hide +himself in the retreat to which they were now ascending. That retreat is +then most tediously described--a smooth green valley in the heart of the +mountain, without trees, and with only one dwelling. Just as they get +sight of it from the ridge above, they see a funeral train proceeding +from the solitary abode, and hurry on with some apprehension for the +fate of the misanthrope--whom they find, however, in very tolerable +condition at the door, and learn that the funeral was that of an aged +pauper who had been boarded out by the parish in that cheap farm-house, +and had died in consequence of long exposure to heavy rain. The old +chaplain, or, as Mr. Wordsworth is pleased to call him, the Solitary, +tells this dull story at prodigious length; and after giving an inflated +description of an effect of mountain-mists in the evening sun, treats +his visitors with a rustic dinner--and they walk out to the fields at +the close of the second book. + +The Third makes no progress in the excursion. It is entirely filled with +moral and religious conversation and debate, and with a more ample +detail of the Solitary's past life, than had been given in the sketch of +his friend. The conversation is exceedingly dull and mystical; and the +Solitary's confessions insufferably diffuse. Yet there is very +considerable force of writing and tenderness of sentiment in this part +of the work. + +The Fourth book is also filled with dialogues ethical and theological; +and, with the exception of some brilliant and forcible expressions here +and there, consists of an exposition of truisms, more cloudy, wordy, and +inconceivably prolix, than any thing we ever met with. + +In the beginning of the Fifth book, they leave the solitary valley, +taking its pensive inhabitant along with them, and stray on to where the +landscape sinks down into milder features, till they arrive at a church, +which stands on a moderate elevation in the centre of a wide and fertile +vale. Here they meditate for a while among the monuments, till the vicar +comes out and joins them;--and recognizing the pedlar for an old +acquaintance, mixes graciously in the conversation, which proceeds in a +very edifying manner till the close of the book. + +The Sixth contains a choice obituary, or characteristic account of +several of the persons who lie buried before this groupe of moralizers; +--an unsuccessful lover, who finds consolation in natural history--a +miner, who worked on for twenty years, in despite of universal ridicule, +and at last found the vein he had expected--two political enemies +reconciled in old age to each other--an old female miser--a seduced +damsel--and two widowers, one who devoted himself to the education of +his daughters, and one who married a prudent middle-aged woman to take +care of them. + +In the beginning of the Eighth Book, the worthy vicar expresses, in the +words of Mr. Wordsworth's own epitome, "his apprehensions that he had +detained his auditors too long--invites them to his house--Solitary, +disinclined to comply, rallies the Wanderer, and somewhat playfully +draws a comparison between his itinerant profession and that of a +knight-errant--which leads to the Wanderer giving an account of changes +in the country, from the manufacturing spirit--Its favourable effects-- +The other side of the picture," etc., etc. After these very poetical +themes are exhausted, they all go into the house, where they are +introduced to the Vicar's wife and daughter; and while they sit chatting +in the parlour over a family dinner, his son and one of his companions +come in with a fine dish of trouts piled on a blue slate; and, after +being caressed by the company, are sent to dinner in the nursery.--This +ends the eighth book. + +The Ninth and last is chiefly occupied with the mystical discourses of +the Pedlar; who maintains, that the whole universe is animated by an +active principle, the noblest seat of which is in the human soul; and +moreover, that the final end of old age is to train and enable us + + To hear the mighty stream of _Tendency_ + Uttering, for elevation of our thought, + A clear sonorous voice, inaudible + To the vast multitude whose doom it is + To run the giddy round of vain delight-- + +with other matters as luminous and emphatic. The hostess at length +breaks off the harangue, by proposing that they should all make a little +excursion on the lake,--and they embark accordingly; and, after +navigating for some time along its shores, and drinking tea on a little +island, land at last on a remote promontory, from which they see the sun +go down,--and listen to a solemn and pious, but rather long prayer from +the Vicar. They then walk back to the parsonage door, where the author +and his friend propose to spend the evening;--but the Solitary prefers +walking back in the moonshine to his own valley, after promising to take +another ramble with them-- + + If time, with free consent, be yours to give, + And season favours. + +--And here the publication somewhat abruptly closes. + +Our abstract of the story has been so extremely concise, that it is more +than usually necessary for us to lay some specimens of the work itself +before our readers. Its grand staple, as we have already said, consists +of a kind of mystical morality: and the chief characteristics of the +style are, that it is prolix and very frequently unintelligible: and +though we are very sensible that no great gratification is to be +expected from the exhibition of those qualities, yet it is necessary to +give our readers a taste of them, both to justify the sentence we have +passed, and to satisfy them that it was really beyond our power to +present them with any abstract or intelligible account of those long +conversations which we have had so much occasion to notice in our brief +sketch of its contents. + + * * * * * + +There is no beauty, we think, it must be admitted, in such passages; and +so little either of interest or curiosity in the incidents they +disclose, that we can scarcely conceive that any man to whom they had +actually occurred, should take the trouble to recount them to his wife +and children by his idle fireside--but, that man or child should think +them worth writing down in blank verse, and printing in magnificent +quarto, we should certainly have supposed altogether impossible, had it +not been for the ample proofs which Mr. Wordsworth has afforded to the +contrary. + +Sometimes their silliness is enhanced by a paltry attempt at effect and +emphasis:--as in the following account of that very touching and +extraordinary occurrence of a lamb bleating among the mountains. The +poet would actually persuade us that he thought the mountains themselves +were bleating;--and that nothing could be so grand or impressive. +"List!" cries the old Pedlar, suddenly breaking off in the middle of one +of his daintiest ravings-- + + --"List!--I heard, + From yon huge breast of rock, a solemn bleat; + Sent forth as if it were the Mountain's voice! + As if the visible Mountain made the cry! + Again!"--The effect upon the soul was such + As he expressed; for, from the Mountain's heart + The solemn bleat appeared to come; there was + No other--and the region all around + Stood silent, empty of all shape of life. + --It was a lamb--left somewhere to itself! + +What we have now quoted will give the reader a notion of the taste and +spirit in which this volume is composed; and yet, if it had not +contained something a good deal better, we do not know how we should +have been justified in troubling him with any account of it. But the +truth is, that Mr. Wordsworth, with all his perversities, is a person of +great powers; and has frequently a force in his moral declamations, and +a tenderness in his pathetic narratives, which neither his prolixity nor +his affectation can altogether deprive of their effect. + + * * * * * + +Besides those more extended passages of interest or beauty, which we +have quoted, and omitted to quote, there are scattered up and down the +book, and in the midst of its most repulsive portions, a very great +number of single lines and images, that sparkle like gems in the desart, +and startle us with an intimation of the great poetic powers that lie +buried in the rubbish that has been heaped around them. It is difficult +to pick up these, after we have once passed them by; but we shall +endeavour to light upon one or two. The beneficial effect of intervals +of relaxation and pastime on youthful minds, is finely expressed, we +think, in a single line, when it is said to be-- + + Like vernal ground to Sabbath sunshine left. + +The following image of the bursting forth of a mountain-spring, seems to +us also to be conceived with great elegance and beauty. + + And a few steps may bring us to the spot, + Where haply crown'd with flowrets and green herbs; + The Mountain Infant to the Sun comes forth + Like human life from darkness.-- + +The ameliorating effects of song and music on the minds which most +delight in them, are likewise very poetically expressed. + + --And when the stream + Which overflowed the soul was passed away, + A consciousness remained that it had left, + Deposited upon the silent shore + Of Memory, images and precious thoughts, + That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed. + +Nor is any thing more elegant than the representation of the graceful +tranquillity occasionally put on by one of the author's favourites; who, +though gay and airy, in general-- + + Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still + As the mute Swan that floats adown the stream, + Or on the waters of th' unruffled lake + Anchored her placid beauty. Not a leaf + That flutters on the bough more light than he, + And not a flower that droops in the green shade, + More winningly reserved.-- + +Nor are there wanting morsels of a sterner and more majestic beauty; as +when, assuming the weightier diction of Cowper, he says, in language +which the hearts of all readers of modern history must have responded-- + + --Earth is sick, + And Heaven is weary of the hollow words + Which States and Kingdoms utter when they speak + Of Truth and Justice. + +These examples, we perceive, are not very well chosen--but we have not +leisure to improve the selection; and, such as they are, they may serve +to give the reader a notion of the sort of merit which we meant to +illustrate by their citation.--When we look back to them, indeed, and to +the other passages which we have now extracted, we feel half inclined to +rescind the severe sentence which we passed on the work at the +beginning:--But when we look into the work itself, we perceive that it +cannot be rescinded. Nobody can be more disposed to do justice to the +great powers of Mr. Wordsworth than we are; and, from the first time +that he came before us, down to the present moment, we have uniformly +testified in their favour, and assigned indeed our high sense of their +value as the chief ground of the bitterness with which we resented their +perversion. That perversion, however, is now far more visible than their +original dignity; and while we collect the fragments, it is impossible +not to lament the ruins from which we are condemned to pick them. If any +one should doubt of the existence of such a perversion, or be disposed +to dispute about the instances we have hastily brought forward, we would +just beg leave to refer him to the general plan and the characters of +the poem now before us.--Why should Mr. Wordsworth have made his hero a +superannuated Pedlar? What but the most wretched and provoking +perversity of taste and judgment, could induce any one to place his +chosen advocate of wisdom and virtue in so absurd and fantastic a +condition? Did Mr. Wordsworth really imagine, that he favourite +doctrines were likely to gain any thing in point of effect or authority +by being put into the mouth of a person accustomed to higgle about tape, +or brass sleeve-buttons? Or is it not plain that, independent of the +ridicule and disgust which such a personification must give to many of +his readers, its adoption exposes his work throughout to the charge of +revolting incongruity, and utter disregard of probability or nature? +For, after he has thus wilfully debased his moral teacher by a low +occupation, is there one word that he puts into his mouth, or one +sentiment of which he makes him the organ, that has the most remote +reference to that occupation? Is there any thing in his learned, +abstracted, and logical harangues, that savours of the calling that is +ascribed to him? Are any of their materials such as a pedlar could +possibly have dealt in? Are the manners, the diction, the sentiments, in +any, the very smallest degree, accommodated to a person in that +condition? or are they not eminently and conspicuously such as could not +by possibility belong to it? A man who went about selling flannel and +pocket-handkerchiefs in this lofty diction, would soon frighten away all +his customers; and would infallibly pass either for a madman, or for +some learned and affected gentleman, who, in a frolic, had taken up a +character which he was peculiarly ill qualified for supporting. + +The absurdity in this case, we think, is palpable and glaring; but it is +exactly of the same nature with that which infects the whole substance +of the work--a puerile ambition of singularity engrafted on an unlucky +predilection for truisms; and an affected passion for simplicity and +humble life, most awkwardly combined with a taste for mystical +refinements, and all the gorgeousness of obscure phraseology. His taste +for simplicity is evinced, by sprinkling up and down his interminable +declamations, a few descriptions of baby-houses, and of old hats with +wet brims; and his amiable partiality for humble life, by assuring us, +that a wordy rhetorician, who talks about Thebes, and allegorizes all +the heathen mythology, was once a pedlar--and making him break in upon +his magnificent orations with two or three awkward notices of something +that he had seen when selling winter raiment about the country--or of +the changes in the state of society, which had almost annihilated his +former calling. + + + + +ON KEATS + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, August, 1820] + +1. _Endymion: A Poetic Romance_. By JOHN KEATS. 8vo. pp. 207. London, +1818. + +2. _Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems._ By JOHN +KEATS, Author of _Endymion_. 12mo. pp. 200. London, 1820. + +We had never happened to see either of these volumes till very lately-- +and have been exceedingly struck with the genius they display, and the +spirit of poetry which breathes through all their extravagance. That +imitation of our older writers, and especially of our older dramatists, +to which we cannot help flattering ourselves that we have somewhat +contributed, has brought on, as it were, a second spring in our poetry; +--and few of its blossoms are either more profuse of sweetness or richer +in promise, than this which is now before us. Mr. Keats, we understand, +is still a very young man; and his whole works, indeed, bear evidence +enough of the fact. They are full of extravagance and irregularity, rash +attempts at originality, interminable wanderings, and excessive +obscurity. They manifestly require, therefore, all the indulgence that +can be claimed for a first attempt:--but we think it no less plain that +they deserve it; for they are flushed all over with the rich lights of +fancy, and so coloured and bestrewn with the flowers of poetry, that +even while perplexed and bewildered in their labyrinths, it is +impossible to resist the intoxication of their sweetness, or to shut our +hearts to the enchantments they so lavishly present. The models upon +which he has formed himself, in the Endymion, the earliest and by much +the most considerable of his poems, are obviously the Faithful +Shepherdess of Fletcher, and the Sad Shepherd of Ben Jonson;--the +exquisite metres and inspired diction of which he has copied with great +boldness and fidelity--and, like his great originals, has also contrived +to impart to the whole piece that true rural and poetical air which +breathes only in them and in Theocritus--which is at once homely and +majestic, luxurious and rude, and sets before us the genuine sights and +sounds and smells of the country, with all the magic and grace of +Elysium. His subject has the disadvantage of being mythological; and in +this respect, as well as on account of the raised and rapturous tone it +consequently assumes, his poetry may be better compared perhaps to the +Comus and the Arcades of Milton, of which, also, there are many traces +of imitation. The great distinction, however, between him and these +divine authors, is, that imagination in them is subordinate to reason +and judgment, while, with him, it is paramount and supreme--that their +ornaments and images are employed to embellish and recommend just +sentiments, engaging incidents, and natural characters, while his are +poured out without measure or restraint, and with no apparent design but +to unburden the breast of the author, and give vent to the overflowing +vein of his fancy. The thin and scanty tissue of his story is merely the +light framework on which his florid wreaths are suspended; and while his +imaginations go rambling and entangling themselves everywhere, like wild +honeysuckles, all idea of sober reason, and plan, and consistency, is +utterly forgotten, and is "strangled in their waste fertility." A great +part of the work, indeed, is written in the strangest and most +fantastical manner that can be imagined. It seems as if the author had +ventured everything that occurred to him in the shape of a glittering +image or striking expression--taken the first word that presented itself +to make up a rhyme, and then made that word the germ of a new cluster of +images--a hint for a new excursion of the fancy--and so wandered on, +equally forgetful whence he came, and heedless whither he was going, +till he had covered his pages with an interminable arabesque of +connected and incongruous figures, that multiplied as they extended, and +were only harmonized by the brightness of their tints, and the graces of +their forms. In this rash and headlong career he has of course many +lapses and failures. There is no work, accordingly, from which a +malicious critic could cull more matter for ridicule, or select more +obscure, unnatural, or absurd passages. But we do not take _that_ to be +our office;--and just beg leave, on the contrary, to say, that any one +who, on this account, would represent the whole poem as despicable, must +either have no notion of poetry, or no regard to truth. + +It is, in truth, at least as full of genius as of absurdity; and he who +does not find a great deal in it to admire and to give delight, cannot +in his heart see much beauty in the two exquisite dramas to which we +have already alluded, or find any great pleasure in some of the finest +creations of Milton and Shakespeare. There are very many such persons, +we verily believe, even among the reading and judicious part of the +community--correct scholars we have no doubt many of them, and, it may +be, very classical composers in prose and in verse--but utterly ignorant +of the true genius of English poetry, and incapable of estimating its +appropriate and most exquisite beauties. With that spirit we have no +hesitation in saying that Mr. K. is deeply imbued--and of those beauties +he has presented us with many striking examples. We are very much +inclined indeed to add, that we do not know any book which we would +sooner employ as a test to ascertain whether any one had in him a native +relish for poetry, and a genuine sensibility to its intrinsic charm. The +greater and more distinguished poets of our country have so much else in +them to gratify other tastes and propensities, that they are pretty sure +to captivate and amuse those to whom their poetry is but an hindrance +and obstruction, as well as those to whom it constitutes their chief +attraction. The interest of the stories they tell--the vivacity of the +characters they delineate--the weight and force of the maxims and +sentiments in which they abound--the very pathos and wit and humour they +display, which may all and each of them exist apart from their poetry +and independent of it, are quite sufficient to account for their +popularity, without referring much to that still higher gift, by which +they subdue to their enchantments those whose souls are attuned to the +finer impulses of poetry. It is only where those other recommendations +are wanting, or exist in a weaker degree, that the true force of the +attraction, exercised by the pure poetry with which they are so often +combined, can be fairly appreciated--where, without much incident or +many characters, and with little wit, wisdom, or arrangement, a number +of bright pictures are presented to the imagination, and a fine feeling +expressed of those mysterious relations by which visible external things +are assimilated with inward thoughts and emotions, and become the images +and exponents of all passions and affections. To an unpoetical reader +such passages always appear mere raving and absurdity--and to this +censure a very great part of the volume before us will certainly be +exposed, with this class of readers. Even in the judgment of a fitter +audience, however, it must, we fear, be admitted, that, besides the riot +and extravagance of his fancy, the scope and substance of Mr. K.'s +poetry is rather too dreary and abstracted to excite the strongest +interest, or to sustain the attention through a work of any great +compass or extent. He deals too much with shadowy and incomprehensible +beings, and is too constantly rapt into an extramundane Elysium, to +command a lasting interest with ordinary mortals--and must employ the +agency of more varied and coarser emotions, if he wishes to take rank +with the seducing poets of this or of former generations. There is +something very curious too, we think, in the way in which he, and Mr. +Barry Cornwall also, have dealt with the Pagan mythology, of which they +have made so much use in their poetry. Instead of presenting its +imaginary persons under the trite and vulgar traits that belong to them +in the ordinary systems, little more is borrowed from these than the +general conception of their conditions and relations; and an original +character and distinct individuality is bestowed upon them, which has +all the merit of invention, and all the grace and attraction of the +fictions on which it is engrafted. The antients, though they probably +did not stand in any great awe of their deities, have yet abstained very +much from any minute or dramatic representation of their feelings and +affections. In Hesiod and Homer, they are coarsely delineated by some of +their actions and adventures, and introduced to us merely as the agents +in those particular transactions; while in the Hymns, from those +ascribed to Orpheus and Homer, down to those of Callimachus, we have +little but pompous epithets and invocations, with a flattering +commemoration of their most famous exploits--and are never allowed to +enter into their bosoms, or follow out the train of their feelings, with +the presumption of our human sympathy. Except the love-song of the +Cyclops to his Sea Nymph in Theocritus--the Lamentation of Venus for +Adonis in Moschus--and the more recent Legend of Apuleius, we scarcely +recollect a passage in all the writings of antiquity in which the +passions of an immortal are fairly disclosed to the scrutiny and +observation of men. The author before us, however, and some of his +contemporaries, have dealt differently with the subject;--and, +sheltering the violence of the fiction under the ancient traditionary +fable, have created and imagined an entire new set of characters, and +brought closely and minutely before us the loves and sorrows and +perplexities of beings, with whose names and supernatural attributes we +had long been familiar, without any sense or feeling of their personal +character. We have more than doubts of the fitness of such personages to +maintain a permanent interest with the modern public;--but the way in +which they are here managed, certainly gives them the best chance that +now remains for them; and, at all events, it cannot be denied that the +effect is striking and graceful. + + * * * * * + +There is a fragment of a projected Epic, entitled "Hyperion," on the +expulsion of Saturn and the Titanian deities by Jupiter and his younger +adherents, of which we cannot advise the completion: For, though there +are passages of some force and grandeur, it is sufficiently obvious, +from the specimen before us, that the subject is too far removed from +all the sources of human interest, to be successfully treated by any +modern author. Mr. Keats has unquestionably a very beautiful +imagination, and a great familiarity with the finest diction of English +poetry; but he must learn not to misuse or misapply these advantages; +and neither to waste the good gifts of nature and study on intractable +themes, nor to luxuriate too recklessly on such as are more suitable. + + + + +LORD BROUGHAM ON BYRON + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1808] + +_Hours of Idleness: A series of Poems, Original and Translated._ By +GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, a minor. Newark, 1807. + +The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor +men are said to permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a +quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that +exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no +more get above or below the level, than if they were so much stagnant +water. As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly +forward in pleading minority. We have it in the title-page, and on the +very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of +his _style_. Much stress is laid upon it in the preface, and the poems +are connected with this general statement of his case, by particular +dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. Now, the law +upon the point of morality, we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea +available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a +supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought +against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court +a certain quantity of poetry; and if judgment were given against him, it +is highly probable that an exception would be taken, were he to deliver +_for poetry_, the contents of this volume. To this he might plead +_minority;_ but as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath +no right to sue, on that ground, for the price is in good current +praise, should the goods be unmarketable. This is our view of the law on +the point, and we dare to say, so will it be ruled. Perhaps, however, in +reality, all that he tells us about his youth, is rather with a view to +increase our wonder, than to soften our censures. He possibly means to +say, "See how a minor can write! This poem was actually composed by a +young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen!" But, alas, we +all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far +from hearing, with any surprise, that very poor verses were written by a +youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclusive, we +really believe this to be the most common of all occurrences; that it +happens in the life of nine men in ten who are educated in England; and +that the tenth man writes better verse than Lord Byron. + +His other plea of privilege, our author rather brings forward to wave +it. He certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family and +ancestors--sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while giving up +his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. +Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit +should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration +only, that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review, +besides our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, +and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, +which are great, to better account. + +With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere +rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by a certain number +of feet; nay, although (which does not always happen) those feet should +scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately upon the fingers-- +is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe, that a +certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to +constitute a poem; and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must +contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from +the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his +candour, whether there is anything so deserving the name of poetry in +verses like the following, written in 1806, and whether, if a youth of +eighteen could say anything so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth +of nineteen should publish it. + + Shades of heroes farewell! your descendant, departing + From the seat of his ancestors, bids you, adieu! etc., etc. + +Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets +have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to +see at his writing-master's) are odious. Gray's ode on Eton College, +should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas "on a distant view +of the village and school of Harrow." ... + +However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are +great favourites with Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from +Anacreon to Ossian; and, viewing them as school exercises, they may +pass. Only why print them after they have had their day and served their +turn?... + +It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should "use +it as not abusing it"; and particularly one who piques himself (though +indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) of being "an infant bard"--("The +artless Helicon I boast is youth";)--should either not know, or not seem +to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem on the family +seat of the Byrons, we have another on the self same subject, introduced +with an apology, "he certainly had no intention of inserting it"; but +really, "the particular request of some friends," etc., etc. It +concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a +noble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in +a poem on Lachin-y-gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, +and might have learnt that a _pibroch_ is not a bagpipe, any more than a +duet means a fiddle.... + +But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble junior, +it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are +the last we shall ever have from him. He is at best, he says, but an +intruder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like +thorough-bred poets; and "though he once roved a careless mountaineer in +the Highlands of Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. +Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and whether it +succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and +pursuits hereafter," that he should again condescend to become an +author. Therefore, let us take what we can get and be thankful. What +right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so +much from a man of this Lord's station, who does not live in a garret, +but "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again we say, let us be thankful; +and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift +horse in the mouth. + + + + +SYDNEY SMITH ON HANNAH MOORE + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, April, 1809] + +_Caelebs in Search of a Wife; comprehending Observations on Domestic +Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals._ 2 vols. London, 1809. + + +This book is written, or supposed to be written (for we would speak +timidly of the mysteries of superior beings), by the celebrated Mrs. +Hannah Moore! We shall probably give great offence by such indiscretion; +but still we must be excused for treating it as a book merely human,--an +uninspired production,--the result of mortality left to itself, and +depending on its own limited resources. In taking up the subject in this +point of view, we solemnly disclaim the slightest intention of indulging +in any indecorous levity, or of wounding the religious feelings of a +large class of very respectable persons. It is the only method in which +we can possibly make this work a proper object of criticism. We have the +strongest possible doubts of the attributes usually ascribed to this +authoress; and we think it more simple and manly to say so at once, than +to admit nominally superlunary claims, which, in the progress of our +remarks, we should virtually deny. + +Caelebs wants a wife; and, after the death of his father, quits his +estate in Northumberland to see the world, and to seek for one of its +best productions, a woman, who may add materially to the happiness of +his future life. His first journey is to London, where, in the midst of +the gay society of the metropolis, of course, he does not find a wife; +and his next journey is to the family of Mr. Stanley, the head of the +Methodists, a serious people, where, of course, he does find a wife. The +exaltation, therefore, of what the authoress deems to be the religious, +and the depretiation of what she considers to be the worldly character, +and the influence of both upon matrimonial happiness, form the subject +of this novel--rather of this _dramatic sermon_. + +The machinery upon which the discourse is suspended, is of the slightest +and most inartificial texture, bearing every mark of haste, and +possessing not the slightest claim to merit. Events there are none; and +scarcely a character of any interest. The book is intended to convey +religious advice; and no more labour appears to have been bestowed upon +the story, than was merely sufficient to throw it out of the dry, +didactic form. Lucilla is totally uninteresting; so is Mr. Stanley; Dr. +Barlow still worse; and Caelebs a mere clod or dolt. Sir John and Lady +Belfield are rather more interesting--and for a very obvious reason, +they have some faults;--they put us in mind of men and women;--they seem +to belong to one common nature with ourselves. As we read, we seem to +think we might act as such people act, and therefore we attend; whereas +imitation is hopeless in the more perfect characters which Mrs. Moore +has set before us; and therefore, they inspire us with very little +interest. + +There are books however of all kinds; and those may not be unwisely +planned which set before us very pure models. They are less probable, +and therefore less amusing than ordinary stories; but they are more +amusing than plain, unfabled precept. Sir Charles Grandison is less +agreeable than Tom Jones; but it is more agreeable than Sherlock and +Tillotson; and teaches religion and morality to many who would not seek +it in the productions of these professional writers. + +But, making every allowance for the difficulty of the task which Mrs. +Moore has prescribed to herself, the book abounds with marks of +negligence and want of skill; with representations of life and manners +which are either false or trite. + +Temples to friendship and virtue must be totally laid aside, for many +years to come, in novels. Mr. Lane, of the Minerva Press, has given them +up long since; and we were quite surprised to find such a writer as Mrs. +Moore busied in moral brick and mortar. Such an idea, at first, was +merely juvenile; the second time a little nauseous; but the ten +thousandth time, it is quite intolerable. Caelebs, upon his first +arrival in London, dines out,--meets with a bad dinner,--supposes the +cause of that bad dinner to be the erudition of the ladies of the +house,--talks to them upon learned subjects, and finds them as dull and +ignorant as if they had piqued themselves upon all the mysteries of +housewifery. We humbly submit to Mrs. Moore, that this is not humorous, +but strained and unnatural. Philippics against frugivorous children +after dinner, are too common. Lady Melbury has been introduced into +every novel for these four years last past. Peace to her ashes!... + +The great object kept in view throughout the whole of this introduction, +is the enforcement of religious principle, and the condemnation of a +life lavished in dissipation and fashionable amusement. In the pursuit +of this object, it appears to us, that Mrs. Moore is much too severe +upon the ordinary amusements of mankind, many of which she does not +object to in this, or that degree; but altogether. Caelebs and Lucilla, +her _optimus_ and _optima_, never dance, and never go to the play. They +not only stay away from the comedies of Congreve and Farquhar, for which +they may easily enough be forgiven; but they never go to see Mrs. +Siddons in the Gamester, or in Jane Shore. The finest exhibition of +talent, and the most beautiful moral lessons, are interdicted, at the +theatre. There is something in the word _Playhouse_, which seems so +closely connected, in the minds of these people, with sin, and Satan,-- +that it stands in their vocabulary for every species of abomination. And +yet why? Where is every feeling more roused in favour of virtue, than at +a good play? Where is goodness so feelingly, so enthusiastically learnt? +What so solemn as to see the excellent passions of the human heart +called forth by a great actor, animated by a great poet? To hear Siddons +repeat what Shakespeare wrote! To behold the child, and his mother--the +noble, and the poor artisan,--the monarch, and his subjects--all ages +and all ranks convulsed with one common passion--wrung with one common +anguish, and, with loud sobs and cries, doing involuntary homage to the +God that made their hearts! What wretched infatuation to interdict such +amusements as these! What a blessing that mankind can be allured from +sensual gratification, and find relaxation and pleasure in such +pursuits! But the excellent Mr. Stanley is uniformly paltry and narrow, +--always trembling at the idea of being entertained, and thinking no +Christian safe who is not dull. As to the spectacles of impropriety +which are sometimes witnessed in parts of the theatre; such reasons +apply, in much stronger degree, to not driving along the Strand, or any +of the great public streets of London, after dark; and if the virtue of +well educated young persons is made of such very frail materials, their +best resource is a nunnery at once. It is a very bad rule, however, +never to quit the house for fear of catching cold. + +Mrs. Moore practically extends the same doctrine to cards and +assemblies. No cards--because cards are employed in gaming; no +assemblies--because many dissipated persons pass their lives in +assemblies. Carry this but a little further, and we must say,--no wine, +because of drunkenness; no meat, because of gluttony; no use, that there +may be no abuse! The fact is, that Mr. Stanley wants not only to be +religious, but to be at the head of the religious. These little +abstinences are the cockades by which the party are known,--the rallying +points for the evangelical faction. So natural is the love of power, +that it sometimes becomes the influencing motive with the sincere +advocates of that blessed religion, whose very characteristic excellence +is the humility which it inculcates. + +We observe that Mrs. Moore, in one part of her work, falls into the +common error about dress. She first blames ladies for exposing their +persons in the present style of dress; and then says, if they knew their +own interest,--if they were aware how much more alluring they were to +men when their charms are less displayed, they would make the desired +alteration from motives merely selfish. + + "Oh! if women in general knew what was their real interest! if they + could guess with what a charm even the _appearance_ of modesty + invests its possessor, they would dress decorously from mere + self-love, if not from principle. The designing would assume modesty + as an artifice; the coquet would adopt it as an allurement; the pure + as her appropriate attraction; and the voluptuous as the most + infallible art of seduction." I. 189. + +If there is any truth in this passage, nudity becomes a virtue; and no +decent woman, for the future, can be seen in garments. + +We have a few more of Mrs. Moore's opinions to notice.--It is not fair +to attack the religion of the times, because, in large and +indiscriminate parties, religion does not become the subject of +conversation. Conversation must and ought to grow out of materials on +which men can agree, not upon subjects which try the passions. But this +good lady wants to see men chatting together upon the Pelagian heresy-- +to hear, in the afternoon, the theological rumours of the day--and to +glean polemical tittle-tattle at a tea-table rout. All the disciples of +this school uniformly fall into the same mistake. They are perpetually +calling upon their votaries for religious thoughts and religious +conversation in every thing; inviting them to ride, walk, row, wrestle, +and dine out religiously;--forgetting that the being to whom this +impossible purity is recommended, is a being compelled to scramble for +his existence and support for ten hours out of the sixteen he is awake; +--forgetting that he must dig, beg, read, think, move, pay, receive, +praise, scold, command and obey;--forgetting, also, that if men +conversed as often upon religious subjects as they do upon the ordinary +occurrences of the world, that they would converse upon them with the +same familiarity, and want of respect,--that religion would then produce +feelings not more solemn or exalted than any other topics which +constitute at present the common furniture of human understandings. + +We are glad to find in this work, some strong compliments to the +efficacy of works,--some distinct admissions that it is necessary to be +honest and just, before we can be considered as religious. Such sort of +concessions are very gratifying to us; but how will they be received by +the children of the Tabernacle? It is quite clear, indeed, throughout +the whole of the work, that an apologetical explanation of certain +religious opinions is intended; and there is a considerable abatement of +that tone of insolence with which the improved Christians are apt to +treat the bungling specimens of piety to be met with in the more antient +churches. + +So much for the extravagances of this lady.--With equal sincerity, and +with greater pleasure, we bear testimony to her talents, her good sense, +and her real piety. There occurs every now and then in her productions, +very original, and very profound observations. Her advice is very often +characterised by the most amiable good sense, and conveyed in the most +brilliant and inviting style. If, instead of belonging to a trumpery +gospel faction, she had only watched over those great points of religion +in which the hearts of every sect of Christians are interested, she +would have been one of the most useful and valuable writers of her day. +As it is, every man would wish his wife and his children to read +_Caelebs_;--watching himself its effects;--separating the piety from +the puerility;--and showing that it is very possible to be a good +Christian, without degrading the human understanding to the trash and +folly of Methodism. + + + +MACAULAY ON SOUTHEY + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1830] + +SOUTHEY'S "COLLOQUIES" + +_Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of +Society_. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq., LL.D., Poet Laureate. 2 vols. 8vo. +London, 1829. + + +It would be scarcely possible for a man of Mr. Southey's talents and +acquirements to write two volumes so large as those before us, which +should be wholly destitute of information and amusement. Yet we do not +remember to have read with so little satisfaction any equal quantity of +matter, written by any man of real abilities. We have, for some time +past, observed with great regret the strange infatuation which leads the +Poet Laureate to abandon those departments of literature in which he +might excel, and to lecture the public on sciences of which he has still +the very alphabet to learn. He has now, we think, done his worst. The +subject which he has at last undertaken to treat is one which demands +all the highest intellectual and moral qualities of a philosophical +statesman, an understanding at once comprehensive and acute, a heart at +once upright and charitable. Mr. Southey brings to the task two +faculties which were never, we believe, vouchsafed in measure so copious +to any human being, the faculty of believing without a reason, and the +faculty of hating without a provocation. + +It is, indeed, most extraordinary, that a mind like Mr. Southey's, a +mind richly endowed in many respects by nature, and highly cultivated by +study, a mind which has exercised considerable influence on the most +enlightened generation of the most enlightened people that ever existed, +should be utterly destitute of the power of discerning truth from +falsehood. Yet such is the fact. Government is to Mr. Southey one of the +fine arts. He judges of a theory, of a public measure, of a religion or +a political party, of a peace or a war, as men judge of a picture or a +statue, by the effect produced on his imagination. A chain of +associations is to him what a chain of reasoning is to other men; and +what he calls his opinions are in fact merely his tastes.... + +Now in the mind of Mr. Southey reason has no place at all, as either +leader or follower, as either sovereign or slave. He does not seem to +know what an argument is. He never uses arguments himself. He never +troubles himself to answer the arguments of his opponents. It has never +occurred to him, that a man ought to be able to give some better account +of the way in which he has arrived at his opinions than merely that it +is his will and pleasure to hold them. It has never occurred to him that +there is a difference between assertion and demonstration, that a rumour +does not always prove a fact, that a single fact, when proved, is hardly +foundation enough for a theory, that two contradictory propositions +cannot be undeniable truths, that to beg the question is not the way to +settle it, or that when an objection is raised, it ought to be met with +something more convincing than "scoundrel" and "blockhead." + +It would be absurd to read the works of such a writer for political +instruction. The utmost that can be expected from any system promulgated +by him is that it may be splendid and affecting, that it may suggest +sublime and pleasing images. His scheme of philosophy is a mere +day-dream, a poetical creation, like the Domdaniel cavern, the Swerga, +or Padalon; and indeed it bears no inconsiderable resemblance to those +gorgeous visions. Like them, it has something of invention, grandeur, +and brilliancy. But, like them, it is grotesque and extravagant, and +perpetually violates even that conventional probability which is +essential to the effect of works of art. + +The warmest admirers of Mr. Southey will scarcely, we think, deny that +his success has almost always borne an inverse proportion to the degree +in which his undertakings have required a logical head. His poems, taken +in the mass, stand far higher than his prose works. His official Odes, +indeed, among which the Vision of Judgement must be classed, are, for +the most part, worse than Pye's and as bad as Cibber's; nor do we think +him generally happy in short pieces. But his longer poems, though full +of faults, are nevertheless very extraordinary productions. We doubt +greatly whether they will be read fifty years hence; but that, if they +are read, they will be admired, we have no doubt whatever.... + +The extraordinary bitterness of spirit which Mr. Southey manifests +towards his opponents is, no doubt, in a great measure to be attributed +to the manner in which he forms his opinions. Differences of taste, it +has often been remarked, produce greater exasperation than differences +on points of science. But this is not all. A peculiar austerity marks +almost all Mr. Southey's judgments of men and actions. We are far from +blaming him for fixing on a high standard of morals and for applying +that standard to every case. But rigour ought to be accompanied by +discernment; and of discernment Mr. Southey seems to be utterly +destitute. His mode of judging is monkish. It is exactly what we should +expect from a stern old Benedictine, who had been preserved from many +ordinary frailties by the restraints of his situation. No man out of a +cloister ever wrote about love, for example, so coldly and at the same +time so grossly. His descriptions of it are just what we should hear +from a recluse who knew the passion only from the details of the +confessional. Almost all his heroes make love either like Seraphim or +like cattle. He seems to have no notion of any thing between the +Platonic passion of the Glendoveer who gazes with rapture on his +mistress's leprosy, and the brutal appetite of Arvalan and Roderick. In +Roderick, indeed, the two characters are united. He is first all clay, +and then all spirit. He goes forth a Tarquin, and comes back too +ethereal to be married. The only love scene, as far as we can recollect, +in Madoc, consists of the delicate attentions which a savage, who has +drunk too much of the Prince's excellent metheglin, offers to Goervyl. +It would be the labour of a week to find, in all the vast mass of Mr. +Southey's poetry, a single passage indicating any sympathy with those +feelings which have consecrated the shades of Vaucluse and the rocks of +Meillerie. + +Indeed, if we except some very pleasing images of paternal tenderness +and filial duty, there is scarcely any thing soft or humane in Mr. +Southey's poetry. What theologians call the spiritual sins are his +cardinal virtues, hatred, pride, and the insatiable thirst of vengeance. +These passions he disguises under the name of duties; he purifies them +from the alloy of vulgar interests; he ennobles them by uniting them +with energy, fortitude, and a severe sanctity of manners; and he then +holds them up to the admiration of mankind. This is the spirit of +Thalaba, of Ladurlad, of Adosinda, of Roderick after his conversion. It +is the spirit which, in all his writings, Mr. Southey appears to affect. +"I do well to be angry," seems to be the predominant feeling of his +mind. Almost the only mark of charity which he vouchsafes to his +opponents is to pray for their reformation; and this he does in terms +not unlike those in which we can imagine a Portuguese priest interceding +with Heaven for a Jew, delivered over to the secular arm after a +relapse. + +We have always heard, and fully believe, that Mr. Southey is a very +amiable and humane man; nor do we intend to apply to him personally any +of the remarks which we have made on the spirit of his writings. Such +are the caprices of human nature. Even Uncle Toby troubled himself very +little about the French grenadiers who fell on the glacis of Namur. And +Mr. Southey, when he takes up his pen, changes his nature as much as +Captain Shandy, when he girt on his sword. The only opponents to whom +the Laureate gives quarter are those in whom he finds something of his +own character reflected. He seems to have an instinctive antipathy for +calm, moderate men, for men who shun extremes, and who render reasons. +He treated Mr. Owen of Lanark, for example, with infinitely more respect +than he has shown to Mr. Hallam or to Dr. Lingard; and this for no +reason that we can discover, except that Mr. Owen is more unreasonably +and hopelessly in the wrong than any speculator of our time. + +Mr. Southey's political system is just what we might expect from a man +who regards politics, not as matter of science, but as matter of taste +and feeling. All his schemes of government have been inconsistent with +themselves. In his youth he was a republican; yet, as he tells us in his +preface to these Colloquies, he was even then opposed to the Catholic +Claims. He is now a violent Ultra-Tory. Yet, while he maintains, with +vehemence approaching to ferocity, all the sterner and harsher parts of +the Ultra-Tory theory of government, the baser and dirtier part of that +theory disgusts him. Exclusion, persecution, severe punishments for +libellers and demagogues, proscriptions, massacres, civil war, if +necessary, rather than any concession to a discontented people; these +are the measures which he seems inclined to recommend. A severe and +gloomy tyranny, crushing opposition, silencing remonstrance, drilling +the minds of the people into unreasoning obedience, has in it something +of grandeur which delights his imagination. But there is nothing fine in +the shabby tricks and jobs of office; and Mr. Southey, accordingly, has +no toleration for them. When a Jacobin, he did not perceive that his +system led logically, and would have led practically, to the removal of +religious distinctions. He now commits a similar error. He renounces the +abject and paltry part of the creed of his party, without perceiving +that it is also an essential part of that creed. He would have tyranny +and purity together; though the most superficial observation might have +shown him that there can be no tyranny without corruption. + +It is high time, however, that we should proceed to the consideration of +the work which is our more immediate subject, and which, indeed, +illustrates in almost every page our general remarks on Mr. Southey's +writings. In the preface, we are informed that the author, +notwithstanding some statements to the contrary, was always opposed to +the Catholic Claims. We fully believe this; both because we are sure +that Mr. Southey is incapable of publishing a deliberate falsehood, and +because his assertion is in itself probable. We should have expected +that, even in his wildest paroxysms of democratic enthusiasm, Mr. +Southey would have felt no wish to see a simple remedy applied to a +great practical evil. We should have expected that the only measure +which all the great statesmen of two generations have agreed with each +other in supporting would be the only measure which Mr. Southey would +have agreed with himself in opposing. He has passed from one extreme of +political opinion to another, as Satan in Milton went round the globe, +contriving constantly to "ride with darkness." Wherever the thickest +shadow of the night may at any moment chance to fall, there is Mr. +Southey. It is not every body who could have so dexterously avoided +blundering on the daylight in the course of a journey to the antipodes. + + * * * * * + +It is not by the intermeddling of Mr. Southey's idol, the omniscient and +omnipotent State, but by the prudence and energy of the people, that +England has hitherto been carried forward in civilisation; and it is to +the same prudence and the same energy that we now look with comfort and +good hope. Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by +strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving +capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, +industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their +natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by +diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every +department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will +assuredly do the rest. + + + + +ON CROKER'S "BOSWELL" + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, September, 1831] + +_The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Including a Journal of a Tour to the +Hebrides, by James Boswell, Esq. A new Edition, with numerous Additions +and Notes._ By JOHN WILSON CROKER, LL.D., F.R.S. 5 vols., 8vo. London, +1831. + +This work has greatly disappointed us. Whatever faults we may have been +prepared to find in it, we fully expected that it would be a valuable +addition to English literature; that it would contain many curious +facts, and many judicious remarks; that the style of the notes would be +neat, clear, and precise; and that the typographical execution would be, +as in new editions of classical works it ought to be, almost faultless. +We are sorry to be obliged to say that the merits of Mr. Croker's +performance are on a par with those of a certain leg of mutton on which +Dr. Johnson dined, while travelling from London to Oxford, and which he, +with characteristic energy, pronounced to be "as bad as bad could be, +ill fed, ill killed, ill kept, and ill dressed." This edition is ill +compiled, ill arranged, ill written, and ill printed. + +Nothing in the work has astonished us so much as the ignorance or +carelessness of Mr. Croker with respect to facts and dates. Many of his +blunders are such as we should be surprised to hear any well educated +gentleman commit, even in conversation. The notes absolutely swarm with +misstatements, into which the editor never would have fallen, if he had +taken the slightest pains to investigate the truth of his assertions, or +if he had even been well acquainted with the book on which he undertook +to comment. + +We will give a few instances-- + + * * * * * + +We will not multiply instances of this scandalous inaccuracy. It is +clear that a writer who, even when warned by the text on which he is +commenting, falls into such mistakes as these, is entitled to no +confidence whatever. Mr. Croker has committed an error of five years +with respect to the publication of Goldsmith's novel, an error of twelve +years with respect to the publication of part of Gibbon's History, an +error of twenty-one years with respect to an event in Johnson's life so +important as the taking of the doctoral degree. Two of these three +errors he has committed, while ostentatiously displaying his own +accuracy, and correcting what he represents as the loose assertions of +others. How can his readers take on trust his statements concerning the +births, marriages, divorces, and deaths of a crowd of people, whose +names are scarcely known to this generation? It is not likely that a +person who is ignorant of what almost everybody knows can know that of +which almost everybody is ignorant. We did not open this book with any +wish to find blemishes in it. We have made no curious researches. The +work itself, and a very common knowledge of literary and political +history, have enabled us to detect the mistakes which we have pointed +out, and many other mistakes of the same kind. We must say, and we say +it with regret, that we do not consider the authority of Mr. Croker, +unsupported by other evidence, as sufficient to justify any writer who +may follow him in relating a single anecdote or in assigning a date to a +single event. + +Mr. Croker shows almost as much ignorance and heedlessness in his +criticisms as in his statements concerning facts. Dr. Johnson said, very +reasonably as it appears to us, that some of the satires of Juvenal are +too gross for imitation. Mr. Croker, who, by the way, is angry with +Johnson for defending Prior's tales against the charge of indecency, +resents this aspersion on Juvenal, and indeed refuses to believe that +the doctor can have said anything so absurd. "He probably said--some +_passages_ of them--for there are none of Juvenal's satires to which the +same objection may be made as to one of Horace's, that it is +_altogether_ gross and licentious."[1] Surely Mr. Croker can never have +read the second and ninth satires of Juvenal. + +[1] I. 167. + +Indeed the decisions of this editor on points of classical learning, +though pronounced in a very authoritative tone, are generally such that, +if a schoolboy under our care were to utter them, our soul assuredly +should not spare for his crying. It is no disgrace to a gentleman who +has been engaged during near thirty years in political life that he has +forgotten his Greek and Latin. But he becomes justly ridiculous if, when +no longer able to construe a plain sentence, he affects to sit in +judgment on the most delicate questions of style and metre. From one +blunder, a blunder which no good scholar would have made, Mr. Croker was +saved, as he informs us, by Sir Robert Peel, who quoted a passage +exactly in point from Horace. We heartily wish that Sir Robert, whose +classical attainments are well known, had been more frequently +consulted. Unhappily he was not always at his friend's elbow; and we +have therefore a rich abundance of the strangest errors. Boswell has +preserved a poor epigram by Johnson, inscribed "Ad Lauram parituram." +Mr. Croker censures the poet for applying the word puella to a lady in +Laura's situation, and for talking of the beauty of Lucina. "Lucina," he +says, "was never famed for her beauty."[1] If Sir Robert Peel had seen +this note, he probably would have again refuted Mr. Croker's criticisms +by an Appeal to Horace. In the secular ode, Lucina is used as one of the +names of Diana, and the beauty of Diana is extolled by all the most +orthodox doctors of the ancient mythology, from Homer in his Odyssey, to +Claudian in his Rape of Proserpine. In another ode, Horace describes +Diana as the goddess who assists the "laborantes utero puellas." But we +are ashamed to detain our readers with this fourth-form learning. + + * * * * * + +A very large proportion of the two thousand five hundred notes which the +editor boasts of having added to those of Boswell and Malone consists of +the flattest and poorest reflections, reflections such as the least +intelligent reader is quite competent to make for himself, and such as +no intelligent reader would think it worth while to utter aloud. They +remind us of nothing so much as of those profound and interesting +annotations which are penciled by sempstresses and apothecaries' boys on +the dog-eared margins of novels borrowed from circulating libraries; +"How beautiful!" "Cursed Prosy!" "I don't like Sir Reginald Malcolm at +all." "I think Pelham is a sad dandy." Mr. Croker is perpetually +stopping us in our progress through the most delightful narrative in the +language, to observe that really Dr. Johnson was very rude, that he +talked more for victory than for truth, that his taste for port wine +with capillaire in it was very odd, that Boswell was impertinent, that +it was foolish in Mrs. Thrale to marry the music-master; and so forth. + +We cannot speak more favourably of the manner in which the notes are +written than of the matter of which they consist. We find in every page +words used in wrong senses, and constructions which violate the plainest +rules of grammar. We have the vulgarism of "mutual friend," for "common +friend." We have "fallacy" used as synonymous with "falsehood." We have +many such inextricable labyrinths of pronouns as that which follows: +"Lord Erskine was fond of this anecdote; he told it to the editor the +first time that he had the honour of being in his company." Lastly, we +have a plentiful supply of sentences resembling those which we subjoin. +"Markland, _who_, with Jortin and Thirlby, Johnson calls three +contemporaries of great eminence."[2] "Warburton himself did not feel, +as Mr. Boswell was disposed to think he did, kindly or gratefully _of_ +Johnson."[3] "It was _him_ that Horace Walpole called a man who never +made a bad figure but as an author."[4] One or two of these solecisms +should perhaps be attributed to the printer, who has certainly done his +best to fill both the text and the notes with all sorts of blunders. In +truth, he and the editor have between them made the book so bad, that we +do not well see how it could have been worse. + +[2] IV. 377. +[3] IV. 415. +[4] II. 461. + +When we turn from the commentary of Mr. Croker to the work of our old +friend Boswell, we find it not only worse printed than in any other +edition with which we are acquainted, but mangled in the most wanton +manner. Much that Boswell inserted in his narrative is, without the +shadow of a reason, degraded to the appendix. The editor has also taken +upon himself to alter or omit passages which he considers as indecorous. +This prudery is quite unintelligible to us. There is nothing immoral in +Boswell's book, nothing which tends to inflame the passions. He +sometimes uses plain words. But if this be a taint which requires +expurgation, it would be desirable to begin by expurgating the morning +and evening lessons. The delicate office which Mr. Croker has undertaken +he has performed in the most capricious manner. One strong, old-fashioned, +English word, familiar to all who read their Bibles, is +changed for a softer synonyme in some passages, and suffered to stand +unaltered in others. In one place a faint allusion made by Johnson to an +indelicate subject, an allusion so faint that, till Mr. Croker's note +pointed it out to us, we had never noticed it, and of which we are quite +sure that the meaning would never be discovered by any of those for +whose sake books are expurgated, is altogether omitted. In another +place, a coarse and stupid jest of Dr. Taylor on the subject, expressed +in the broadest language, almost the only passage, as far as we +remember, in all Boswell's book, which we should have been inclined to +leave out, is suffered to remain. + +We complain, however, much more of the additions than of the omissions. +We have half of Mrs. Thrale's book, scraps of Mr. Tyers, scraps of Mr. +Murphy, scraps of Mr. Cradock, long prosings of Sir John Hawkins, and +connecting observations by Mr. Croker himself, inserted into the midst +of Boswell's text. + + * * * * * + +The _Life of Johnson_ is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is +not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakspeare is not more +decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the +first of orators than Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no +second. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not +worth while to place them. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere. + +We are not sure that there is in the whole history of the human +intellect so strange a phenomenon as this book. Many of the greatest men +that ever lived have written biography. Boswell was one of the smallest +men that ever lived, and he has beaten them all. He was, if we are to +give any credit to his own account or to the united testimony of all who +knew him, a man of the meanest and feeblest intellect. Johnson described +him as a fellow who had missed his only chance of immortality by not +having been alive when the _Dunciad_ was written. Beauclerk used his +name as a proverbial expression for a bore. He was the laughing-stock of +the whole of that brilliant society which has owed to him the greater +part of its fame. He was always laying himself at the feet of some +eminent man, and begging to be spit upon and trampled upon. He was +always earning some ridiculous nickname, and then "binding it as a crown +unto him," not merely in metaphor, but literally. He exhibited himself, +at the Shakespeare Jubilee, to all the crowd which filled +Stratford-on-Avon, with a placard round his hat bearing the inscription +of +Corsica Boswell. In his Tour, he proclaimed to all the world that at +Edinburgh he was known by the appellation of Paoli Boswell. Servile and +impertinent, shallow and pedantic, a bigot and a sot, bloated with +family pride, and eternally blustering about the dignity of a born +gentleman, yet stooping to be a talebearer, an eavesdropper, a common +butt in the taverns of London, so curious to know everybody who was +talked about, that, Tory and High Churchman as he was, he manoeuvred, we +have been told, for an introduction to _Tom Paine_, so vain of the most +childish distinctions, that when he had been to court he drove to the +office where his book was printing without changing his clothes, and +summoned all the printer's devils to admire his new ruffles and sword; +such was this man, and such he was content and proud to be. Everything +which another man would have hidden, everything the publication of which +would have made another man hang himself, was matter of gay and +clamorous exultation to his weak and diseased mind. What silly things he +said, what bitter retorts he provoked, how at one place he was troubled +with evil presentiments which came to nothing, how at another place, on +waking from a drunken doze, he read the prayerbook and took a hair of +the dog that had bitten him, how he went to see men hanged and came away +maudlin, how he added five hundred pounds to the fortune of one of his +babies because she was not scared at Johnson's ugly face, how he was +frightened out of his wits at sea, and how the sailors quieted him as +they would have quieted a child, how tipsy he was at Lady Cork's one +evening and how much his merriment annoyed the ladies, how impertinent +he was to the Duchess of Argyle and with what stately contempt she put +down his impertinence, how Colonel Macleod sneered to his face at his +impudent obtrusiveness, how his father and the very wife of his bosom +laughed and fretted at his fooleries; all these things he proclaimed to +all the world, as if they had been subjects for pride and ostentatious +rejoicing. All the caprices of his temper, all the illusions of his +vanity, all his hypochondriac whimsies, all his castles in the air, he +displayed with a cool self-complacency, a perfect unconsciousness that +he was making a fool of himself, to which it is impossible to find a +parallel in the whole history of mankind. He has used many people ill; +but assuredly he has used nobody so ill as himself. + +That such a man should have written one of the best books in the world +is strange enough. But this is not all. Many persons who have conducted +themselves foolishly in active life, and whose conversation has +indicated no superior powers of mind, have left us valuable works. +Goldsmith was very justly described by one of his contemporaries as an +inspired idiot, and by another as a being + + Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll. + +La Fontaine was in society a mere simpleton. His blunders +would not come in amiss among the stories of Hierocles. But +these men attained literary eminence in spite of their weaknesses. +Boswell attained it by reason of his weaknesses. If he had not been a +great fool, he would never have been a great writer. Without all the +qualities which made him the jest and the torment of those among whom he +lived, without the officiousness, the inquisitiveness, the effrontery, +the toad-eating, the insensibility to all reproof, he never could have +produced so excellent a book. He was a slave, proud of his servitude, a +Paul Pry, convinced that his own curiosity and garrulity were virtues, +an unsafe companion who never scrupled to repay the most liberal +hospitality by the basest violation of confidence, a man without +delicacy, without shame, without sense enough to know when he was +hurting the feelings of others or when he was exposing himself to +derision; and because he was all this, he has, in an important +department of literature, immeasurably surpassed such writers as +Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, and his own idol Johnson. + +Of the talents which ordinarily raise men to eminence as writers, +Boswell had absolutely none. There is not in all his books a single +remark of his own on literature, politics, religion, or society, which +is not either common-place or absurd. His dissertations on hereditary +gentility, on the slave-trade, and on the entailing of landed estates, +may serve as examples. To say that these passages are sophistical would +be to pay them an extravagant compliment. They have no pretence to +argument, or even to meaning. He has reported innumerable observations +made by himself in the course of conversation. + +Of those observations we do not remember one which is above the +intellectual capacity of a boy of fifteen. He has printed many of his +own letters, and in these letters he is always ranting or twaddling. +Logic, eloquence, wit, taste, all those things which are generally +considered as making a book valuable, were utterly wanting to him. He +had, indeed, a quick observation and a retentive memory. These +qualities, if he had been a man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of +themselves have sufficed to make him conspicuous; but because he was a +dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb, they have made him immortal. + +Those parts of his book which, considered abstractedly, are most utterly +worthless, are delightful when we read them as illustrations of the +character of the writer. Bad in themselves, they are good dramatically, +like the nonsense of Justice Shallow, the clipped English of Dr. Caius, +or the misplaced consonants of Fluellen. Of all confessors, Boswell is +the most candid. + + * * * * * + +Johnson came among [the distinguished writers of his age] the solitary +specimen of a past age, the last survivor of the genuine race of Grub +Street hacks; the last of that generation of authors whose abject misery +and whose dissolute manners had furnished inexhaustible matter to the +satirical genius of Pope. From nature he had received an uncouth figure, +a diseased constitution, and an irritable temper. The manner in which +the earlier years of his manhood had been passed had given to his +demeanour, and even to his moral character, some peculiarities appalling +to the civilised beings who were the companions of his old age. The +perverse irregularity of his hours, the slovenliness of his person, his +fits of strenuous exertion, interrupted by long intervals of +sluggishness, his strange abstinence, and his equally strange voracity, +his active benevolence, contrasted with the constant rudeness and the +occasional ferocity of his manners in society, made him, in the opinion +of those with whom he lived during the last twenty years of his life, a +complete original. An original he was, undoubtedly, in some respects. +But if we possessed full information concerning those who shared his +early hardships, we should probably find that what we call his +singularities of manner were, for the most part, failings which he had +in common with the class to which he belonged. He ate at Streatham Park +as he had been used to eat behind the screen at St. John's Gate, when he +was ashamed to show his ragged clothes. He ate as it was natural that a +man should eat, who, during a great part of his life, had passed the +morning in doubt whether he should have food for the afternoon. The +habits of his early life had accustomed him to bear privation with +fortitude, but not to taste pleasure with moderation. He could fast; +but, when he did not fast, he tore his dinner like a famished wolf, with +the veins swelling on his forehead, and the perspiration running down +his cheeks. He scarcely ever took wine. But when he drank it, he drank +it greedily and in large tumblers. These were, in fact, mitigated +symptoms of that same moral disease which raged with such deadly +malignity in his friends Savage and Boyse. The roughness and violence +which he showed in society were to be expected from a man whose temper, +not naturally gentle, had been long tried by the bitterest calamities, +by the want of meat, of fire, and of clothes, by the importunity of +creditors, by the insolence of booksellers, by the derision of fools, by +the insincerity of patrons, by that bread which is the bitterest of all +food, by those stairs which are the most toilsome of all paths, by that +deferred hope which makes the heart sick. Through all these things the +ill-dressed, coarse, ungainly pedant had struggled manfully up to +eminence and command. It was natural that, in the exercise of his power, +he should be "eo immitior, quia toleraverat," that, though his heart was +undoubtedly generous and humane, his demeanour in society should be +harsh and despotic. For severe distress he had sympathy, and not only +sympathy, but munificent relief. But for the suffering which a harsh +word inflicts upon a delicate mind he had no pity; for it was a kind of +suffering which he could scarcely conceive. He would carry home on his +shoulders a sick and starving girl from the streets. He turned his house +into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could +find no other asylum; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude +weary out his benevolence. But the pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him +ridiculous; and he scarcely felt sufficient compassion even for the +pangs of wounded affection. He had seen and felt so much of sharp +misery, that he was not affected by paltry vexations; and he seemed to +think that everybody ought to be as much hardened to those vexations as +himself. He was angry with Boswell for complaining of a +head-ache, with Mrs. Thrale for grumbling about the dust on the road, or +the smell of the kitchen. These were, in his phrase, "foppish +lamentations," which people ought to be ashamed to utter in a world so +full of sin and sorrow. Goldsmith crying because the Good-natured Man +had failed, inspired him with no pity. Though his own health was not +good, he detested and despised valetudinarians. Pecuniary losses, unless +they reduced the loser absolutely to beggary, moved him very little. +People whose hearts had been softened by prosperity might weep, he said, +for such events; but all that could be expected of a plain man was not +to laugh. He was not much moved even by the spectacle of Lady Tavistock +dying of a broken heart for the loss of her lord. Such grief he +considered as a luxury reserved for the idle and the wealthy. A +washer-woman, left a widow with nine small children, would not have +sobbed herself to death. + +A person who troubled himself so little about small or sentimental +grievances was not likely to be very attentive to the feelings of others +in the ordinary intercourse of society. He could not understand how a +sarcasm or a reprimand could make any man really unhappy. "My dear +doctor," said he to Goldsmith, "what harm does it do to a man to call +him Holofernes?" "Pooh, ma'am," he exclaimed to Mrs. Carter, "who is the +worse for being talked of uncharitably?" Politeness has been well +defined as benevolence in small things. Johnson was impolite, not +because he wanted benevolence, but because small things appeared smaller +to him than to people who had never known what it was to live for +fourpence halfpenny a day. + +The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the union of great +powers with low prejudices. If we judged of him by the best parts of his +mind, we should place him almost as high as he was placed by the +idolatry of Boswell; if by the worst parts of his mind, we should place +him even below Boswell himself. Where he was not under the influence of +some strange scruple, or some domineering passion, which prevented him +from boldly and fairly investigating a subject, he was a wary and acute +reasoner, a little too much inclined to scepticism, and a little too +fond of paradox. No man was less likely to be imposed upon by fallacies +in argument, or by exaggerated statements of facts. But, if while he was +beating down sophisms and exposing false testimony, some childish +prejudices, such as would excite laughter in a well managed nursery, +came across him, he was smitten as if by enchantment. His mind dwindled +away under the spell from gigantic elevation to dwarfish littleness. +Those who had lately been admiring its amplitude and its force were now +as much astonished at its strange narrowness and feebleness as the +fisherman in the Arabian tale, when he saw the Genie, whose stature had +overshadowed the whole sea-coast, and whose might seemed equal to a +contest with armies, contract himself to the dimensions of his small +prison, and lie there the helpless slave of the charm of Solomon. + + * * * * * + +The characteristic faults of his style are so familiar to all our +readers, and have been so often burlesqued, that it is almost +superfluous to point them out. It is well-known that he made less use +than any other eminent writer of those strong plain words, Anglo-Saxon +or Norman-French, of which the roots lie in the inmost depths of our +language; and that he felt a vicious partiality for terms which, long +after our own speech had been fixed, were borrowed from the Greek and +Latin, and which, therefore, even when lawfully naturalised must be +considered as born aliens, not entitled to rank with the king's English. +His constant practice of padding out a sentence with useless epithets, +till it became as stiff as the best of an exquisite, his antithetical +forms of expression, constantly employed even where there is no +opposition in the ideas expressed, his big words wasted on little +things, his harsh inversions, so widely different from those graceful +and easy inversions which give variety, spirit, and sweetness to the +expression of our great old writers, all these peculiarities have been +imitated by his admirers and parodied by his assailants, till the public +has become sick of the subject. + +Goldsmith said to him, very wittily, and very justly, "If you were to +write a fable about little fishes, doctor, you would make the little +fishes talk like whales." No man surely ever had so little talent for +personation as Johnson. Whether he wrote in the character of a +disappointed legacy-hunter or an empty town fop, of a crazy virtuoso or +a flippant coquette, he wrote in the same pompous and unbending style. +His speech, like Sir Piercy Shafton's Euphuistic eloquence, bewrayed him +under every disguise. Euphelia and Rhodoclea talk as finely as Imlac the +poet, or Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia. The gay Cornelia describes her +reception at the country-house of her relations, in such terms as these: +"I was surprised, after the civilities of my first reception, to find, +instead of the leisure and tranquillity which a rural life always +promises, and, if well conducted, might always afford, a confused +wildness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every +face was clouded, and every motion agitated." The gentle Tranquilla +informs us, that she "had not passed the earlier part of life without +the flattery of courtship, and the joys of triumph; but had danced the +round of gaiety amidst the murmurs of envy and the gratulations of +applause, had been attended from pleasure to pleasure by the great, the +sprightly, and the vain, and had seen her regard solicited by the +obsequiousness of gallantry, the gaiety of wit, and the timidity of +love." Surely Sir John Falstaff himself did not wear his petticoats with +a worse grace. The reader may well cry out, with honest Sir Hugh Evans, +"I like not when a 'oman has a great peard: I spy a great peard under +her muffler."[5] + +[5] It is proper to observe that this passage bears a very close + resemblance to a passage in the _Rambler_ (No. 20). The resemblance + may possibly be the effect of unconscious plagiarism. + +We had something more to say. But our article is already too long; and +we must close it. We would fain part in good humour from the hero, from +the biographer, and even from the editor, who, ill as he has performed +his task, has at least this claim to our gratitude, that he has induced +us to read Boswell's book again. As we close it, the club-room is before +us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons +for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the +canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall thin +form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and the beaming smile of +Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in +his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar +to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up, the +gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease, +the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the +scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and paired to the +quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see +the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, +sir!" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, Sir!" and the "You don't +see your way through the question, sir!" + +What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man! To be +regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion. To +receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius +have in general received from posterity! To be more intimately known to +posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries! That kind of +fame which is commonly the most transient is, in his case, the most +durable. The reputation of those writings, which he probably expected to +be immortal, is every day fading; while those peculiarities of manner +and that careless table-talk the memory of which, he probably thought, +would die with him, are likely to be remembered as long as the English +language is spoken in any quarter of the globe. + + + + +ON W. E. GLADSTONE + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, April, 1839] + +_The State in its Relations with the Church_. By W. E. GLADSTONE, Esq., +Student of Christ Church, and M.P. for Newark. 8vo. Second Edition. +London, 1839. + +The author of this volume is a young man of unblemished character, and +of distinguished parliamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern +and unbending Tories who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader +whose experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose +cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor. It would not be at all +strange if Mr. Gladstone were one of the most unpopular men in England. +But we believe that we do him no more than justice when we say that his +abilities and his demeanour have obtained for him the respect and good +will of all parties. His first appearance in the character of an author +is therefore an interesting event; and it is natural that the gentle +wishes of the public should go with him to his trial. + +We are much pleased, without any reference to the soundness or +unsoundness of Mr. Gladstone's theories, to see a grave and elaborate +treatise on an important part of the Philosophy of Government proceed +from the pen of a young man who is rising to eminence in the House of +Commons. There is little danger that people engaged in the conflicts of +active life will be too much addicted to general speculation. The +opposite vice is that which most easily besets them. The times and tides +of business and debate tarry for no man. A politician must often talk +and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill informed +respecting a question; all his notions about it may be vague and +inaccurate; but speak he must; and if he is a man of ability, of tact, +and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, +it is possible to speak successfully. He finds that there is a great +difference between the effect of written words, which are perused and +reperused in the stillness of the closet, and the effect of spoken words +which, set off by the graces of utterance and gesture, vibrate for a +single moment on the ear. He finds that he may blunder without much +chance of being detected, that he may reason sophistically, and escape +unrefuted. He finds that, even on knotty questions of trade and +legislation, he can, without reading ten pages, or thinking ten minutes, +draw forth loud plaudits, and sit down with the credit of having made an +excellent speech.... The tendency of institutions like those of England +is to encourage readiness in public men, at the expense both of fulness +and of exactness. The keenest and most vigorous minds of every +generation, minds often admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, +are habitually employed in producing arguments such as no man of sense +would ever put into a treatise intended for publication, arguments which +are just good enough to be used once, when aided by fluent delivery and +pointed language. The habit of discussing questions in this way +necessarily reacts on the intellects of our ablest men, particularly of +those who are introduced into parliament at a very early age, before +their minds have expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate is +developed in such men to a degree which, to the multitude, seems as +marvellous as the performance of an Italian _Improvisatore._ + +But they are fortunate indeed if they retain unimpaired the faculties +which are required for close reasoning or for enlarged speculation. +Indeed we should sooner expect a great original work on political +science, such a work, for example, as the Wealth of Nations, from an +apothecary in a country town, or from a minister in the Hebrides, than +from a statesman who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a +distinguished debater in the House of Commons. + +We therefore hail with pleasure, though assuredly not with unmixed +pleasure, the appearance of this work. That a young politician should, +in the intervals afforded by his parliamentary avocations, have +constructed and propounded, with much study and mental toil, an original +theory on a great problem in politics, is a circumstance which, +abstracted from all consideration of the soundness or unsoundness of his +opinions, must be considered as highly creditable to him. We certainly +cannot wish that Mr. Gladstone's doctrines may become fashionable among +public men. But we heartily wish that his laudable desire to penetrate +beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, by long and intent +meditation, at the knowledge of great general laws, were much more +fashionable than we at all expect it to become. + +Mr. Gladstone seems to us to be, in many respects, exceedingly well +qualified for philosophical investigation. His mind is of large grasp; +nor is he deficient in dialectical skill. But he does not give his +intellect fair play. There is no want of light, but a great want of what +Bacon would have called dry light. Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is +refracted and distorted by a false medium of passions and prejudices. +His style bears a remarkable analogy to his mode of thinking, and indeed +exercises great influence on his mode of thinking. His rhetoric, though +often good of its kind, darkens and perplexes the logic which it should +illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, with a barren imagination +and a scanty vocabulary, would have saved him from almost all his +mistakes. He has one gift most dangerous to a speculator, a vast command +of a kind of language, grave and majestic, but of vague and uncertain +import; of a kind of language which affects us much in the same way in +which the lofty diction of the Chorus of Clouds affected the +simple-hearted Athenian. + + [Greek: o gae tou phthegmatos, os hieron, kai semnon, kai teratodes.] + +When propositions have been established, and nothing remains but to +amplify and decorate them, this dim magnificence may be in place. But if +it is admitted into a demonstration, it is very much worse than absolute +nonsense; just as that transparent haze, through which the sailor sees +capes and mountains of false sizes and in false bearings, is more +dangerous than utter darkness. Now, Mr. Gladstone is fond of employing +the phraseology of which we speak in those parts of his works which +require the utmost perspicuity and precision of which human language is +capable; and in this way he deludes first himself, and then his readers. +The foundations of his theory which ought to be buttresses of adamant, +are made out of the flimsy materials which are fit only for perorations. +This fault is one which no subsequent care or industry can correct. The +more strictly Mr. Gladstone reasons on his premises, the more absurd are +the conclusions which he brings out; and, when at last his good sense +and good nature recoil from the horrible practical inferences to which +this theory leads, he is reduced sometimes to take refuge in arguments +inconsistent with his fundamental doctrines, and sometimes to escape +from the legitimate consequences of his false principles, under cover of +equally false history. + +It would be unjust not to say that this book, though not a good book, +shows more talent than many good books. It abounds with eloquent and +ingenious passages. It bears the signs of much patient thought. It is +written throughout with excellent taste and excellent temper; nor does +it, so far as we have observed, contain one expression unworthy of a +gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. But the doctrines which are put +forth in it appear to us, after full and calm consideration, to be +false, to be in the highest degree pernicious, and to be such as, if +followed out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would +inevitably produce the dissolution of society; and for this opinion we +shall proceed to give our reasons with that freedom which the importance +of the subject requires, and which Mr. Gladstone, both by precept and by +example, invites us to use, but, we hope, without rudeness, and, we are +sure, without malevolence. + +Before we enter on an examination of this theory, we wish to guard +ourselves against one misconception. It is possible that some persons +who have read Mr. Gladstone's book carelessly, and others who have +merely heard in conversation, or seen in a newspaper, that the member +for Newark has written in defence of the Church of England against the +supporters of the voluntary system, may imagine that we are writing in +defence of the voluntary system, and that we desire the abolition of the +Established Church. This is not the case. It would be as unjust to +accuse us of attacking the Church, because we attack Mr. Gladstone's +doctrines, as it would be to accuse Locke of wishing for anarchy, +because he refuted Filmer's patriarchal theory of government, or to +accuse Blackstone of recommending the confiscation of ecclesiastical +property, because he denied that the right of the rector to tithe was +derived from the Levitical law. It is to be observed, that Mr. Gladstone +rests his case on entirely new grounds, and does not differ more widely +from us than from some of those who have hitherto been considered as the +most illustrious champions of the Church. He is not content with the +Ecclesiastical Polity, and rejoices that the latter part of that +celebrated work "does not carry with it the weight of Hooker's plenary +authority." He is not content with Bishop Warburton's Alliance of Church +and State. "The propositions of that work generally," he says, "are to +be received with qualification"; and he agrees with Bolingbroke in +thinking that Warburton's whole theory rests on a fiction. He is still +less satisfied with Paley's defence of the Church, which he pronounces +to be "tainted by the original vice of false ethical principles," and +"full of the seeds of evil." He conceives that Dr. Chalmers has taken a +partial view of the subject, and "put forth much questionable matter." +In truth, on almost every point on which we are opposed to Mr. +Gladstone, we have on our side the authority of some divine, eminent as +a defender of existing establishments. + +Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great fundamental +proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of the +principal ends of government, as government. If Mr. Gladstone has not +proved this proposition, his system vanishes at once. + +We are desirous, before we enter on the discussion of this important +question, to point out clearly a distinction which, though very obvious, +seems to be overlooked by many excellent people. In their opinion, to +say that the ends of government are temporal and not spiritual is +tantamount to saying that the temporal welfare of man is of more +importance than his spiritual welfare. But this is an entire mistake. +The question is not whether spiritual interests be or be not superior in +importance to temporal interests; but whether the machinery which +happens at any moment to be employed for the purpose of protecting +certain temporal interests of a society be necessarily such a machinery +as is fitted to promote the spiritual interests of that society. Without +a division of labour the world could not go on. It is of very much more +importance that men should have food than that they should have +pianofortes. Yet it by no means follows that every pianoforte-maker +ought to add the business of a baker to his own; for, if he did so, we +should have both much worse music and much worse bread. It is of much +more importance that the knowledge of religious truth should be wisely +diffused than that the art of sculpture should flourish among us. Yet it +by no means follows that the Royal Academy ought to unite with its +present functions those of the Society for Promoting Christian +Knowledge, to distribute theological tracts, to send forth missionaries, +to turn out Nollekens for being a Catholic, Bacon for being a methodist, +and Flaxman for being a Swedenborgian. For the effect of such folly +would be that we should have the worst possible Academy of Arts, and the +worst possible Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. The +community, it is plain, would be thrown into universal confusion, if it +were supposed to be the duty of every association which is formed for +one good object to promote every other good object. + +As to some of the ends of civil government, all people are agreed. That +it is designed to protect our persons and our property; that it is +designed to compel us to satisfy our wants, not by rapine, but by +industry; that it is designed to compel us to decide our differences, +not by the strong hand, but by arbitration; that it is designed to +direct our whole force, as that of one man, against any other society +which may offer us injury; these are propositions which will hardly be +disputed. + +Now these are matters in which man, without any reference to any higher +being, or to any future state, is very deeply interested. Every human +being, be he idolater, Mahometan, Jew, Papist, Socinian, Deist, or +Atheist, naturally loves life, shrinks from pain, desires comforts which +can be enjoyed only in communities where property is secure. To be +murdered, to be tortured, to be robbed, to be sold into slavery, these +are evidently evils from which men of every religion, and men of no +religion, wish to be protected; and therefore it will hardly be disputed +that men of every religion, and of no religion, have thus far a common +interest in being well governed. + +But the hopes and fears of man are not limited to this short life and to +this visible world. He finds himself surrounded by the signs of a power +and wisdom higher than his own; and, in all ages and nations, men of all +orders of intellect, from Bacon and Newton, down to the rudest tribes of +cannibals, have believed in the existence of some superior mind. Thus +far the voice of mankind is almost unanimous. But whether there be one +God, or many, what may be God's natural and what His mortal attributes, +in what relation His creatures stand to Him, whether He have ever +disclosed Himself to us by any other revelation than that which is +written in all the parts of the glorious and well ordered world which He +has made, whether His revelation be contained in any permanent record, +how that record should be interpreted, and whether it have pleased Him +to appoint any unerring interpreter on earth, these are questions +respecting which there exists the widest diversity of opinion, and +respecting some of which a large part of our race has, ever since the +dawn of regular history, been deplorably in error. + +Now here are two great objects: one is the protection of the persons and +estates of citizens from injury; the other is the propagation of +religious truth. No two objects more entirely distinct can well be +imagined. The former belongs wholly to the visible and tangible world in +which we live; the latter belongs to that higher world which is beyond +the reach of our senses. The former belongs to this life; the latter to +that which is to come. Men who are perfectly agreed as to the importance +of the former object, and as to the way of obtaining it, differ as +widely as possible respecting the latter object. We must, therefore, +pause before we admit that the persons, be they who they may, who are +trusted with power for promotion of the former object, ought always to +use that power for the promotion of the latter object. + + * * * * * + +The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone has fallen into an error very common +among men of less talents than his own. It is not unusual for a person +who is eager to prove a particular proposition to assume a _major_ of +huge extent, which includes that particular proposition, without ever +reflecting that it includes a great deal more. The fatal facility with +which Mr. Gladstone multiplies expressions stately and sonorous, but of +indeterminate meaning, eminently qualifies him to practise this sleight +on himself and on his readers. He lays down broad general doctrines +about power, when the only power of which he is thinking is the power of +governments, and about conjoint action when the only conjoint action of +which he is thinking is the conjoint action of citizens in a state. He +first resolves on his conclusion. He then makes a _major_ of most +comprehensive dimensions, and having satisfied himself that it contains +his conclusion, never troubles himself about what else it may contain: +and as soon as we examine it we find that it contains an infinite number +of conclusions, every one of which is a monstrous absurdity. + +It is perfectly true that it would be a very good thing if all the +members of all the associations in the world were men of sound religious +views. We have no doubt that a good Christian will be under the guidance +of Christian principles, in his conduct as director of a canal company +or steward of a charity dinner. If he were, to recur to a case which we +have before put, a member of a stage-coach company, he would, in that +capacity, remember that "a righteous man regardeth the life of his +beast." But it does not follow that every association of men must, +therefore, as such association, profess a religion. It is evident that +many great and useful objects can be attained in this world only by +co-operation. It is equally evident that there cannot be efficient +co-operation, if men proceed on the principle that they must not +co-operate for one object unless they agree about other objects. Nothing +seems to us more beautiful or admirable in our social system than the +facility with which thousands of people, who perhaps agree only on a +single point, can combine their energies for the purpose of carrying that +single point. We see daily instances of this. Two men, one of them +obstinately prejudiced against missions, the other president of a +missionary society, sit together at the board of a hospital, and +heartily concur in measures for the health and comfort of the patients. +Two men, one of whom is a zealous supporter and the other a zealous +opponent of the system pursued in Lancaster's schools, meet at the +Mendicity Society, and act together with the utmost cordiality. The +general rule we take to be undoubtedly this, that it is lawful and +expedient for men to unite in an association for the promotion of a good +object, though they may differ with respect to other objects of still +higher importance. + + * * * * * + +If, indeed, the magistrate would content himself with laying his +opinions and reasons before the people, and would leave the people, +uncorrupted by hope or fear, to judge for themselves, we should see +little reason to apprehend that his interference in favour of error +would be seriously prejudicial to the interests of truth. Nor do we, as +will hereafter be seen, object to his taking this course, when it is +compatible with the efficient discharge of his more especial duties. But +this will not satisfy Mr. Gladstone. He would have the magistrate resort +to means which have a great tendency to make malcontents, to make +hypocrites, to make careless nominal conformists, but no tendency +whatever to produce honest and rational conviction. It seems to us quite +clear that an inquirer who has no wish except to know the truth is more +likely to arrive at the truth than an inquirer who knows that, if he +decides one way, he shall be rewarded, and that, if he decides the other +way, he shall be punished. Now, Mr. Gladstone would have governments +propagate their opinions by excluding all dissenters from all civil +offices. That is to say, he would have governments propagate their +opinions by a process which has no reference whatever to the truth or +falsehood of those opinions, by arbitrarily uniting certain worldly +advantages with one set of doctrines, and certain worldly inconveniences +with another set. It is of the very nature of argument to serve the +interests of truth; but if rewards and punishments serve the interests +of truth, it is by mere accident. It is very much easier to find +arguments for the divine authority of the Gospel than for the divine +authority of the Koran. But it is just as easy to bribe or rack a Jew +into Mahometanism as into Christianity. + +From racks, indeed, and from all penalties directed against the persons, +the property, and the liberty of heretics, the humane spirit of Mr. +Gladstone shrinks with horror. He only maintains that conformity to the +religion of the state ought to be an indispensable qualification for +office; and he would, unless we have greatly misunderstood him, think it +his duty, if he had the power, to revive the Test Act, to enforce it +rigorously, and to extend it to important classes who were formerly +exempt from its operation. + +This is indeed a legitimate consequence of his principles. But why stop +here? Why not roast dissenters at slow fires? All the general reasonings +on which this theory rests evidently leads to sanguinary persecution. If +the propagation of religious truth be a principal end of government, as +government; if it be the duty of government to employ for that end its +constitutional power; if the constitutional power of governments +extends, as it most unquestionably does, to the making of laws for the +burning of heretics; if burning be, as it most assuredly is, in many +cases, a most effectual mode of suppressing opinions; why should we not +burn? If the relation in which government ought to stand to the people +be, as Mr. Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation, we are irresistibly +led to the conclusion that persecution is justifiable. For the right of +propagating opinions by punishment is one which belongs to parents as +clearly as the right to give instruction. A boy is compelled to attend +family worship: he is forbidden to read irreligious books: if he will +not learn his catechism, he is sent to bed without his supper: if he +plays truant at church-time a task is set him. If he should display the +precocity of his talents by expressing impious opinions before his +brothers and sisters, we should not much blame his father for cutting +short the controversy with a horse-whip. All the reasons which lead us +to think that parents are peculiarly fitted to conduct the education of +their children, and that education is the principal end of a parental +relation, lead us also to think that parents ought to be allowed to use +punishment, if necessary, for the purpose of forcing children, who are +incapable of judging for themselves, to receive religious instruction +and to attend religious worship. Why, then, is this prerogative of +punishment, so eminently paternal, to be withheld from a paternal +government? It seems to us, also, to be the height of absurdity to +employ civil disabilities for the propagation of an opinion, and then to +shrink from employing other punishments for the same purpose. For +nothing can be clearer than that, if you punish at all, you ought to +punish enough. The pain caused by punishment is pure unmixed evil, and +never ought to be inflicted, except for the sake of some good. It is +mere foolish cruelty to provide penalties which torment the criminal +without preventing the crime. Now it is possible, by sanguinary +persecution unrelentingly inflicted, to suppress opinions. In this way +the Albigenses were put down. In this way the Lollards were put down. In +this way the fair promise of the Reformation was blighted in Italy and +Spain. But we may safely defy Mr. Gladstone to point out a single +instance in which the system which he recommends has succeeded. + + * * * * * + +But we must proceed in our examination of his theory. Having, as he +conceives, proved that it is the duty of every government to profess +some religion or other, right or wrong, and to establish that religion, +he then comes to the question what religion a government ought to +prefer; and he decides this question in favour of the form of +Christianity established in England. The Church of England is, according +to him, the pure Catholic Church of Christ, which possesses the +apostolical succession of ministers, and within whose pale is to be +found that unity which is essential to truth. For her decisions he +claims a degree of reverence far beyond what she has ever, in any of her +formularies, claimed for herself; far beyond what the moderate school of +Bossuet demands for the Pope; and scarcely short of what that school +would ascribe to Pope and General Council together. To separate from her +communion is schism. To reject her traditions or interpretations of +Scripture is sinful presumption. + +Mr. Gladstone pronounces the right of private judgment, as it is +generally understood throughout Protestant Europe, to be a monstrous +abuse. He declares himself favourable, indeed, to the exercise of +private judgment, after a fashion of his own. We have, according to him, +a right to judge all the doctrines of the Church of England to be sound, +but not to judge any of them to be unsound. He has no objection, he +assures us, to active inquiry into religious questions. On the contrary, +he thinks such inquiry highly desirable, as long as it does not lead to +diversity of opinion; which is much the same thing as if he were to +recommend the use of fire that will not burn down houses, or of brandy +that will not make men drunk. He conceives it to be perfectly possible +for mankind to exercise their intellects vigorously and freely on +theological subjects, and yet to come to exactly the same conclusions +with each other and with the Church of England. And for this opinion he +gives, as far as we have been able to discover, no reason whatever, +except that everybody who vigorously and freely exercises his +understanding on Euclid's Theorems assents to them. "The activity of +private judgment," he truly observes, "and the unity and strength of +conviction in mathematics vary directly as each other." On this +unquestionable fact he constructs a somewhat questionable argument. +Everybody who freely inquires agrees, he says, with Euclid. But the +Church is as much in the right as Euclid. Why, then, should not every +free inquirer agree with the Church? We could put many similar +questions. Either the affirmative or the negative of the proposition +that King Charles wrote the _Icon Basilike_ is as true as that two sides +of a triangle are greater than the third side. Why, then, do Dr. +Wordsworth and Mr. Hallam agree in thinking two sides of a triangle +greater than the third side, and yet differ about the genuineness of the +_Icon Basilike?_ The state of the exact sciences proves, says Mr. +Gladstone, that, as respects religion, "the association of these two +ideas, activity of inquiry, and variety of conclusion, is a fallacious +one." We might just as well turn the argument the other way, and infer +from the variety of religious opinions that there must necessarily be +hostile mathematical sects, some affirming, and some denying, that the +square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the sides. But we +do not think either the one analogy or the other of the smallest value. +Our way of ascertaining the tendency of free inquiry is simply to open +our eyes and look at the world in which we live; and there we see that +free inquiry on mathematical subjects produces unity, and that free +inquiry on moral subjects produces discrepancy. There would undoubtedly +be less discrepancy if inquirers were more diligent and candid. But +discrepancy there will be among the most diligent and candid, as long as +the constitution of the human mind, and the nature of moral evidence, +continue unchanged. That we have not freedom and unity together is a +very sad thing; and so it is that we have not wings. But we are just as +likely to see the one defect removed as the other. It is not only in +religion that this discrepancy is found. It is the same with all matters +which depend on moral evidence, with judicial questions, for example, +and with political questions. All the judges will work a sum in the rule +of three on the same principle, and bring out the same conclusion. But +it does not follow that, however honest and laborious they may be, they +will all be of one mind on the Douglas case. So it is vain to hope that +there may be a free constitution under which every representative will +be unanimously elected, and every law unanimously passed; and it would +be ridiculous for a statesman to stand wondering and bemoaning himself +because people who agree in thinking that two and two make four cannot +agree about the new poor law, or the administration of Canada. + +There are two intelligible and consistent courses which may be followed +with respect to the exercise of private judgment; the course of the +Romanist, who interdicts private judgment because of its inevitable +inconveniences; and the course of the Protestant, who permits private +judgment in spite of its inevitable inconveniences. Both are more +reasonable than Mr. Gladstone, who would have private judgment without +its inevitable inconveniences. The Romanist produces repose by means of +stupefaction. The Protestant encourages activity, though he knows that +where there is much activity there will be some aberration. Mr. +Gladstone wishes for the unity of the fifteenth century with the active +and searching spirit of the sixteenth. He might as well wish to be in +two places at once. + + * * * * * + +We have done; and nothing remains but that we part from Mr. Gladstone +with the courtesy of antagonists who bear no malice. We dissent from his +opinions, but we admire his talents; we respect his integrity and +benevolence; and we hope that he will not suffer political avocations so +entirely to engross him, as to leave him no leisure for literature and +philosophy. + + + + +ON MADAME D'ARBLAY + + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1843] + +ART. IX.--_Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay_. 5 vols. 8vo. London, +1842. + +Though the world saw and heard little of Madame D'Arblay during the last +forty years of her life, and though that little did not add to her fame, +there were thousands, we believe, who felt a singular emotion when they +learned that she was no longer among us. The news of her death carried +the minds of men back at one leap, clear over two generations, to the +time when her first literary triumphs were won. All those whom we have +been accustomed to revere as intellectual patriarchs, seemed children +when compared with her; for Burke had sate up all night to read her +writings, and Johnson had pronounced her superior to Fielding, when +Rogers was still a schoolboy, and Southey still in petticoats. Yet more +strange did it seem that we should just have lost one whose name had +been widely celebrated before any body had heard of some illustrious men +who, twenty, thirty, or forty years ago, were, after a long and splendid +career, borne with honour to the grave. Yet so it was. Frances Burney +was at the height of fame and popularity before Cowper had published his +first volume, before Person had gone up to college, before Pitt had +taken his seat in the House of Commons, before the voice of Erskine had +been once heard in Westminster Hall. Since the appearance of her first +work, sixty-two years had passed; and this interval had been crowded, +not only with political, but also with intellectual revolutions. +Thousands of reputations had, during that period, sprung up, bloomed, +withered, and disappeared. New kinds of composition had come into +fashion, had gone out of fashion, had been derided, had been forgotten. +The fooleries of Della Crusca, and the fooleries of Kotzebue, had for a +time bewitched the multitude, but had left no trace behind them; nor had +misdirected genius been able to save from decay the once flourishing +school of Godwin, of Darwin, and of Radcliffe. Many books, written for +temporary effect, had run through six or seven editions, and had then +been gathered to the novels of Afra Behn, and the epic poems of Sir +Richard Blackmore. Yet the early works of Madame D'Arblay, in spite of +the lapse of years, in spite of the change of manners, in spite of the +popularity deservedly obtained by some of her rivals, continued to hold +a high place in the public esteem. She lived to be a classic. Time set +on her fame, before she went hence, that seal which is seldom set except +on the fame of the departed. Like Sir Condy Rackrent in the tale, she +survived her own wake, and overheard the judgment of posterity. + +Having always felt a warm and sincere, though not a blind admiration for +her talents, we rejoiced to learn that her Diary was about to be made +public. Our hopes, it is true, were not unmixed with fears. We could not +forget the fate of the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, which were published ten +years ago. The unfortunate book contained much that was curious and +interesting. Yet it was received with a cry of disgust, and was speedily +consigned to oblivion. The truth is, that it deserved its doom. It was +written in Madame D'Arblay's later style--the worst style that has ever +been known among men. No genius, no information, could have saved from +proscription a book so written. We, therefore, open the Diary with no +small anxiety, trembling lest we should light upon some of that peculiar +rhetoric which deforms almost every page of the Memoirs, and which it is +impossible to read without a sensation made up of mirth, shame and +loathing. We soon, however, discovered to our great delight that this +Diary was kept before Madame D'Arblay became eloquent. It is, for the +most part, written in her earliest and best manner; in true woman's +English, clear, natural, and lively. The two works are lying side by +side before us, and we never turn from the Memoirs to the Diary without +a sense of relief. The difference is as great as the difference between +the atmosphere of a perfumer's shop, fetid with lavender water and +jasmine soap, and the air of a heath on a fine morning in May. Both +works ought to be consulted by every person who wishes to be well +acquainted with the history of our literature and our manners. But to +read the Diary is a pleasure; to read the Memoirs will always be a task. + + * * * * * + +The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her +twenty-fifth year, well deserves to be recorded. When her education had +proceeded no further than the horn-book, she lost her mother, and +thenceforward she educated herself. Her father appears to have been as +bad a father as a very honest, affectionate, and sweet-tempered man can +well be. He loved his daughter dearly; but it never seems to have +occurred to him that a parent has other duties to perform to children +than that of fondling them. It would indeed have been impossible for him +to superintend their education himself. His professional engagements +occupied him all day. At seven in the morning he began to attend his +pupils, and, when London was full, was sometimes employed in teaching +till eleven at night. He was often forced to carry in his pocket a tin +box of sandwiches, and a bottle of wine and water, on which he dined in +a hackney-coach while hurrying from one scholar to another. Two of his +daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris; but he imagined that Frances +would run some risk of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she +were educated in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home. +No governess, no teacher of any art or of any language, was provided for +her. But one of her sisters showed her how to write; and, before she was +fourteen, she began to find pleasure in reading. + +It was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed, +when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very +small. When at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with the +most celebrated works of Voltaire and Molière; and, what seems still +more extraordinary, had never heard or seen a line of Churchill, who, +when she was a girl, was the most popular of living poets. It is +particularly deserving of observation, that she appears to have been by +no means a novel-reader. Her father's library was large; and he had +admitted into it so many books which rigid moralists generally exclude, +that he felt uneasy, as he afterwards owned, when Johnson began to +examine the shelves. But in the whole collection there was only a single +novel, Fielding's Amelia. + +An education, however, which to most girls would have been useless, but +which suited Fanny's mind better than elaborate culture, was in constant +progress during her passage from childhood to womanhood. The great book +of human nature was turned over before her. Her father's social position +was very peculiar. He belonged in fortune and station to the middle +class. His daughters seem to have been suffered to mix freely with those +whom butlers and waiting-maids call vulgar. We are told that they were +in the habit of playing with the children of a wig-maker who lived in +the adjoining house. Yet few nobles could assemble in the most stately +mansions of Grosvenor Square or St. James's Square, a society so various +and so brilliant as was sometimes to be found in Dr. Burney's cabin. His +mind, though not very powerful or capacious, was restlessly active; and, +in the intervals of his professional pursuits, he had contrived to lay +up much miscellaneous information. His attainments, the suavity of his +temper, and the gentle simplicity of his manners, had obtained for him +ready admission to the first literary circles. While he was still at +Lynn, he had won Johnson's heart by sounding with honest zeal the +praises of the English Dictionary. In London the two friends met +frequently, and agreed most harmoniously. One tie, indeed, was wanting +to their mutual attachment. Burney loved his own art passionately; and +Johnson just knew the bell of St. Clement's church from the organ. They +had, however, many topics in common; and on winter nights their +conversations were sometimes prolonged till the fire had gone out, and +the candles had burned away to the wicks. Burney's admiration of the +powers which had produced Rasselas and The Rambler, bordered on +idolatry. He gave a singular proof of this at his first visit to +Johnson's ill-furnished garret. The master of the apartment was not at +home. The enthusiastic visitor looked about for some relique which he +might carry away; but he could see nothing lighter than the chairs and +the fire-irons. At last he discovered an old broom, tore some bristles +from the stump, wrapped them in silver paper, and departed as happy as +Louis IX when the holy nail of St. Denis was found. Johnson, on the +other hand, condescended to growl out that Burney was an honest fellow, +a man whom it was impossible not to like. + +Garrick, too, was a frequent visitor in Poland Street and St. Martin's +Lane. That wonderful actor loved the society of children, partly from +good-nature, and partly from vanity. The ecstasies of mirth and terror +which his gestures and play of countenance never failed to produce in a +nursery, flattered him quite as much as the applause of mature critics. +He often exhibited all his powers of mimicry for the amusement of the +little Burneys, awed them by shuddering and crouching as if he saw a +ghost, scared them by raving like a maniac in St. Lukes', and then at +once became an auctioneer, a chimney-sweeper, or an old woman, and made +them laugh till the tears ran down their cheeks. + +But it would be tedious to recount the names of all the men of letters +and artists whom Frances Burney had an opportunity of seeing and +hearing. Colman, Twining, Harris, Baretti, Hawkesworth, Reynolds, Barry, +were among those who occasionally surrounded the tea-table and +supper-tray at her father's modest dwelling. This was not all. The +distinction which Dr. Burney had acquired as a musician, and as the +historian of music, attracted to his house the most eminent musical +performers of that age. The greatest Italian singers who visited England +regarded him as the dispenser of fame in their art, and exerted +themselves to obtain his suffrage. Pachierotti became his intimate +friend. The rapacious Agujari, who sang for nobody else under fifty +pounds an air, sang her best for Dr. Burney without a fee; and in the +company of Dr. Burney even the haughty and eccentric Gabrielli +constrained herself to behave with civility. It was thus in his power to +give, with scarcely any expense, concerts equal to those of the +aristocracy. On such occasions the quiet street in which he lived was +blocked up by coroneted chariots, and his little drawing-room was +crowded with peers, peeresses, ministers, and ambassadors. On one +evening, of which we happen to have a full account, there were present +Lord Mulgrave, Lord Bruce, Lord and Lady Edgecumbe, Lord Barrington from +the War-Office, Lord Sandwich from the Admiralty, Lord Ashburnham, with +his gold key dangling from his pocket, and the French Ambassador, M. De +Guignes, renowned for his fine person and for his success in gallantry. +But the great show of the night was the Russian Ambassador, Count +Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a blaze with jewels, and in +whose demeanour the untamed ferocity of the Scythian might be discerned +through a thin varnish of French politeness. As he stalked about the +small parlour, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the girls whispered +to each other, with mingled admiration and horror, that he was the +favoured lover of his august mistress; that he had borne the chief part +in the revolution to which she owed her throne; and that his huge hands, +now glittering with diamond rings, had given the last squeeze to the +windpipe of her unfortunate husband. + +With such illustrious guests as these were mingled all the most +remarkable specimens of the race of lions--a kind of game which is +hunted in London every spring with more than Meltonian ardour and +perseverance. Bruce, who had washed down steaks cut from living oxen +with water from the fountains of the Nile, came to swagger and talk +about his travels. Omai lisped broken English, and made all the +assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love-songs, +such as those with which Oberea charmed her Opano. + +With the literary and fashionable society which occasionally met under +Dr. Burney's roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was +not a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts. She +was shy almost to awkwardness, and scarcely ever joined in the +conversation. The slightest remark from a stranger disconcerted her; and +even the old friends of her father who tried to draw her out could +seldom extract more than a Yes or a No. Her figure was small, her face +not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore suffered to withdraw +quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to observe all that +passed. Her nearest relations were aware that she had good sense, but +seem not to have suspected, that under her demure and bashful deportment +were concealed a fertile invention and a keen sense of the ridiculous. +She had not, it is true, an eye for the fine shades of character. But +every marked peculiarity instantly caught her notice and remained +engraven on her imagination. Thus, while still a girl, she had laid up +such a store of materials for fiction as few of those who mix much in +the world are able to accumulate during a long life. She had watched and +listened to people of every class, from princes and great officers of +state down to artists living in garrets, and poets familiar with +subterranean cook-shops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed in +review before her, English, French, German, Italian, lords and fiddlers, +deans of cathedrals and managers of theatres, travellers leading about +newly caught savages, and singing women escorted by deputy-husbands. + +So strong was the impression made on the mind of Frances by the society +which she was in the habit of seeing and hearing, that she began to +write little fictitious narratives as soon as she could use her pen with +ease, which, as we have said, was not very early. Her sisters were +amused by her stories. But Dr. Burney knew nothing of their existence; +and in another quarter her literary propensities met with serious +discouragement. When she was fifteen, her father took a second wife. The +new Mrs. Burney soon found out that her daughter-in-law was fond of +scribbling, and delivered several good-natured lectures on the subject. +The advice no doubt was well-meant, and might have been given by the +most judicious friend; for at that time, from causes to which we may +hereafter advert, nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young lady +than to be known as a novel-writer. Frances yielded, relinquished her +favourite pursuit, and made a bonfire of all her manuscripts.[1] + +[1] There is some difficulty here as to the chronology. "This + sacrifice," says the editor of the Diary, "was made in the young + authoress's fifteenth year." This could not be; for the sacrifice + was the effect, according to the editor's own showing, of the + remonstrances of the second Mrs. Burney; and Frances was in her + sixteenth year when her father's second marriage took place. + +She now hemmed and stitched from breakfast to dinner with scrupulous +regularity. But the dinners of that time were early; and the afternoon +was her own. Though she had given up novel-writing, she was still fond +of using her pen. She began to keep a diary, and she corresponded +largely with a person who seems to have had the chief share in the +formation of her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old friend of her +father. His name, well known, near a century ago, in the most splendid +circles of London, has long been forgotten. + +Crisp was an old and very intimate friend of the Burneys. To them alone +was confided the name of the desolate old hall in which he hid himself +like a wild beast in a den. For them were reserved such remains of his +humanity as had survived the failure of his play. Frances Burney he +regarded as his daughter. He called her his Fannikin, and she in return +called him her dear Daddy. In truth, he seems to have done much more +than her real father for the development of her intellect; for though he +was a bad poet, he was a scholar, a thinker, and an excellent +counsellor. He was particularly fond of Dr. Burney's concerts. They had, +indeed, been commenced at his suggestion, and when he visited London he +constantly attended them. But when he grew old, and when gout, brought +on partly by mental irritation, confined him to his retreat, he was +desirous of having a glimpse of that gay and brilliant world from which +he was exiled, and he pressed Fannikin to send him full accounts of her +father's evening parties. A few of her letters to him have been +published; and it is impossible to read them without discerning in them +all the powers which afterwards produced Evelina and Cecilia, the +quickness in catching every odd peculiarity of character and manner, the +skill in grouping, the humour, often richly comic, sometimes even +farcical. + +Fanny's propensity to novel-writing had for a time been kept down. It +now rose up stronger than ever. The heroes and heroines of the tales +which had perished in the flames, were still present to the eye of her +mind. One favourite story, in particular, haunted her imagination. It +was about a certain Caroline Evelyn, a beautiful damsel who made an +unfortunate love match, and died, leaving an infant daughter. Frances +began to imagine to herself the various scenes, tragic and comic, +through which the poor motherless girl, highly connected on one side, +meanly connected on the other, might have to pass. A crowd of unreal +beings, good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded the pretty, timid, +young orphan; a coarse sea-captain; an ugly insolent fop, blazing in a +superb court-dress; another fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on +Snow Hill, and tricked out in second-hand finery for the Hampstead ball; +an old woman, all wrinkles and rouge, flirting her fan with the air of a +Miss of seventeen, and screaming in a dialect made up of vulgar French +and vulgar English; a poet lean and ragged, with a broad Scotch accent. +By degrees these shadows acquired stronger and stronger consistence: the +impulse which urged Frances to write became irresistible; and the result +was the history of Evelina. + +Then came, naturally enough, a wish, mingled with many fears, to appear +before the public; for, timid as Frances was, and bashful, and +altogether unaccustomed to hear her own praises, it is clear that she +wanted neither a strong passion for distinction, nor a just confidence +in her own powers. Her scheme was to become, if possible, a candidate +for fame without running any risk of disgrace. She had no money to bear +the expense of printing. It was therefore necessary that some bookseller +should be induced to take the risk; and such a bookseller was not +readily found. Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he +were trusted with the name of the author. A publisher in Fleet Street, +named Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some correspondence took place +between this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and +desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange +Coffee-House. But, before the bargain was finally struck, Fanny thought +it her duty to obtain her father's consent. She told him that she had +written a book, that she wished to have his permission to publish +[Transcriber's note: "published" in original] it anonymously, but that +she hoped that he would not insist upon seeing it. What followed may +serve to illustrate what we meant when we said that Dr. Burney was as +bad a father as so good-hearted a man could possibly be. It never seems +to have crossed his mind that Fanny was about to take a step on which +the whole happiness of her life might depend, a step which might raise +her to an honourable eminence, or cover her with ridicule and contempt. +Several people had already been trusted, and strict concealment was +therefore not to be expected. On so grave an occasion, it was surely his +duty to give his best counsel to his daughter, to win her confidence, to +prevent her from exposing herself if her book were a bad one, and, if it +were a good one, to see that the terms which she made with the publisher +were likely to be beneficial to her. Instead of this, he only stared, +burst out a laughing, kissed her, gave her leave to do as she liked, and +never even asked the name of her work. The contract with Lowndes was +speedily concluded. Twenty pounds were given for the copyright, and were +accepted by Fanny with delight. Her father's inexcusable neglect of his +duty, happily caused her no worse evil than the loss of twelve or +fifteen hundred pounds. + +After many delays Evelina appeared in January 1778. Poor Fanny was sick +with terror, and durst hardly stir out of doors. Some days passed before +any thing was heard of the book. It had, indeed, nothing but its own +merits to push it into public favour. Its author was unknown. The house +by which it was published, was not, we believe, held in high estimation. +No body of partisans had been engaged to applaud. The better class of +readers expected little from a novel about a young lady's entrance into +the world. There was, indeed, at that time a disposition among the most +respectable people to condemn novels generally; nor was this disposition +by any means without excuse; for works of that sort were then almost +always silly, and very frequently wicked. + +Soon, however, the first faint accents of praise began to be heard. The +keepers of the circulating libraries reported that every body was asking +for Evelina, and that some person had guessed Anstey to be the Author. +Then came a favourable notice in the London Review; then another still +more favourable in the Monthly. And now the book found its way to tables +which had seldom been polluted by marble-covered volumes. Scholars and +statesmen who contemptuously abandoned the crowd of romances to Miss +Lydia Languish and Miss Sukey Saunter, were not ashamed to own that they +could not tear themselves away from Evelina. Fine carriages and rich +liveries, not often seen east of Temple Bar, were attracted to the +publisher's shop in Fleet Street. Lowndes was daily questioned about the +author; but was himself as much in the dark as any of the questioners. +The mystery, however, could not remain a mystery long. It was known to +brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins: and they were far too proud and +too happy to be discreet. Dr. Burney wept over the book in rapture. +Daddy Crisp shook his fist at his Fannikin in affectionate anger at not +having been admitted to her confidence. The truth was whispered to Mrs. +Thrale; and then it began to spread fast. + +The book had been admired while it was ascribed to men of letters long +conversant with the world, and accustomed to composition. But when it +was known that a reserved, silent young woman had produced the best work +of fiction that had appeared since the death of Smollett, the +acclamations were redoubled. What she had done was, indeed, +extraordinary. But, as usual, various reports improved the story till it +became miraculous. Evelina, it was said, was the work of a girl of +seventeen. Incredible as this tale was, it continued to be repeated down +to our own time. Frances was too honest to confirm it. Probably she was +too much a woman to contradict it; and it was long before any of her +detractors thought of this mode of annoyance. Yet there was no want of +low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her first +appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the asp +George Steevens and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, +occur to them to search the parish-register of Lynn, in order that they +might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly +chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose +spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a +worthless edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our +readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books. + +But we must return to our story. The triumph was complete. The timid and +obscure girl found herself on the highest pinnacle of fame. Great men, +on whom she had gazed at a distance with humble reverence, addressed her +with admiration, tempered by the tenderness due to her sex and age. +Burke, Windham, Gibbon, Reynolds, Sheridan, were among her most ardent +eulogists. Cumberland acknowledged her merit, after his fashion, by +biting his lips and wriggling in his chair whenever her name was +mentioned. But it was at Streatham that she tasted, in the highest +perfection, the sweets of flattery, mingled with the sweets of +friendship. Mrs. Thrale, then at the height of prosperity and +popularity--with gay spirits, quick wit, showy though superficial +acquirements, pleasing though not refined manners, a singularly amiable +temper, and a loving heart--felt towards Fanny as towards a younger +sister. With the Thrales Johnson was domesticated. He was an old friend +of Dr. Burney; but he had probably taken little notice of Dr. Burney's +daughters, and Fanny, we imagine, had never in her life dared to speak +to him, unless to ask whether he wanted a nineteenth or a twentieth cup +of tea. He was charmed by her tale, and preferred it to the novels of +Fielding, to whom, indeed, he had always been grossly unjust. He did +not, indeed, carry his partiality so far as to place Evelina by the side +of Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison; yet he said that his favourite +had done enough to have made even Richardson feel uneasy. With Johnson's +cordial approbation of the book was mingled a fondness, half gallant +half paternal, for the writer; and his fondness his age and character +entitled him to show without restraint. He began by putting her hand to +his lips. But soon he clasped her in his huge arms, and implored her to +be a good girl. She was his pet, his dear love, his dear little Burney, +his little character-monger. At one time, he broke forth in praise of +the good taste of her caps. At another time, he insisted on teaching her +Latin. That, with all his coarseness and irritability, he was a man of +sterling benevolence, has long been acknowledged. But how gentle and +endearing his deportment could be, was not known till the Recollections +of Madame D'Arblay were published. + +We have mentioned a few of the most eminent of those who paid their +homage to the author of Evelina. The crowd of inferior admirers would +require a catalogue as long as that in the second book of the Iliad. In +that catalogue would be Mrs. Cholmondeley, the sayer of odd things, and +Seward, much given to yawning, and Baretti, who slew the man in the +Haymarket, and Paoli, talking broken English, and Langton, taller by the +head than any other member of the club, and Lady Millar, who kept a vase +wherein fools were wont to put bad verses, and Jerningham, who wrote +verses fit to be put into the vase of Lady Millar, and Dr. Franklin-- +not, as some have dreamed, the great Pennsylvanian Dr. Franklin, who +could not then have paid his respects to Miss Burney without much risk +of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, but Dr. Franklin the less-- + + [Greek: _Aias + meion, outi tosos ge osos Telamonios Aias, + alla polu meion._] + +It would not have been surprising if such success had turned even a +strong head, and corrupted even a generous and affectionate nature. But, +in the Diary, we can find no trace of any feeling inconsistent with a +truly modest and amiable disposition. There is, indeed, abundant proof +that Frances enjoyed, with an intense, though a troubled, joy, the +honours which her genius had won; but it is equally clear that her +happiness sprang from the happiness of her father, her sister, and her +dear Daddy Crisp. While flattered by the great, the opulent, and the +learned, while followed along the Steyne at Brighton and the Pantiles at +Tunbridge Wells by the gaze of admiring crowds, her heart seems to have +been still with the little domestic circle in St. Martin's Street. If +she recorded with minute diligence all the compliments, delicate and +coarse, which she heard wherever she turned, she recorded them for the +eyes of two or three persons who had loved her from infancy, who had +loved her in obscurity, and to whom her fame gave the purest and most +exquisite delight. Nothing can be more unjust than to confound these +outpourings of a kind heart, sure of perfect sympathy, with the egotism +of a blue-stocking, who prates to all who come near her about her own +novel or her own volume of sonnets. + +It was natural that the triumphant issue of Miss Burney's first venture +should tempt her to try a second. Evelina, though it had raised her +fame, had added nothing to her fortune. Some of her friends urged her to +write for the stage. Johnson promised to give her his advice as to the +composition. Murphy, who was supposed to understand the temper of the +pit as well as any man of his time, undertook to instruct her as to +stage-effect. Sheridan declared that he would accept a play from her +without even reading it. Thus encouraged she wrote a comedy named The +Witlings. Fortunately it was never acted or printed. We can, we think, +easily perceive from the little which is said on the subject in the +Diary, that The Witlings would have been damned, and that Murphy and +Sheridan thought so, though they were too polite to say so. Happily +Frances had a friend who was not afraid to give her pain. Crisp, wiser +for her than he had been for himself, read the manuscript in his lonely +retreat, and manfully told her that she had failed, that to remove +blemishes here and there would be useless, that the piece had abundance +of wit but no interest, that it was bad as a whole, that it would remind +every reader of the _Femmes Savantes_, which, strange to say, she had +never read, and that she could not sustain so close a comparison with +Molière. This opinion, in which Dr. Burney concurred, was sent to +Frances in what she called a "hissing, groaning, cat-calling epistle." +But she had too much sense not to know that it was better to be hissed +and cat-called by her Daddy than by a whole sea of heads in the pit of +Drury-Lane Theatre; and she had too good a heart not to be grateful for +so rare an act of friendship. She returned an answer which shows how +well she deserved to have a judicious, faithful, and affectionate +adviser. "I intend," she wrote, "to console myself for your censure by +this greatest proof I have ever received of the sincerity, candour, and, +let me add, esteem, of my dear daddy. And as I happen to love myself +rather more than my play, this consolation is not a very trifling one. +This, however, seriously I do believe, that when my two daddies put +their heads together to concert that hissing, groaning, cat-calling +epistle they sent me, they felt as sorry for poor little Miss Bayes as +she could possibly do for herself. You see I do not attempt to repay +your frankness with the air of pretended carelessness. But, though +somewhat disconcerted just now, I will promise not to let my vexation +live out another day. Adieu, my dear daddy! I won't be mortified, and I +won't be _downed_; but I will be proud to find I have, out of my own +family, as well as in it, a friend who loves me well enough to speak +plain truth to me." + +Frances now turned from her dramatic schemes to an undertaking far +better suited to her talents. She determined to write a new tale, on a +plan excellently contrived for the display of the powers in which her +superiority to other writers lay. It was in truth a grand and various +picture-gallery, which presented to the eye a long series of men and +women, each marked by some strong peculiar feature. There were avarice +and prodigality, the pride of blood and the pride of money, morbid +restlessness and morbid apathy, frivolous garrulity, supercilious +silence, a Democritus to laugh at every thing, and a Heraclitus to +lament over every thing. The work proceeded fast, and in twelve months +was completed. It wanted something of the simplicity which had been +among the most attractive charms of Evelina; but it furnished ample +proof that the four years which had elapsed since Evelina appeared, had +not been unprofitably spent. Those who saw Cecilia in manuscript +pronounced it the best novel of the age. Mrs. Thrale laughed and wept +over it. Crisp was even vehement in applause, and offered to insure the +rapid and complete success of the book for half a crown. What Miss +Burney received for the copyright is not mentioned in the Diary; but we +have observed several expressions from which we infer that the sum was +considerable. That the sale would be great nobody could doubt; and +Frances now had shrewd and experienced advisers, who would not suffer +her to wrong herself. We have been told that the publishers gave her two +thousand pounds, and we have no doubt that they might have given a still +larger sum without being losers. + +Cecilia was published in the summer of 1782. The curiosity of the town +was intense. We have been informed by persons who remember those days, +that no romance of Sir Walter Scott was more impatiently awaited, or +more eagerly snatched from the counters of the booksellers. High as +public expectation was, it was amply satisfied; and Cecilia was placed, +by general acclamation, among the classical novels of England. + +Miss Burney was now thirty. Her youth had been singularly prosperous; +but clouds soon began to gather over that clear and radiant dawn. Events +deeply painful to a heart so kind as that of Frances, followed each +other in rapid succession. She was first called upon to attend the +death-bed of her best friend, Samuel Crisp. When she returned to St. +Martin's Street, after performing this melancholy duty, she was appalled +by hearing that Johnson had been struck with paralysis; and, not many +months later, she parted from him for the last time with solemn +tenderness. He wished to look on her once more; and on the day before +his death she long remained in tears on the stairs leading to his +bedroom, in the hope that she might be called in to receive his +blessing. But he was then sinking fast, and, though he sent her an +affectionate message, was unable to see her. But this was not the worst. +There are separations far more cruel than those which are made by death. +Frances might weep with proud affection for Crisp and Johnson. She had +to blush as well as to weep for Mrs. Thrale. + +Life, however, still smiled upon her. Domestic happiness, friendship, +independence, leisure, letters, all these things were hers; and she +flung them all away. + + * * * * * + +Then the prison was opened, and Frances was free once more. Johnson, as +Burke observed, might have added a striking page to his poem on the +Vanity of Human Wishes, if he had lived to see his little Burney as she +went into the palace and as she came out of it. + +The pleasures, so long untasted, of liberty, of friendship, of domestic +affection, were almost too acute for her shattered frame. But happy days +and tranquil nights soon restored the health which the Queen's toilette +and Madame Schwellenberg's card-table had impaired. Kind and anxious +faces surrounded the invalid. Conversation the most polished and +brilliant revived her spirits. Travelling was recommended to her; and +she rambled by easy journeys from cathedral to cathedral, and from +watering-place to watering-place. She crossed the New Forest, and +visited Stonehenge and Wilton, the cliffs of Lyme, and the beautiful +valley of Sidmouth. Thence she journeyed by Powderham Castle, and by the +ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, to Bath, and from Bath, when the winter was +approaching, returned well and cheerful to London. There she visited her +old dungeon, and found her successor already far on the way to the +grave, and kept to strict duty, from morning till midnight, with a +sprained ankle and a nervous fever. + +At this time England swarmed with French exiles driven from their +country by the Revolution. A colony of these refugees settled at Juniper +Hall in Surrey, not far from Norbury Park, where Mr. Lock, an intimate +friend of the Burney family, resided. Frances visited Norbury, and was +introduced to the strangers. She had strong prejudices against them; for +her Toryism was far beyond, we do not say that of Mr. Pitt, but that of +Mr. Reeves; and the inmates of Juniper Hall were all attached to the +constitution of 1791, and were therefore more detested by the Royalists +of the first emigration than Petion or Marat. But such a woman as Miss +Burney could no longer resist the fascination of that remarkable +society. She had lived with Johnson and Windham, with Mrs. Montague and +Mrs. Thrale. Yet she was forced to own that she had never heard +conversation before. The most animated eloquence, the keenest +observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were united +to charm her. For Madame de Staël was there, and M. de Talleyrand. There +too was M. de Narbonne, a noble representative of French aristocracy; +and with M. de Narbonne was his friend and follower General D'Arblay, an +honourable and amiable man, with a handsome person, frank soldier-like +manners, and some taste for letters. + +The prejudices which Frances had conceived against the constitutional +royalists of France rapidly vanished. She listened with rapture to +Talleyrand and Madame de Staël, joining with M. D'Arblay in execrating +the Jacobins, and in weeping for the unhappy Bourbons, took French +lessons from him, fell in love with him, and married him on no better +provision [Transcriber's note: "pro-provision" in original] than a +precarious annuity of one hundred pounds. + + * * * * * + +We now turn from the life of Madame D'Arblay to her writings. There can, +we apprehend, be little difference of opinion as to the nature of her +merit, whatever differences may exist as to its degree. She was +emphatically what Johnson called her, a character-monger. It was in the +exhibition of human passions and whims that her strength lay; and in +this department of art she had, we think, very distinguished skill. + +Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of +dialogue, stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of nature, +endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity. The characters of which he +has given us an impression, as vivid as that which we receive from the +characters of our own associates, are to be reckoned by scores. Yet in +all these scores hardly one character is to be found which deviates +widely from the common standard, and which we should call very eccentric +if we met it in real life. The silly notion that every man has one +ruling passion, and that this clue, once known, unravels all the +mysteries of his conduct, finds no countenance in the plays of +Shakespeare. There man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions, +which contend for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn. What is +Hamlet's ruling passion? Or Othello's? Or Harry the Fifth's? Or +Wolsey's? Or Lear's? Or Shylock's? Or Benedick's? Or Macbeth's? Or that +of Cassius? Or that of Falconbridge? But we might go on for ever. Take a +single example--Shylock. Is he so eager for money as to be indifferent +to revenge? Or so eager for revenge as to be indifferent to money? Or so +bent on both together as to be indifferent to the honour of his nation +and the law of Moses? All his propensities are mingled with each other; +so that, in trying to apportion to each its proper part, we find the +same difficulty which constantly meets us in real life. A superficial +critic may say, that hatred is Shylock's ruling passion. But how many +passions have amalgamated to form that hatred? It is partly the result +of wounded pride: Antonio has called him dog. It is partly the result of +covetousness: Antonio has hindered him of half a million; and, when +Antonio is gone, there will be no limit to the gains of usury. It is +partly the result of national and religious feeling: Antonio has spit on +the Jewish gaberdine; and the oath of revenge has been sworn by the +Jewish Sabbath. We might go through all the characters which we have +mentioned, and through fifty more in the same way; for it is the +constant manner of Shakespeare to represent the human mind as lying, not +under the absolute dominion of one despotic propensity, but under a +mixed government, in which a hundred powers balance each other. +Admirable as he was in all parts of his art, we most admire him for +this, that, while he has left us a greater number of striking portraits +than all other dramatists put together, he has scarcely left us a single +caricature. + +Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers who, +in the point which we have noticed, have approached nearest to the +manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane +Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a +multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such +as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from +each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. There +are, for example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to +find in any parsonage in the kingdom, Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry +Tilney, Mr. Edmund Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They are all specimens of the +upper part of the middle class. They have all been liberally educated. +They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They +are all young. They are all in love. Not one of them has any hobbyhorse, +to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we +read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid +likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to +Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, +than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend +brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate, that they +elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we +know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have +contributed. + +A line must be drawn, we conceive, between artists of this class, and +those poets and novelists whose skill lies in the exhibiting of what Ben +Jonson called humours. The words of Ben are so much to the purpose, that +we will quote them-- + + When some one peculiar quality + Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw + All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, + In their confluxions all to run one way, + This may be truly said to be a humour. + +There are undoubtedly persons, in whom humours such as Ben describes +have attained a complete ascendency. The avarice of Elwes, the insane +desire of Sir Egerton Brydges for a barony to which he had no more right +than to the crown of Spain, the malevolence which long meditation on +imaginary wrongs generated in the gloomy mind of Bellingham, are +instances. The feeling which animated Clarkson and other virtuous men +against the slave-trade and slavery, is an instance of a more honourable +kind. + +Seeing that such humours exist, we cannot deny that they are proper +subjects for the imitations of art. But we conceive that the imitation +of such humours, however skilful and amusing, is not an achievement of +the highest order; and, as such humours are rare in real life, they +ought, we conceive, to be sparingly introduced into works which profess +to be pictures of real life. Nevertheless, a writer may show so much +genius in the exhibition of these humours, as to be fairly entitled to a +distinguished and permanent rank among classics. The chief seats of all, +however, the places on the dais and under the canopy, are reserved for +the few who have excelled in the difficult art of portraying characters +in which no single feature is extravagantly overcharged. + +If we have expounded the law soundly, we can have no difficulty in +applying it to the particular case before us. Madame D'Arblay has left +us scarcely any thing but humours. Almost every one of her men and women +has some one propensity developed to a morbid degree. In Cecilia, for +example, Mr. Delvile never opens his lips without some allusion to his +own birth and station; or Mr. Briggs, without some allusion to the +hoarding of money; or Mr. Hobson, without betraying the self-indulgence +and self-importance of a purse-proud upstart; or Mr. Simkins, without +uttering some sneaking remark for the purpose of currying favour with +his customers; or Mr. Meadows, without expressing apathy and weariness +of life; or Mr. Albany, without declaiming about the vices of the rich +and the misery of the poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some indelicate +eulogy on her son; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her +husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport +all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly +prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of +Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well. + +We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame D'Arblay a place in the +highest rank of art; but we cannot deny that, in the rank to which she +belonged, she had few equals, and scarcely any superior. The variety of +humours which is to be found in her novels is immense; and though the +talk of each person separately is monotonous, the general effect is not +monotony, but a very lively and agreeable diversity. Her plots are +rudely constructed and improbable, if we consider them in themselves. +But they are admirably framed for the purpose of exhibiting striking +groups of eccentric characters, each governed by his own peculiar whim, +each talking his own peculiar jargon, and each bringing out by +opposition the oddities of all the rest. We will give one example out of +many which occur to us. All probability is violated in order to bring +Mr. Delvile, Mr. Briggs, Mr. Hobson, and Mr. Albany into a room +together. But when we have them there, we soon forget probability in the +exquisitely ludicrous effect which is produced by the conflict of four +old fools, each raging with a monomania of his own, each talking a +dialect of his own, and each inflaming all the others anew every time he +opens his mouth. + +Yet one word more. It is not only on account of the intrinsic merit of +Madame D'Arblay's early works that she is entitled to honourable +mention. Her appearance is an important epoch in our literary history. +Evelina was the first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a +picture of life and manners, that lived or deserved to live. The Female +Quixote is no exception. That work has undoubtedly great merit, when +considered as a wild satirical harlequinade; but, if we consider it as a +picture of life and manners, we must pronounce it more absurd than any +of the romances which it was designed to ridicule. + +Indeed, most of the popular novels which preceded Evelina, were such as +no lady would have written; and many of them were such as no lady could +without confusion own that she had read. The very name of novel was held +in horror among religious people. In decent families which did not +profess extraordinary sanctity, there was a strong feeling against all +such works. Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three years before Evelina +appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of sober fathers and +husbands, when he pronounced the circulating library an evergreen tree +of diabolical knowledge. This feeling, on the part of the grave and +reflecting, increased the evil from which it had sprung. The novelist, +having little character to lose, and having few readers among serious +people, took without scruple liberties which in our generation seem +almost incredible. + +Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the +English drama; and she did it in a better way. She first showed that a +tale might be written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life +of London might be exhibited with great force, and with broad comic +humour, and which yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with +rigid morality, or even with virgin delicacy. She took away the reproach +which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition. She +vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share in a fair and noble +province of letters. Several accomplished women have followed in her +track. At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no +small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is +more honourably distinguished by fine observation, by grace, by delicate +wit, by pure moral feeling. Several among the successors of Madame +D'Arblay have equalled her; two, we think, have surpassed her. But the +fact that she has been surpassed, gives her an additional claim to our +respect and gratitude; for in truth we owe to her, not only Evelina, +Cecilia, and Camilla, but also Mansfield Park and the Absentee. + + + + +ANONYMOUS ON WORDSWORTH + + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, October, 1807] + +_Poems_, in Two Volumes. By W. WORDSWORTH. London, 1807. + +This author is known to belong to a certain brotherhood of poets, who +have haunted for some years about the lakes of Cumberland; and is +generally looked upon, we believe, as the purest model of the +excellences and peculiarities of the school which they have been +labouring to establish. Of the general merits of that school, we have +had occasion to express our opinion pretty fully, in more places than +one, and even to make some allusion to the former publications of the +writer now before us. We are glad, however, to have found an opportunity +of attending somewhat more particularly to his pretentions. + +The Lyrical Ballads were unquestionably popular; and, we have no +hesitation in saying, deservedly popular: for in spite of their +occasional vulgarity, affectation, and silliness, they were undoubtedly +characterised by a strong spirit of originality, of pathos, and natural +feeling; and recommended to all good minds by the clear impression which +they bore of the amiable disposition and virtuous principles of the +author. By the help of these qualities, they were enabled, not only to +recommend themselves to the indulgence of many judicious readers, but +even to beget among a pretty numerous class of persons, a sort of +admiration of the very defects by which they were attended. It was on +this account chiefly, that we thought it necessary to set ourselves +against the alarming innovation. Childishness, conceit, and affectation, +are not of themselves very popular or attractive; and though mere +novelty has sometimes been found sufficient to give them a temporary +currency, we should have had no fear of their prevailing to any +dangerous extent, if they had been graced with no more seductive +accompaniments. It was precisely because the perverseness and bad taste +of this new school was combined with a great deal of genius and of +laudable feeling, that we were afraid of their spreading and gaining +ground among us, and that we entered into the discussion with a degree +of zeal and animosity which some might think unreasonable towards +authors, to whom so much merit had been conceded. There were times and +moods, indeed, in which we were led to suspect ourselves of +unjustifiable severity, and to doubt, whether a sense of public duty had +not carried us rather too far in reprobation of errors, that seemed to +be atoned for, by excellences of no vulgar description. At other times +the magnitude of these errors--the disgusting absurdities into which +they led their feebler admirers, and the derision and contempt which +they drew from the more fastidious, even upon the merits with which they +were associated, made us wonder more than ever at the perversity by +which they were retained, and regret that we had not declared ourselves +against them with still more formidable and decided hostility. + +In this temper of mind, we read the _annonce_ of Mr. Wordsworth's +publication with a good deal of interest and expectation, and opened his +volumes with greater anxiety, than he or his admirers will probably give +us credit for. We have been greatly disappointed certainly as to the +quality of the poetry; but we doubt whether the publication has afforded +so much satisfaction to any other of his readers:--it has freed us from +all doubt or hesitation as to the justice of our former censures, and +has brought the matter to a test, which we cannot help hoping may be +convincing to the author himself. + +Mr. Wordsworth, we think, has now brought the question, as to the merit +of his new school of poetry, to a very fair and decisive issue. The +volumes before us are much more strongly marked by its peculiarities +than any former publication of the fraternity. In our apprehension, they +are, on this very account, infinitely less interesting or meritorious; +but it belongs to the public, and not to us, to decide upon their merit, +and we will confess, that so strong is our conviction of their obvious +inferiority, and the grounds of it, that we are willing for once to +waive our right of appealing to posterity, and to take the judgment of +the present generation of readers, and even of Mr. Wordsworth's former +admirers, as conclusive on this occasion. If these volumes, which have +all the benefit of the author's former popularity, turn out to be nearly +as popular as the lyrical ballads--if they sell nearly to the same +extent--or are quoted and imitated among half as many individuals, we +shall admit that Mr. Wordsworth has come much nearer the truth in his +judgment of what constitutes the charm of poetry, than we had previously +imagined--and shall institute a more serious and respectful inquiry into +his principles of composition than we have yet thought necessary. On the +other hand,--if this little work, selected from the compositions of five +maturer years, and written avowedly for the purpose of exalting a +system, which has already excited a good deal of attention, should be +generally rejected by those whose prepossessions were in its favour, +there is room to hope, not only that the system itself will meet with no +more encouragement, but even that the author will be persuaded to +abandon a plan of writing, which defrauds his industry and talents of +their natural reward. + +Putting ourselves thus upon our country, we certainly look for a verdict +against this publication; and have little doubt indeed of the result, +upon a fair consideration of the evidence contained in these volumes. To +accelerate that result, and to give a general view of the evidence, to +those into whose hands the record may not have already fallen, we must +now make a few observations and extracts. + +We shall not resume any of the particular discussions by which we +formerly attempted to ascertain the value of the improvements which this +new school has effected in poetry: but shall lay the grounds of our +opposition, for this time, a little more broadly. The end of poetry, we +take it, is to please--and the same, we think, is strictly applicable to +every metrical composition from which we receive pleasure, without any +laborious exercise of the understanding. Their pleasure may, in general, +be analysed into three parts--that which we receive from the excitement +of Passion or emotion--that which is derived from the play of +Imagination, or the easy exercise of Reason--and that which depends on +the character and qualities of the Diction. The two first are the vital +and primary springs of poetical delight, and can scarcely require +explanation to anyone. The last has been alternately over-rated and +undervalued by the possessors of the poetical art, and is in such low +estimation with the author now before us and his associates, that it is +necessary to say a few words in explanation of it. + +One great beauty of diction exists only for those who have some degree +of scholarship or critical skill. This is what depends on the exquisite +_propriety_ of the words employed, and the delicacy with which they are +adapted to the meaning which is to be expressed. Many of the finest +passages in Virgil and Pope derive their principal charm from the fine +propriety of their diction. Another source of beauty, which extends only +to the more instructed class of readers, is that which consists in the +judicious or happy application of expressions which have been sanctified +by the use of famous writers, or which bear the stamp of a simple or +venerable antiquity. There are other beauties of diction, however, which +are perceptible by all--the beauties of sweet sounds and pleasant +associations. The melody of words and verses is indifferent to no reader +of poetry; but the chief recommendation of poetical language is +certainly derived from those general associations, which give it a +character of dignity or elegance, sublimity or tenderness. Everyone +knows that there are low and mean expressions, as well as lofty and +grave ones; and that some words bear the impression of coarseness and +vulgarity, as clearly as others do of refinement and affection. We do +not mean, of course, to say anything in defiance of the hackneyed +commonplace of ordinary versemen. Whatever might have been the original +character of these unlucky phrases, they are now associated with nothing +but ideas of schoolboy imbecility and vulgar affectation. But what we do +maintain is, that much of the most popular poetry in the world owes its +celebrity chiefly to the beauty of its diction; and that no poetry can +be long or generally acceptable, the language of which is coarse, +inelegant, or infantine. + +From this great source of pleasure, we think the readers of Mr. +Wordsworth are in great measure cut off. His diction has nowhere any +pretensions to elegance or dignity; and he has scarcely ever +condescended to give the grace of correctness or melody to his +versification. If it were merely slovenly or neglected, however, all +this might be endured. Strong sense and powerful feeling will ennoble +any expressions; or, at least, no one who is capable of estimating these +higher merits, will be disposed to mark these little defects. But, in +good truth, no man, now-a-days, composes verses for publication, with a +slovenly neglect of their language. It is a fine and laborious +manufacture, which can scarcely ever be made in a hurry; and the faults +which it has, may, for the most part, be set down to bad taste or +incapacity, rather than to carelessness or oversight. With Mr. +Wordsworth and his friends it is plain that their peculiarities of +diction are things of choice, and not of accident. They write as they +do, upon principle and system; and it evidently costs them much pains to +keep _down_ to the standard which they have proffered themselves. They +are to the full as much mannerists, too, as the poetasters who ring +changes on the commonplaces of magazine versification; and all the +difference between them is that they borrow their phrases from a +different and a scantier _gradus ad Parnassum_. If they were, indeed, to +discard all imitation and set phraseology, and bring in no words merely +for show or for metre,--as much, perhaps, might be gained in freedom and +originality, as would infallibly be lost in allusion and authority; but, +in point of fact, the new poets are just as much borrowers as the old; +only that, instead of borrowing from the more popular passages of their +illustrious predecessors, they have preferred furnishing themselves from +vulgar ballads and plebian nurseries. + +Their peculiarities of diction alone, are enough, perhaps, to render +them ridiculous; but the author before us really seems anxious to court +this literary martyrdom by a device still more infallible,--we mean that +of connecting his most lofty, tender, or impassioned conceptions, with +objects and incidents which the greater part of his readers will +probably persist in thinking low, silly, or uninteresting. Whether this +is done from affectation and conceit alone, or whether it may not arise, +in some measure, from the self-illusion of a mind of extraordinary +sensibility, habituated to solitary meditation, we cannot undertake to +determine. It is possible enough, we allow, that the sights of a +friend's garden-spade, of a sparrow's-nest, or a man gathering leeches, +might really have suggested to such a mind a train of powerful +impressions and interesting reflections; but it is certain, that, to +most minds, such associations will always appear forced, strained, and +unnatural; and that the composition in which it is attempted to exhibit +them, will always have the air of parody, or ludicrous and affected +singularity. All the world laughs at Eligiac stanzas to a sucking pig--a +Hymn on Washing-day, Sonnets to one's grandmother--or Pindarics on +gooseberry-pie; and yet, we are afraid, it will not be quite easy to +persuade Mr. Wordsworth, that the same ridicule must infallibly attach +to most of the pathetic pieces in these volumes. To satisfy our readers, +however, as to the justice of this and our other anticipations, we shall +proceed without further preface, to lay before them a short view of +their contents. + +The first is a kind of ode "to the Daisy,--" very flat, feeble, and +affected; and in diction as artificial, and as much encumbered with +heavy expletives as the theme of an unpractised schoolboy.... + +The scope of the piece is to say, that the flower is found everywhere; +and that it has suggested many pleasant thoughts to the author--some +chime of fancy, "_wrong or right_"--some feeling of devotion _more or +less_--and other elegancies of the same stamp.... + +The next is called "Louisa," and begins in this dashing and affected +manner. + + I met Louisa in the shade; + And, having seen that lovely maid, + _Why should I fear to say_ + That she is ruddy, fleet and strong; + _And down the rocks can leap along_, + Like rivulets in May? I. 7. + +Does Mr. Wordsworth really imagine that this is more natural or engaging +than the ditties of our common song-writers?... + +By and by, we have a piece of namby-pamby "to the Small Celandine," +which we should almost have taken for a professed imitation of one of +Mr. Phillips's prettyisms.... + +Further on, we find an "Ode to Duty," in which the lofty vein is very +unsuccessfully attempted. This is the concluding stanza. + + Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear + The Godhead's most benignant grace; + Nor know we anything so fair + As is the smile upon thy face; + Flowers laugh before thee on their beds; + And fragrance in thy footing treads; + Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; + And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong. I. 73. + + +The two last lines seem to be utterly without meaning; at least we have +no sort of conception in what sense _Duty_ can be said to keep the old +skies _fresh_, and the stars from wrong. + +The next piece, entitled "The Beggars," may be taken, in fancy, as a +touchstone of Mr. Wordsworth's merit. There is something about it that +convinces us it is a favourite of the author's; though to us, we will +confess, it appears to be a very paragon of silliness and +affectation.... "Alice Fell" is a performance of the same order.... If +the printing of such trash as this be not felt as an insult on the +public taste, we are afraid it cannot be insulted. + +After this follows the longest and most elaborate poem in the volume, +under the title of "Resolution and Independence." The poet roving about +on a common one fine morning, falls into pensive musings on the fate of +the sons of song, which he sums up in this fine distich. + + We poets in our youth begin in gladness; + But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness. I, p. 92. + +In the midst of his meditations-- + + I saw a man before me unawares, + The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.... + +The very interesting account, which he is lucky enough at last to +comprehend, fills the poet with comfort and admiration; and, quite glad +to find the old man so cheerful, he resolves to take a lesson of +contentedness from him; and the poem ends with this pious ejaculation-- + + "God," said I, "be my help and stay secure; + I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor." I, p. 97. + +We defy the bitterest enemy of Mr. Wordsworth to produce anything at all +parallel to this from any collection of English poetry, or even from the +specimens of his friend Mr. Southey.... + +The first poems in the second volume were written during a tour in +Scotland. The first is a very dull one about Rob Roy, but the title that +attracted us most was "An Address to the Sons of Burns," after visiting +their father's grave. Never was anything, however, more miserable.... +The next is a very tedious, affected performance, called "The Yarrow +Unvisited." ... After this we come to some ineffable compositions, which +the poet has entitled, "Moods of my own Mind." ... We have then a +rapturous mystical ode to the Cuckoo; in which the author, striving +after force and originality, produces nothing but absurdity ... after +this there is an address to a butterfly.... We come next to a long story +of a "Blind Highland Boy," who lived near an arm of the sea, and had +taken a most unnatural desire to venture on that perilous element. His +mother did all she could to prevent him; but one morning, when the good +woman was out of the way, he got into a vessel of his own, and pushed +out from the shore. + + In such a vessel ne'er before + Did human creature leave the shore. II, p. 72. + +And then we are told, that if the sea should get rough, "a beehive would +be ship as safe." "But say, what was it?" a poetical interlocutor is +made to exclaim most naturally; and here followeth the answer, upon +which all the pathos and interest of the story depend. + + A HOUSEHOLD TUB, like one of those + Which women use to wash their clothes!! II, p. 72. + +This, it will be admitted, is carrying the matter as far as it will go; +nor is there anything,--down to the wiping of shoes or the evisceration +of chickens, which may not be introduced in poetry, if this is +tolerated.... + +Afterwards come some stanzas about an echo repeating a cuckoo's +voice.... Then we have Elegiac stanzas "to the spade of a friend," +beginning-- + + Spade! with which Wilkinson hath till'd his lands. + +But too dull to be quoted any further. + +After this there is a minstrel's song, on the Restoration of Lord +Clifford the Shepherd, which is in a very different strain of poetry; +and then the volume is wound up with an "Ode," with no other title but +the motto _Paulo majora canamus_. This is, beyond all doubt, the most +illegible and unintelligible part of the publication. We can pretend to +no analysis or explanation of it.... + +We have thus gone through this publication, with a view to enable our +readers to determine, whether the author of these verses which have now +been exhibited, is entitled to claim the honours of an improver or +restorer of our poetry, and to found a new school to supersede or +new-model all our maxims on the subject. If we were to stop here, we do +not think that Mr. Wordsworth, or his admirers, would have any reason to +complain; for what we have now quoted is undeniably the most peculiar +and characteristic part of his publication, and must be defended and +applauded if the merit or originality of his system is to be seriously +maintained. In our opinion, however, the demerit of that system cannot +be fairly appreciated, until it be shown, that the author of the bad +verses which we have already extracted, can write good verses when he +pleases; and that, in point of fact, he does always write good verses, +when, by any account, he is led to abandon his system, and to transgress +the laws of that school which he would fain establish on the ruin of all +existing authority. + +The length to which our extracts and observations have already extended, +necessarily restrains us within more narrow limits in this part of our +citations; but it will not require much labour to find a pretty decided +contrast to some of the passages we have already detailed. The song on +the restoration of Lord Clifford is put into the mouth of an ancient +minstrel of the family; and in composing it, the author was led, +therefore, almost irresistibly to adopt the manner and phraseology that +is understood to be connected with that sort of composition, and to +throw aside his own babyish incidents and fantastical sensibilities.... + +All English writers of sonnets have imitated Milton; and, in this way, +Mr. Wordsworth, when he writes sonnets, escapes again from the trammels +of his own unfortunate system; and the consequence is, that his sonnets +are as much superior to the greater part of his other poems, as Milton's +sonnets are superior to his.... + +When we look at these, and many still finer passages, in the writings of +this author, it is impossible not to feel a mixture of indignation and +compassion, at that strange infatuation which has bound him up from the +fair exercise of his talents, and withheld from the public the many +excellent productions that would otherwise have taken the place of the +trash now before us. Even in the worst of these productions, there are, +no doubt, occasional little traits of delicate feeling and original +fancy; but these are quite lost and obscured in the mass of childishness +and insipidity with which they are incorporated, nor can anything give +us a more melancholy view of the debasing effects of this miserable +theory, than that it has given ordinary men a right to wonder at the +folly and presumption of a man gifted like Mr. Wordsworth, and made him +appear, in his second avowed publication, like a bad imitator of the +worst of his former productions. + +We venture to hope, that there is now an end of this folly; and that, +like other follies, it will be found to have cured itself by the +extravagances resulting from its unbridled indulgence. In this point of +view, the publication of the volumes before us may ultimately be of +service to the good cause of literature. Many a generous rebel, it is +said, has been reclaimed to his allegiance by the spectacle of lawless +outrage and excess presented in the conduct of the insurgents; and we +think there is every reason to hope, that the lamentable consequences +which have resulted from Mr. Wordsworth's open violation of the +established laws of poetry, will operate as a wholesome warning to those +who might otherwise have been seduced by his example, and be the means +of restoring to that antient and venerable code its due honour and +authority. + + + + +ON MATURIN'S "MELMOTH" + + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, July, 1821] + +_Melmoth, the Wanderer_. 4 vols. By the Author of _Bertram_. Constable & +Co. Edinburgh, 1820. + +It was said, we remember, of Dr. Darwin's Botanic Garden--that it was +the sacrifice of Genius in the Temple of False Taste; and the remark may +be applied to the work before us, with the qualifying clause, that in +this instance the Genius is less obvious, and the false taste more +glaring. No writer of good judgment would have attempted to revive the +defunct horrors of Mrs. Radcliffe's School of Romance, or the demoniacal +incarnations of Mr. Lewis: But, as if he were determined not to be +arraigned for a single error only, Mr. Maturin has contrived to render +his production almost as objectionable in the manner as it is in the +matter. The construction of his story, which is singularly clumsy and +inartificial, we have no intention to analyze:--many will probably have +perused the work, before our review reaches them; and to those who have +not, it may be sufficient to announce, that the imagination of the +author runs riot, even beyond the usual license of romance;--that his +hero is a modern Faustus, who has bartered his soul with the powers of +darkness for protracted life, and unlimited worldly enjoyment;--his +heroine, a species of insular goddess, a virgin Calypso of the Indian +ocean, who, amid flowers and foliage, lives upon figs and tamarinds; +associates with peacocks, loxias and monkeys; is worshipped by the +occasional visitants of her island; finds her way to Spain, where she is +married to the aforesaid hero by the hand of a dead hermit, the ghost of +a murdered domestic being the witness of their nuptials; and finally +dies in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Madrid!--To complete this +phantasmagoric exhibition, we are presented with sybils and misers; +parricides; maniacs in abundance; monks with scourges pursuing a naked +youth streaming with blood; subterranean Jews surrounded by the +skeletons of their wives and children; lovers blasted by lightning; +Irish hags, Spanish grandees, shipwrecks, caverns, Donna Claras and +Donna Isidoras, all opposed to each other in glaring and violent +contrast, and all their adventures narrated with the same undeviating +display of turgid, vehement, and painfully elaborated language. Such are +the materials, and the style of this expanded nightmare: And as we can +plainly perceive, among a certain class of writers, a disposition to +haunt us with similar apparitions, and to describe them with a +corresponding tumor of words, we conceive it high time to step forward +and abate a nuisance which threatens to become a besetting evil, unless +checked in its outset. + +Political changes were not the sole cause of the rapid degeneracy in +letters that followed the Augustan era of Rome. Similar corruptions and +decay have succeeded to the intellectual eminence of other nations; and +we might be almost led to conclude, that mental as well as physical +power, after attaining a certain perfection, became weakened by +expansion, and sunk into a state of comparative imbecility, until time +and circumstance gave it a new progressive impetus. One great cause of +this deterioration is the insatiable thirst for novelty, which, becoming +weary even of excellence, will "sate itself in a celestial bed, and prey +on garbage." In the torpidity produced by an utter exhaustion of sensual +enjoyment, the Arreoi Club of Otaheite is recorded to have found a +miserable excitement, by swallowing the most revolting filth; and the +jaded intellectual appetites of more civilized communities will +sometimes seek a new stimulus in changes almost as startling. Some +adventurous writer, unable to obtain distinction among a host of +competitors, all better qualified than himself to win legitimate +applause, strikes out a fantastic or monstrous innovation; and arrests +the attention of many who would fall asleep over monotonous excellence. +Imitators are soon found;--fashion adopts the new folly;--the old +standard of perfection is deemed stale and obsolete;--and thus, by +degrees, the whole literature of a country becomes changed and +deteriorated. It appears to us, that we are now labouring in a crisis of +this nature. In our last Number, we noticed the revolution in our +poetry; the transition from the lucid terseness and exquisite polish of +Pope and Goldsmith, to the rambling, diffuse, irregular, and imaginative +style of composition by which the present era is characterized; and we +might have added, that a change equally complete, though diametrically +opposite in its tendency, has been silently introduced into our prose. +In this we have oscillated from freedom to restraint;--from the easy, +natural, and colloquial style of Swift, Addison and Steele, to the +perpetually strained, ambitious, and overwrought stiffness, of which the +author we are now considering affords a striking exemplification. "He's +knight o' the shire, and represents them all." There is not the smallest +keeping in his composition:--less solicitous what he shall say, than how +he shall say it, he exhausts himself in a continual struggle to produce +effect by dazzling, terrifying, or surprising. Annibal Caracci was +accused of an affectation of muscularity, and an undue parade of +anatomical knowledge, even upon quiescent figures: But the artist whom +we are now considering has no quiescent figures:--even his repose is a +state of rigid tension, if not extravagant distortion. He is the Fuseli +of novelists. Does he deem it necessary to be energetic, he forthwith +begins foaming at the mouth, and falling into convulsions; and this +orgasm is so often repeated, and upon such inadequate occasions, that we +are perpetually reminded of the tremendous puerilities of the Della +Cruscan versifiers, or the ludicrous grand eloquence of the Spaniard, +who tore a certain portion of his attire, "as if heaven and earth were +coming together." In straining to reach the sublime, he perpetually +takes that single unfortunate step which conducts him to the ridiculous +--a failure which, in a less gifted author, might afford a wicked +amusement to the critic, but which, when united with such undoubted +genius as the present work exhibits, must excite a sincere and painful +regret in every admirer of talent. + +Whatever be the cause, the fact, we think, cannot be disputed, that a +peculiar tendency to this gaudy and ornate style, exists among the +writers of Ireland. Their genius runs riot in the wantonness of its own +uncontrolled exuberance;--their imagination, disdaining the restraint of +judgment, imparts to their literature the characteristics of a nation in +one of the earlier stages of civilization and refinement. The florid +imagery, gorgeous diction, and Oriental hyperboles, which possess a sort +of wild propriety in the vehement sallies of Antar the Bedoween +chieftain of the twelfth century, become cold extravagance and +floundering fustian in the mouth of a barrister of the present age; and +we question whether any but a native of the sister island would have +ventured upon the experiment of their adoption. Even in the productions +of Mr. Moore, the sweetest lyric poet of this or perhaps any age, this +national peculiarity is not infrequently perceptible; and we were +compelled, in our review of his Lalla Rookh, a subject which justified +the introduction of much Eastern splendour and elaboration, to point out +the excessive finery, the incessant sparkle and efflorescence by which +the attention of the reader was fatigued, and his senses overcome. He +rouged his roses, and poured perfume upon his jessamines, until we +fainted under the oppression of beauty and odour, and were ready to "die +of a rose in aromatic pain." + +Dryden, in alluding to the metaphysical poets, exclaims "rather than all +things wit, let none be there":--though we would not literally adopt +this dictum, we can safely confirm the truth of the succeeding lines-- + + Men doubt, because so thick they lie, + If those be stars that paint the Galaxy:-- + +And we scruple not to avow, whatever contempt may be expressed for our +taste by the advocates of the toiling and turgid style, both in and out +of Ireland, that the prose works which we have lately perused with the +greatest pleasure, so far as their composition was concerned, have been +Belzoni's Travels, and Salame's Account of the Attack upon Algiers. +Unable, from their insufficient mastery of our tongue, to rival the +native manufacture of stiff and laborious verbosity, these foreigners +have contented themselves with the plainest and most colloquial language +that was consistent with a clear exposition of their meaning;--a +practice to which Swift was indebted for the lucid and perspicuous +character of his writings, and which alone has enabled a great living +purveyor of "twopenny trash" to retain a certain portion of popularity, +in spite of his utter abandonment of all consistency and public +principle. If the writers to whom we are alluding will not condescend to +this unstudied and familiar mode of communing with the public, let them +at least have the art to conceal their art, and not obtrude the +conviction that they are more anxious to display themselves than inform +their readers; and let them, above all things, consent to be +intelligible to the plainest capacity; for though speech, according to +the averment of a wily Frenchman, was given to us to conceal our +thoughts, no one has yet ventured to extend the same mystifying +definition to the art of writing ... + +After this, let us no longer smile at the furious hyperboles of Della +Crusca upon Mrs. Robinson's eyes. In the same strain we are told of a +convent whose "walls sweat, and its floors quiver," when a contumacious +brother treads them;--and when the parents of the same personage are +torn from his room by the Director of the convent, we are informed that +"the rushing of their robes as he dragged them out, seemed like the +whirlwind that attends the presence of the destroying angel." In a +similar spirit, of pushing every thing to extremes when he means to be +impressive, the author is sometimes offensively minute; as when he makes +the aforesaid persecuted monk declare, that "the cook had learned the +secret of the convent (that of tormenting those whom they had no longer +hopes of commanding), and mixed the fragments he threw to me with ashes, +hair, and dust;"--and sometimes the extravagance of his phrases becomes +simply ludicrous. Two persons are trying to turn a key--"It grated, +resisted; the lock seemed invincible. Again we tried with cranched +teeth, indrawn breath, and fingers stripped almost to the bone--in +vain." And yet, after they had almost stripped their fingers to the +bone, they succeed in turning that which they could not move when their +hands were entire. + +We have said that Mr. Maturin had contrived to render his work as +objectionable in the matter as in the manner; and we proceed to the +confirmation of our assertion. We do not arraign him solely for the +occasional indecorousness of his conceptions, or the more offensive tone +of some of his colloquies, attempted to be palliated by the flimsy plea, +that they are, appropriate in the mouths that utter them. Dr. Johnson, +as a proof of the total suppression of the reasoning faculty in dreams, +used to cite one of his own, wherein he imagined himself to be holding +an argument with an adversary, whose superior powers filled him with a +mortification which a moment's reflection would have dissipated, by +reminding him that he himself supplied the repartees of his opponent as +well as his own. In his waking dreams, Mr. Maturin is equally the parent +of all the parties who figure in his Romance; and, though not personally +responsible for their sentiments, he is amenable to the bar of criticism +for every phrase or thought which transgresses the bounds of decorum, or +violates the laws that regulate the habitual intercourse of polished +society. It is no defence to say, that profane or gross language is +natural to the characters whom he embodies. Why does he select such? It +may be proper in them; but what can make it proper to us? There are +wretches who never open their lips but to blaspheme; but would any +author think himself justified in filling his page with their +abominations? It betrays a lamentable deficiency of tact and judgment, +to imagine, as the author of Melmoth appears to do, that he may seize +upon nature in her most unhallowed or disgusting moods, and dangle her +in the eyes of a decorous and civilized community. We shall not stop to +stigmatize, as it deserves, the wild and flagrant calumnies which he +insinuates against three-fourths of his countrymen, by raking in the +long-forgotten rubbish of Popery for extinct enormities, which he +exaggerates as the inevitable result, rather than the casual abuse of +the system, and brands with an intolerant zeal, quite as uncharitable as +that which he condemns. These faults are either so peculiar to the +individual, or in their nature so obviously indefensible, as to repel +rather than invite imitation. But there is another peculiarity in the +productions of this gentleman which claims a more detailed notice, +because it seems likely to have extensive effects in corrupting others: +--we mean his taste for horrible and revolting subjects. We thought we +had supped full of this commodity; but it seems as if the most ghastly +and disgusting portion of the meal was reserved for the present day, and +its most hideous concoction for the writer before us,--who is never so +much in his favourite element as when he can "on horror's head horrors +accumulate." He assimilates the sluggish sympathies of his readers to +those of sailors and vulgar ballad readers, who cannot be excited to an +interest in the battle of the Arethusa, unless they learn that "her +sails smoaked with brains, and her scuppers ran blood;"--a line which +threatens him with formidable competitors from before the mast. Mere +physical horror, unalleviated by an intense mental interest, or +redeeming charities of the heart, may possess a certain air of +originality, not from the want of ability in former writers to delineate +such scenes, but from then-deference to the "_multaque tolles ex +oculis_" of Horace; from the conviction of their utter unfitness for +public exhibition. There is, however, a numerous class of inferior +caterers to the public, ready to minister to any appetite, however foul +and depraved, if they be once furnished with a precedent; and we foresee +an inundation of blood and abomination if they be not awed or ridiculed +into silence. We have quietly submitted to these inflictions from two or +three distinguished writers, whose talents may extenuate, though they +cannot justify, such outrages upon feeling. When regular artists and +professors conduct us into their dissecting room, the skill with which +they anatomise may reconcile us to the offensiveness of the operation; +but if butchers and resurrection-men are to drag us into their shambles, +while they mangle human carcases with their clumsy and unhallowed hands, +the stoutest spectators must turn from the exhibition with sickness and +disgust. + +Were any proof wanting that this Golgotha style of writing is likely to +become contagious, and to be pushed to a more harrowing extravagance at +each successive imitation, Mr. Maturin would himself supply it.... + +We have omitted this miscreant's flippant allusion to Madame de Sevigné +and his own damnation, uttered in a spirit which (to use the author's +own words upon another occasion), "mingled ridicule with horror, and +seemed like a Harlequin in the infernal regions flirting with the +furies:"--But we must not forget to mention, as little characteristic +touches in this scene of preposterous horrors, that the monster who +describes it was also a parricide, and that the female, on whose dying +agonies he had feasted, was his only sister! After this appalling +extract, we need not pursue our quotations from pages which, as more +than one of the personages say of themselves, seem to swim in blood and +fire; and we shall conclude with the following passage from a dream-- + + The next moment I was chained to my chair again,--the fires were lit, + the bells rang out, the litanies were sung;--my feet were scorched to + a cinder,--my muscles cracked, my blood and marrow hissed, my flesh + consumed like shrinking leather,--the bones of my leg hung two black + withering and moveless sticks in the ascending blaze;--it ascended, + caught my hair,--I was crowned with fire,--my head was a ball of + molten metal, my eyes flashed and melted in their sockets:--I opened + my mouth, it drank fire,--I closed it, the fire was within,--and still + the bells rang on, and the crowd shouted, and the king and queen, and + all the nobility and priesthood looked on, and we burned and burned! I + was a cinder, body and soul, in my dream. II. 301. + +These, and other scenes equally wild and abominable, luckily counteract +themselves;--they present such a Fee-fa-fum for grown up people, such a +burlesque upon tragic horrors, that a sense of the ludicrous +irresistibly predominates over the terrific; and, to avoid disgust, our +feelings gladly take refuge in contemptuous laughter. Pathos like this +may affect women, and people of weak nerves, with sickness at the +stomach;--it may move those of stouter fibre to scornful derision; but +we doubt whether, in the whole extensive circle of novel readers, it has +ever drawn a single tear. The Society for the Suppression of Mendicity +has fortunately cleared our streets of the offensive vagrants who used +to thrust their mangled limbs and putrid sores into our faces to extort +from our disgust what they could not wring from our compassion:--Be it +_our_ care to suppress those greater nuisances who, infesting the high +ways of literature, would attempt, by a still more revolting exhibition, +to terrify or nauseate us out of those sympathies which they might not +have the power to awaken by any legitimate appeal. + +Let it not be imagined, from any thing we have now said, that we think +meanly of Mr. Maturin's genius and abilities. It is precisely because we +hold both in respect that we are sincerely anxious to point out their +misapplication; and we have extended our observations to a greater +length than we contemplated, partly because we fear that his strong +though unregulated imagination, and unlimited command of glowing +language, may inflict upon us a herd of imitators who, "possessing the +contortions of the Sybil without her inspiration," will deluge us with +dull, turgid, and disgusting enormities;--and partly because we are not +without hopes that our animadversions, offered in a spirit of sincerity, +may induce the Author himself to abandon this new Apotheosis of the old +Raw-head-and-bloody-bones, and assume a station in literature more +consonant to his high endowments, and to that sacred profession to +which, we understand, he does honour by the virtues of his private life. + + + + +THE QUARTERLY REVIEW + + +If Macaulay represents a new _Edinburgh_ from the days of Jeffrey, +Brougham, and Sydney Smith, the variety of criticism embraced by the +_Quarterly_ is even more startling. There was more malice, and far +coarser personalities in the early days, and almost continuously while +Gifford, Croker, and Lockhart held the reins: it is--almost certainly-- +among these three that the responsibility for our "anonymous" group of +onslaughts may be distributed. The two earliest appreciations of Jane +Austen (from Scott and Whately) offer an interlude--actually in the same +period--which positively startles us by the honesty of its attempt at +fair criticism and the entire freedom from personality. + +Gladstone's interesting recognition of Tennyson, and the "Church in +Arms" against Darwin (so ably pleaded by Wilberforce), belong to yet +another school of criticism which comes much nearer to our day, though +retaining the solemnity, the prolixity, and the _ex cathedra_ assumption +of authority with which all the Reviews began their career; and is +singularly cautious in its independence. + + +WILLIAM GIFFORD + +(1757-1826) + +Gifford was the editor of the _Quarterly_ from its foundation in +February, 1809, until September, 1824, and undoubtedly established its +reputation for scurrility. It is probable that more reviews were +written, or directly inspired, by him than have been actually traced to +his pen; and, in any case, as Leigh Hunt puts it, he made it his +business to + + See that others + Misdeem and miscontrue, like miscreant brothers; + Misquote, and misplace, and mislead, and misstate, + Misapply, misinterpret, misreckon, misdate, + Missinform, misconjecture, misargue, in short + Miss all that is good, that ye miss not the court. + +Gifford was hated even more than his associates; not only, we fear, for +his venal sycophancy, but because he had been apprenticed to a shoemaker +and never concealed the lowness of his origin. Moreover, "the little +man, dumpled up together and so ill-made as to seem almost deformed," +received from Fortune-- + + One eye not overgood, + Two sides that to their cost have stood + A ten years' hectic cough, + Aches, stitches, all the various ills + That swell the devilish doctor's bills, + And sweep poor mortals off. + +Scott is almost alone in his generosity towards the learning and +industry of an editor who helped to make infamous the title of critic. +His original poems (_The Baviad_ and _The Moeviad_) have a certain +sledge-hammer merit; and he did yeoman service by suppressing the _Della +Cruscans_. + +It was Gifford also "who did the butchering business in the +Anti-Jacobin." He was far heavier, in bludgeoning, than Jeffrey; while +Hazlitt epitomized his principles of criticism with his accustomed +vigour:--"He believes that modern literature should wear the fetters of +classical antiquity; that truth is to be weighed in the scales of +opinion and prejudice; that power is equivalent to right; that genius is +dependent on rules; that taste and refinement of language consist in +_word-catching_." + + * * * * * + +Gifford's review of _Ford's Weber_ is, perhaps, no more than can be +expected of the man who had edited _Massinger_ six years before he wrote +it; and produced a _Ben Jonson_ in 1816 and a _Ford_ in 1827. Of these +works Thomas Moore exclaimed "What a canker'd carle it is! Strange that +a man should be able to lash himself up into such a spiteful fury, not +only against the living but the dead, with whom he engages in a sort of +_sciomachy_ in every page. Poor dull and dead Malone is the shadow at +which he thrusts his 'Jonson,' as he did at poor Monck Mason, still +duller and deader, in his _Massinger_." Mr. A.H. Bullen, again, remarks +of his Ford, "Gifford was so intent on denouncing the inaccuracy of +others that he frequently failed to secure accuracy himself.... In +reading the old dramatists we do not want to be distracted by editorial +invectives and diatribes." + +The review of _Endymion_ called forth Byron's famous apostrophe to-- + + John Keats, who was killed off by one critique + Just as he really promised something great, + If not intelligible, without Greek + Contrived to talk about the gods of late + Much as they might have been supposed to speak. + Poor fellow! his was an untoward fate; + 'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, + Should let itself be snuff'd out by one article. + +It is but just to say, however, that the _Blackwood_ review of the same +poem, printed below, was scarcely less virulent; and later critics have +scouted the notion of the poet not having more strength of mind than he +is credited with by Byron. It is strange to notice that De Quincey found +in _Endymion_ "the very midsummer madness of affectation, of false +vapoury sentiment, and of fantastic effeminacy"; while one is ashamed +for the timidity of the publisher who chose to return all unsold copies +to George Keats because of "the ridicule which has, time after time, +been showered upon it." + + +JOHN WILSON CROKER + +(1780-1857) + +Croker was certainly unfortunate in his enemies, though they have given +him immortality. The contemptible Rigby in Disraeli's _Coningsby_ +(admittedly drawn from him) is scarcely more damaging to his reputation +than the sound, if prejudiced, onslaught of Macaulay's review, of which +we find echoes, after twelve years, in the same essayist's Madame +D'Arblay. Dr. Hill tells us that he "added considerably to our knowledge +of Johnson," yet he was a thoroughly bad editor and had no real sympathy +with either the subject or the author of that incomparable "Life": +through his essentially low mind. He was not a scholar, and he was +inaccurate. + +Croker was intimately associated with the _Quarterly_ from its +foundation until 1857, retaining his bitterness and spite to the year of +his death. But he was a born fighter, and never happier than in the heat +of controversy. That he secured the friendship of Scott, Peel, and +Wellington must go to prove that his political, and literary prejudices, +had not destroyed altogether his private character. He is credited with +being the first writer to use the word "conservatives" in the +_Quarterly_, January, 1830. He was a member of the Irish Bar, M.P. for +Dublin, Acting Chief Secretary for Ireland, Secretary of the Admiralty +(where his best work was accomplished), and a Privy Councillor. + + * * * * * + +The veiled sarcasm of his attack on _Sydney Smith_ was only to be +expected from a Tory reviewer, and was probably inflamed by that heated +loyalty to the Church which characterised his paper. + +_Macaulay_ had certainly provoked his retaliation, and we +may notice here the same eager partisanship of Church and +State, pervading even his personal malice. + + +JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART + +(1794-1854) + +It is to be regretted that Lockhart, who is so honourably remembered by +his great _Life of Scott_, his "fine and animated translation" of +Spanish Ballads, and his neglected--but powerful--_Adam Blair_, should +be so intimately associated with the black record of the _Quarterly_. He +was also a contributor to _Blackwood_ from October, 1817, succeeding +Gifford in the editorial chair of Mr. Murray's Review in 1825 until +1853. + +But Lockhart was "more than a satirist and a snarler." His polished +jibes were more mischievous than brutal. "This reticent, sensitive, +attractive, yet dangerous youth ... slew his victims mostly by the +midnight oil, not by any blaze of gaiety, or in the accumulative fervour +of social sarcasm. From him came most of those sharp things which the +victims could not forget.... Lockhart put in his sting in a moment, +inveterate, instantaneous, with the effect of a barbed dart, yet almost, +as it seemed, with the mere intention of giving point to his sentences, +and no particular feeling at all." + +Carlyle describes him as "a precise, brief, active person of +considerable faculty, which however, had shaped itself _gigmanically_ +only. Fond of quizzing, yet not _very_ maliciously. Has a broad, black +brow, indicating force and penetration, but the lower half of the face +diminishing into the character at best of distinctness, almost of +triviality." + + * * * * * + +There is certainly a good deal of perversity about the _abuse_ of +Vathek, so startlingly combined with almost immoderate eulogy: to which +the discriminating enthusiasm of his Coleridge affords a pleasing +contrast. + +It should be noticed that Lockhart has also been credited with the +bitter critical part of the _Jane Eyre_ review, printed below--of which +any man ought to have been ashamed--as Miss Rigby (afterwards Lady +Eastlake) is believed to have written "the part about the governess." He +probably had a hand in the Blackwood series on "The Cockney School of +Poetry" (see below); and, in some ways, those reviews are more +characteristic. + + + +SIR WALTER SCOTT + +(1771-1832) + +It would be out of place here to enter upon any biography or criticism +of the author of _Waverley_, or for that matter of Jane Austen. It is +sufficient to notice that Scott has found something generous to say (in +diaries, letters, or formal criticism) on every writer he had occasion +to mention, and that in his somewhat neglected, but frequently quoted, +_Lives of the Novelists_, a striking pre-eminence was given to women; +particularly Mrs. Radcliffe and Clara Reeve. Indeed, the essay on Mrs. +Radcliffe, a "very novel and rather heretical revelation" is "probably +the best in the whole set." + +We remember, too, the famous passage in his _General Preface to the +Waverley Novels_:--"without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate +the rich humour, pathetic tenderness and admirable tact of my +accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my own +country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately +achieved for Ireland";--an ambition of which the modesty only equals the +success achieved. + +In "appreciating" Jane Austen, indeed, Scott is far more cautious, if +not apologetic, than any critic of to-day would dream of being; but, +when we remember the prejudices then existing against women writers +(despite the popularity of Madame D'Arblay) and the well-nigh universal +neglect accorded the author of _Pride and Prejudice_, we should perhaps +rather marvel at the independent sincerity of his pronounced praise. The +article, at any rate, has historic significance, as the first serious +recognition of her immortal work. + + +RICHARD WHATELY + +(1787-1863) + +The "dogmatical and crotchety" Archbishop of Dublin was looked at +askance by the extreme Evangelicals of his day (though Thomas Arnold has +eulogised his holiness), and there is no doubt that his theology, +however able and sincere, was mainly inspired by the "daylight of +ordinary reason and of historical fact," opposed to the dogmas of +tradition. He combated sceptical criticism by an ingenious parody +entitled "Historical Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte," and his +epigram on the majority of preachers--that "they aim at nothing and they +hit it," proves his freedom from any touch of sacerdotalism. His +"Rhetoric," his "Logic," and his "Political Economy" were praised by so +eminent a judge as John Stuart Mill, though criticised by Hamilton; and +Lecky remarks on the "admirable lucidity of his style." + +His work, however, was as a whole too fragmentary to become standard, +and he regarded it himself as "the mission of his life to make up +cartridges for others to fire." + + * * * * * + +We may notice that in writing of _Jane Austen_, only six years after +Scott, though still measured and judicial, he permits himself a much +more assured attitude of applause; and the article affords most valuable +indication of the steady progress by which her masterpieces achieved the +supremacy now acknowledged by all. + + +WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE + +(1809-1898) + +It would be no less impertinent, and unnecessary, to dwell in these +pages upon the political, or literary, work of the greatest of modern +premiers. It is sufficient to recall the certainty which used to follow +a notice by Gladstone of a large and immediate rise in sales. Mr. John +Morley remarking that Gladstone's "place is not in literary or critical +history, but elsewhere," reminds us that his style was sometimes called +Johnsonian, though without good ground.... Some critics charged him in +1840 with "prolix clearness." "The old charge," says Mr. Gladstone upon +this, was obscure compression. I do not doubt that both may be true, and +the former may have been the result of a well-meant effort to escape +from the latter. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Morley, again, selects the essay on Tennyson for especial praise. +Though one is apt to forget it, the Laureate did not meet with anything +like immediate recognition; and, though coming twenty-eight years after +the appreciation by J.S. Mill, this article does not assume the +supremacy afterwards accorded the poet by common consent. + + +SAMUEL WILBERFORCE + +(1805-1873) + +"One of the most conspicuous and remarkable figures" of his generation +the versatile Bishop of Oxford is said to have come "next to Gladstone +as a man of inexhaustible powers of work." Known from his Oxford days as +Soapy Sam, he was involved through no fault of his own, in some of the +odium attached to the "Essays and Reviews" and "Colenso" cases: his +private life was embittered by the secession to Rome of his two +brothers, his brother-in-law, his only daughter, and his son-in-law. "He +was an unwearied ecclesiastical politician, always involved in +discussions and controversies, sometimes, it was thought, in intrigues; +without whom nothing was done in convocation, nor, where Church +interests were involved, in the House of Lords." The energy with which +he governed his diocese for twenty-four years earned for him the title +of "Romodeller [Transcriber's note: sic] of the Episcopate." + + * * * * * + +The attempt, by a man whose "relaxations" were botany and ornithology, +but who had no claims to be called an expert, to defeat Darwin on his +own ground--and the dignified horror of a Churchman at some deductions +from evolution--is eminently characteristic of the period. + +The earnest criticism of Newman's conversion to Rome concerns one of the +most striking events of his generation, and illustrates the "church" +attitude on such questions. + + +ANONYMOUS + +We have hinted already that the responsibility for this group of +ill-mannered recriminations may probably be distributed between Gifford, +Croker, and Lockhart. It is curious to notice that the second attack on +Scott appeared after his admission to the ranks of contributors; and the +author of _Waverley_ is perhaps the one man said to have friends both on +the _Edinburgh_ and the _Quarterly_. That on Leigh Hunt, always the pet +topic of Toryism, from whom he certainly provoked some retaliation, is +only paralleled in _Blackwood_. We have included the _Shakespeare_ and +the _Moxon_ as attractively brief samples on the approved model of +savage banter, and the _Jane Eyre_ as perhaps the most flagrant example +of bad taste to be found in these merciless pages. It was George Henry +Lewis, by the way, who so much offended Charlotte Brontë by the +greeting, "There ought to be a bond between us, for we have both written +naughty books." + +It is interesting to find Thackeray among those it was permitted to +praise: though the "moral" objection to his "realism" reveals a strange +attitude. + +We may notice, with some surprise, that the attitude towards George +Eliot is nearly as hostile as towards Charlotte Brontë. + + + + +GIFFORD ON WEBER'S "FORD" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, December, 1811] + + +... When it is determined to reprint the writings of an ancient author, +it is usual, we believe, to bestow a little labour in gratifying the +natural desire of the reader to know something of his domestic +circumstances. Ford had declared in the title-pages of his several +plays, that he was of the Inner Temple; and, from his entry there, Mr. +Malone, following up the inquiry, discovered that he was the second son +of Thomas Ford, Esq., and that he was baptized at Ilsington, in +Devonshire, the 17th of April, 1586. To this information Mr. Weber has +added nothing; and he hopes that the meagreness of his biographical +account will be readily excused by the reader who has examined the lives +of his (Ford's) dramatical contemporaries, in which we are continually +"led to lament that our knowledge respecting them amounts to little +better than nothing." It would surely be unjust to appear dissatisfied +at the imperfect account of an ancient author, when all the sources of +information have been industriously explored. But, in the present case, +we doubt whether Mr. Weber can safely "lay this flattering unction to +his soul"; and we shall therefore give such a sketch of the poet's life, +as an attentive examination of his writings has enabled us to +compile.... + +Reversing the observation of Dryden on Shakespeare, it may be said of +Ford that "he wrote laboriously, not luckily": always elegant, often +elevated, never sublime, he accomplished by patient and careful industry +what Shakespeare and Fletcher produced by the spontaneous exuberance of +native genius. He seems to have acquired early in life, and to have +retained to the last a softness of versification peculiar to himself. +Without the majestic march of verse which distinguishes the poetry of +Massinger, and with none of that playful gaiety which characterises the +dialogue of Fletcher, he is still easy and harmonious. There is, +however, a monotony in his poetry, which those who have perused his +scenes long together must have inevitably perceived. His dialogue is +declamatory and formal, and wants that quick chace of replication and +rejoinder so necessary to effect in representation. If we could put out +of our remembrance the singular merits of "The Lady's Trial," we should +consider the genius of Ford as altogether inclined to tragedy; and even +there so large a proportion of the pathetic pervades the drama, that it +requires the "humours" of Guzman and Fulgoso, in addition to a happy +catastrophe, to warrant the name of comedy. In the plots of his +tragedies Ford is far from judicious; they are for the most part too +full of the horrible, and he seems to have had recourse to an +accumulation of terrific incidents, to obtain that effect which he +despairs of producing by pathos of language. Another defect in Ford's +poetry, proceeding from the same source, is the alloy of pedantry which +pervades his scenes, at one time exhibited in the composition of uncouth +phrases, at another in perplexity of language; and he frequently labours +with a remote idea, which, rather than throw it away, he obtrudes upon +his reader, involved in inextricable obscurity. We cannot agree with the +editor in praising his delineation of the female character: less than +women in their passions, they are more than masculine in their exploits +and sufferings; but, excepting Spinella in "The Lady's Trial," and +perhaps Penthea, we do not remember in Ford's plays, any example of that +meekness and modesty which compose the charm of the female character.... + +Mr. Weber is known to the admirers of our antient literature by two +publications which, although they may not be deemed of great importance +in themselves, have yet a fair claim to notice. We speak of the battle +of Flodden Field, and the Romances of the fourteenth century: which, as +far as we have looked into them, appear very creditable to his industry +and accuracy: his good genius, we sincerely regret to say, appears in a +great measure to have forsaken him from the moment that he entered upon +the task of editing a dramatic poet. + +In the mechanical construction of his work Mr. Weber has followed the +last edition of Massinger, with a servility which appears, in his mind, +to have obviated all necessity of acknowledging the obligation: we will +not stop to enquire whether he might not have found a better model; but +proceed to the body of the work. As we feel a warm interest in +everything which regards our ancient literature, on the sober +cultivation of which the purity, copiousness, and even harmony of the +English language must, in no small degree, depend, we shall notice some +of the peculiarities of the volumes before us, in the earnest hope that +while we relieve Ford from a few of the errors and misrepresentations +with which he is here encumbered, we may convince Mr. Weber that +something more is necessary to a faithful editor than the copying of +printers' blunders, and to a judicious commentator, than a blind +confidence in the notes of every collection of old plays. + +Mr. Weber's attempts at explanation (for explanations it seems, there +must be) are sometimes sufficiently humble. "Carriage," he tells us, "is +behaviour." It is so; we remember it in our spelling-book, among the +words of three syllables, we have therefore no doubt of it. But you must +have, rejoins the editor; and accordingly, in every third or fourth +page, he persists in affirming that "carriage is behaviour." In the same +strain of thankless kindness, he assures us that "fond is foolish," +"but, except," "content, contentment," and _vice versa_, "period +[Transcriber's note: 'peroid' in original], end," "demur, delay," "ever, +always," "sudden, quickly," "quick, suddenly," and so on through a long +vocabulary of words of which a girl of six years old would blush to ask +the meaning.... + +The confidence which Mr. Weber reposes in Steevens, not only on one but +on every occasion, is quite exemplary: the name alone operates as a +charm, and supersedes all necessity of examining into the truth of his +assertions; and he gently reminds those who occasionally venture to +question it, that "they are ignorant and superficial critics." Vol. ii, +p. 256.--"I have seen Summer go up and down with _hot codlings!_ Mr. +Steevens observes that a codling _antiently_ meant an immature apple, +and the present passage _plainly_ proves it, as none but immature apples +could be had in summer," all this wisdom is thrown away. We can assure +Mr. Weber, on the authority of Ford himself, that "hot codlings" are +_not_ apples, either mature or immature. Steevens is a dangerous guide +for such as do not look well about them. His errors are specious: for he +was a man of ingenuity: but he was often wantonly mischievous, and +delighted to stumble for the mere gratification of dragging unsuspecting +innocents into the mire with him. He was, in short, the very Puck of +commentators.... + +No writer, in our remembrance, meets with so many "singular words" as +the present editor. He conjectures, however, that _unvamp'd_ means +_disclosed_. It means not stale, not patched up. We should have supposed +it impossible to miss the sense of so trite an expression.... Mr. +Weber's acquaintance with our dramatic writers extends, as the reader +must have observed, very little beyond the indexes of Steevens and Reed. +If he cannot find the word of which he is in quest, in them, he sets it +down as an uncommon expression, or a coinage of his author.... + +These inadvertences, and many others which might be noticed, being +chiefly confined to the notes, do not, perhaps, detract much from the +value of the text: we now turn to some of a different kind, which bear +hard on the editor, and prove that his want of knowledge is not +compensated by any extraordinary degree of attention. It is not +sufficient for Mr. Weber to say that many of the errors which we shall +point out are found in the old copy. It was his duty to reform them. A +facsimile of blunders no one requires. Modern editions of our old poets +are purchased upon the faith of a corrected text: this is their only +claim to notice; and, if defective here, they become at once little +better than waste-paper.... + +There is something extremely capricious in Mr. Weber's mode of +proceeding: words are tampered with which are necessary to the right +understanding of the text, while others, which reduce it to absolute +jargon, are left unmolested.... + +We might carry this part of our examination to an immense extent; but we +forbear. Enough, and more than enough, is done to show that a strict +revision of the text is indispensible; and, if it should fall to the lot +of the present editor to undertake it, we trust that he will evince +somewhat more care than he manifests in the conclusion of the work +before us. It will scarcely be credited that Mr. Weber should travel +through such a volume as we have just passed, in quest of errata, and +find only one. "Vol. ii (he says), p. 321, line 12, for satiromastrix +read satiromastix!" + +We could be well content to rest here; but we have a more serious charge +to bring against the editor, than the omission of points, or the +misapprehension of words. He has polluted his pages with the blasphemies +of a poor maniac, who, it seems, once published some detached scenes of +the "Broken Heart." For this unfortunate creature, every feeling mind +will find an apology in his calamitous situation; but--for Mr. Weber, we +know not where the warmest of his friends will seek either palliation or +excuse. + + + +ON KEATS + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, April, 1818] + +Reviewers have sometimes been accused of not reading the works which +they affected to criticise. On the present occasion we shall anticipate +the author's complaint, and honestly confess that we have not read his +work. Not that we have been wanting in our duty--far from it--indeed, we +have made efforts almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to +be, to get through it; but with the fullest stretch of our perseverence, +we are forced to confess that we have not been able to struggle beyond +the first of the four books[1] of which this Poetic Romance consists. We +should extremely lament this want of energy, or whatever it may be, on +our parts, were it not for one consolation--namely, that we are no +better acquainted with the meaning of that book through which we have so +painfully toiled than we are with that of the three which we have not +looked into. + +[1] _Endymion: A Poetic Romance_. By John Keats. London, 1818. + +It is not that Mr. Keats (if that be his real name, for we almost doubt +that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a rhapsody) +it is not, we say, that the author has not powers of language, rays of +fancy, and gleams of genius--he has all these; but he is unhappily a +disciple of the new school of what has been somewhere called Cockney +poetry; which may be defined to consist of the most incongruous ideas in +the most uncouth language. + +Of this school Mr. Leigh Hunt, as we observed in a former number, +aspires to be the hierophant. Our readers will recollect the pleasant +recipes for harmonious and sublime poetry which he gave us in his +preface to _Rimini_, and the still more facetious instances of his +harmony and sublimity in the verses themselves; and they will recollect +above all the contempt of Pope, Johnson, and such like poetasters and +pseudo-critics, which so forcibly contrasted itself with Mr. Leigh +Hunt's approbation of + + --All the things itself had wrote, + Of special merit though of little note. + +The author is a copyist of Mr. Hunt, but he is more unintelligible, +almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten times more tiresome and +absurd than his prototype, who, though he impudently presumed to seat +himself in the chair of criticism, and to measure his own poetry by his +own standard, yet generally had a meaning. But Mr. Keats had advanced no +dogmas which he was bound to support by examples, his nonsense therefore +is quite gratuitous; he writes it for its own sake, and being bitten by +Mr. Leigh Hunt's insane criticism, more than rivals the insanity of his +poetry. + +Mr. Keats's preface hints that his poem was produced under peculiar +circumstances.... + + The two first books, and indeed the two last, are not of such + completion as to warrant their passing the press. p. vii. + +Thus, "the two first books" are, even in his own judgment, unfit to +appear, and "the two last" are, it seems, in the same condition--and as +two and two make four, and as that is the whole number of books, we have +a clear and, we believe, a very just estimate of the entire work. + +Mr. Keats, however, deprecates criticism on this "immature and feverish" +work in terms which are themselves sufficiently feverish; and we confess +that we should have abstained from inflicting upon him any of the +tortures of the "_fierce hell_" of criticism, which terrify his +imagination, if he had not begged to be spared in order that he might +write more; if we had not observed in him a certain degree of talent +which deserves to be put in the right way, or which, at least, ought to +be warned of the wrong; and if, finally, he had not told us that he is +of an age and temper which imperiously require mental discipline. + +Of the story we have been able to make out but little; it seems to be +mythological, and probably relates to the loves of Diana and Endymion; +but of this, as the scope of the work has altogether escaped us, we +cannot speak with any degree of certainty: and must therefore content +ourselves with giving some instances of its diction and versification.-- +And here again we are perplexed and puzzled.--At first it appeared to +us, that Mr. Keats had been amusing himself and wearying his readers +with an immeasurable game at _bouts rimés_; but, if we recollect +rightly, it is an indispensable condition at this play, that the rhymes +when filled up shall have a meaning; and our author, as we have already +hinted, has no meaning. He seems to us to write a line at random, and +then he follows not the thought excited by this line, but that suggested +by the _rhyme_ with which it concludes. There is hardly a complete +couplet inclosing a complete idea in the whole book. He wanders from one +subject to another, from the association, not of ideas, but of sounds, +and the work is composed of hemistichs which, it is quite evident, have +forced themselves upon the author by the mere force of the catchwords on +which they turn.... + + Be still the unimaginable lodge + For solitary thinkings; such as dodge + Conception to the very bourne of heaven, + Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven, + That spreading in this dull and clodded earth + Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth. p. 17. + +_Lodge, dodge--heaven, leaven--earth, birth_; such, in six words, is the +sum and substance of six lines. + +We come now to the author's taste in versification. He cannot indeed +write a sentence, but perhaps he may be able to spin a line. Let us see. +The following are specimens of his prosodial notions of our English +heroic metre. + + Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, + The passion poesy, glories infinite, p. 4. + + So plenteously all weed-hidden roots, p. 6. + +... By this time our readers must be pretty well satisfied as to the +meaning of his sentences and the structures of his lines: we now present +them with some of the new words with which, in imitation of Mr. Leigh +Hunt, he adorns our language. + +We are told that "turtles _passion_ their voices" (p. 15); that "an +arbour was _nested_" (p. 23); and a lady's locks "_gordian'd_" up (p. +32); and to supply the place of nouns thus verbalised Mr. Keats, with +great fecundity, spawns new ones; such as "men-slugs and human +_serpentry_" (p. 14); "_honey-feel_ of bliss" (p. 45); "wives prepare +_needments_" (p. 13)--and so forth. + +Then he has formed new verbs by the process of cutting off their tails, +the adverbs, and affixing them to their foreheads; thus "the wine +out-sparkled" (p. 10); the "multitude up-follow'd" (p. 11); and "night +up-took" (p. 29). "The wind up-blows" (p. 32); and the "hours are +down-sunken" (p. 36). + +But if he sinks some adverbs in the verbs he compensates the language +with adverbs and adjectives which he separates from the parent stock. +Thus, a lady "whispers _pantingly_ and close," makes "_hushing_ signs," +and steers her skiff into a "_ripply_ cove" (p. 23); a shower falls +"_refreshfully_" (p. 45); and a vulture has a "_spreaded_ tail" (p. 44). + +But enough of Mr. Leigh Hunt and his simple neophite.--If anyone should +be bold enough to purchase this "Poetic Romance," and so much more +patient than ourselves, as to get beyond the first book, and so much +more fortunate as to find a meaning, we entreat him to make us +acquainted with his success; we shall then return to the task which we +now abandon in despair, and endeavour to make all due amends to Mr. +Keats and to our readers. + + + + +CROKER ON SYDNEY SMITH + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, February, 1810] + +This sermon[1] is written on the characters and duties of the clergy. +Perhaps it would have produced more effect upon the Yorkshire divines +had it come from one who had lived longer among them, and of the +correspondence of whose life with his doctrines, they had better +opportunities of judging; one whom, from long experience, they knew to +be neither sullied by the little "affectations," nor "agitated by the +little vanities of the world," whose strict observance of "those +decencies and proprieties," which persons in their profession "owe to +their situation in society," they had remarked through a long course of +years. Whether the life of Mr. Smith would form an illustration of his +own precepts remains to be proved. But, if we rightly recollect dates, +he is still to his neighbours a sort of unknown person, and hardly yet +tried in his new situation of a parish priest. We therefore think, in +spite of all the apologies with which he has prefaced his advice, that a +more judicious topic might easily have been selected. + +[1] A sermon preached before His Grace the Archbishop of York, and the + clergy, at Malton, at the Visitation, Aug., 1809. By the Rev. Sydney + Smith, A.M., Rector of Foston, in Yorkshire, and late Fellow of New + College, Oxford. Carpenter, 1809. + +In the execution of this sermon there is little to commend. As a system +of duties for any body of clergy, it is wretchedly deficient:--and +really, when we call to mind the rich, the full, the vigorous, eloquent, +and impassioned manner in which these duties are recommended and +inforced in the writings of our old divines, we are mortified beyond +measure at the absolute poverty, crudeness, and meanness of the present +attempt to mimic them. As a composition, it is very imperfect: it has +nearly the same merits, and rather more than the same defects, which +characterise his former publications. Mr. Smith never writes but in a +loose declamatory way. He is careless of connection, and not very +anxious about argument. His sole object is to produce an effect at the +moment, a strong first impression upon an audience, and if that can be +done he is very indifferent as to what may be the result of examination +and reflection.... + +If Mr. Smith is not only not a Socinian, but if in his heart he doubts +as to the least important point of the most abstruce and controverted +subject on which our articles have decided, if, in short, he is not one +of the most rigorously orthodox divines that exists, he has been guilty +of the grossest and most disgusting hypocrisy--he has pronounced in the +face of the public to which he appeals, and of the church to which he +belongs, in the most solemn manner, and on the most solemn subject, a +direct, intentional, and scandalous falsehood--he has acted in a way +utterly subversive of all confidence among men; and the greater part of +the wretches who retire from a course of justice degraded for perjury +rank higher in the scale of morality, than an educated man holding a +respectable place in society, who could thus trifle with the most sacred +obligations. He could be induced to this base action only by a base +motive, that of obviating any difficulties which a suspicion of his +holding opinions different from those avowed by the establishment, might +throw in the way of his preferment: and of rendering himself a possible +object of the bounty of "his worthy masters and mistresses," whenever +the golden days arrive, in which they shall again dispense the favours +of the crown. Such must be the case, if Mr. Smith is not sincere. There +is no alternative. Now this is scarcely to be believed of any gentleman +of tolerably fair character, still less of a teacher of morality and +religion, who holds forth in all his writings the most refined +sentiments of honour and disinterestedness. + +The style of his profession of faith, however, partakes very much of the +most offensive peculiarities of his manner. It is abrupt and violent to +a degree which not only shocks good taste, but detracts considerably +from the appearance of sincerity. It seems as if he considered his creed +as a sort of nauseous medicine which could only be taken off at a +draught, and he looks round for applause at the heroic effort by which +he has drained the cup to its very dregs. + +But the passage about the verse in St. John is yet more extraordinary. +Has Mr. Smith really gone through the controversy upon this subject? And +even if he has, is this the light way in which a man wholly unknown in +the learned world, is entitled to contradict the opinion of some of the +greatest scholars of Europe? We have, however, the mere word of the +facetious rector of Foston, opposite to the authority and the arguments +of a Porson and a Griesbach. It is at his command, unsupported by the +smallest attempt at reasoning, that we are to set aside the opinion of +men whose lives have been spent in the study of the Greek language, and +of biblical criticism, and which has been acquiesced in by many of the +most competent judges both here and abroad. Such audacity (to call it by +no coarser name) is in itself only calculated to excite laughter and +contempt: coupled as it is with a most unprovoked and unwarrantable +mention of the name of the Bishop of Lincoln, it excites indignation. We +feel no morbid sensibility for the character of a mitred divine: but we +cannot see a blow aimed at the head of one of the chiefs of the church, +a pious, learned, and laborious man, by the hand of ignorance and +presumption, without interposing, not to heal the wound, for no wound +has been made, but to chastise the assailant. The Bishop of Lincoln +gives up these verses, not carelessly, and unadvisedly, but doubtless +because he is persuaded that the cause of true Religion can never be so +much injured as by resting its defence upon passages liable to so much +suspicion; and because he knows, that the doctrine of the Trinity by no +means depends upon that particular passage, but may be satisfactorily +deduced from various other expressions, and from the general tenor of +holy writ. Indeed, if we were not prevented from harbouring any such +suspicion by Mr. Smith's flaming profession of the _iotal_ accuracy of +his creed; and if we could doubt the orthodoxy of the divine, without +impugning the honesty of the man, we should be inclined to suspect that +his defence of the verses proceeded from a concealed enemy. We are not +unaware that the question cannot even yet be regarded as finally and +incontrovertibly settled, but we apprehend the truth to be that Mr. +Smith, not having read one syllable upon the subject, but having +accidentally heard that there was a disputed verse in St. John relative +to the doctrine of the Trinity, and that it had been given up by the +Bishop of Lincoln, thought he could not do better than by one dash of +the pen, to show his knowledge of controversy, and the orthodoxy of his +belief, at the expense of that prelate's character for discretion and +zeal.... + +The next note is mere political, an ebullition of party rage, in which +Mr. Smith abuses the present ministry with great bitterness, talks of +"wickedness," "weakness," "ignorance," "temerity," after the usual +fashion of opposition pamphlets, and clamours loudly against what, with +an obstinacy of misrepresentation hardly to be credited, he persists in +terming the "persecuting laws" against the Roman Catholics.... He is +very anxious that his political friends should not desist from urging +the question--an act of tergiversation and unconsistency which, he +thinks, would ruin them in the estimation of the public. Yet, if we +mistake not, these gentlemen, at least that portion of them with which +Mr. Smith (as we are told) is most closely connected, gave up, without a +blush, India, Reform, and Peace, all of which they taught us to believe +were vital questions in which the honour or the security of the country +was involved. But Catholic emancipation has some peculiar +recommendations. It is odious to the people, and painful to the King, +and therefore it cannot be delayed, without an utter sacrifice of +character.... + +Now we are by no means so eager on Mr. Smith in what he would term the +cause of _religious freedom_. We belong to that vulgar school of timid +churchmen, to whom the elevation of a vast body of sectaries to a level +with the establishment, is a matter of very grave consideration, if not +of alarm. We think that something is due to the prejudices (supposing +them to be no more than prejudices) of nine-tenths of the people of +England; and we are even so childish (for which we crave Mr. Smith's +pardon) as to pay some regard to the feelings of the King, in whose +personal mortification, we fairly own, we should not take the smallest +pleasure.... + +We now take leave of the sermon and its notes. But, before we conclude, +we are desirous ... to convey to Mr. Smith a little salutary advice ... +to remind him that unmeasured severity of invective against others, will +naturally produce, at the first favourable opportunity, a retort of +similar harshness upon himself; and that unless he feels himself +completely invulnerable, the conduct which he has hitherto pursued, is +not only uncharitable and violent, but foolish. He should be told that, +although he possesses some talents, they are by no means, as he +supposes, of the first order. He writes in a tone of superiority which +would hardly be justifiable at the close of a long and successful +literary career. His acquirements are very moderate, though he wants +neither boldness nor dexterity in displaying them to the best advantage; +and he is far, very far indeed, from being endowed with that powerful, +disciplined, and comprehensive mind, which should entitle him to decide +authoritatively and at once upon the most difficult parts of subjects so +far removed from one another as biblical criticism and legislation. His +style is rapid and lively, but hasty and inaccurate; and he either +despises or is incapable of regular and finished composition. + +Humour, indeed (we speak now generally, of all these performances which +have been ascribed to him by common consent), is his strong point; and +here he is often successful; but even from this praise many deductions +must be made. His jokes are broad and coarse; he is altogether a +mannerist, and never knows where to stop. The [Greek: _Paedenagan_] +seems quite unknown to him. His pleasantry does not proceed from keen +and well-supported irony; just, but unexpected comparisons; but depends, +for effect, chiefly upon strange polysyllabic epithets, and the endless +enumeration of minute circumstances. In this he, no doubt, displays +considerable ingenuity, and a strong sense of what is ludicrous; but his +good things are almost all prepared after one receipt. There is some +talent, but more trick, in their composition. The thing is well done, +but it is of a low order; we meet with nothing graceful, nothing +exquisite, nothing that pleases upon repetition and reflection. In +everything that Mr. Smith attempts, in all his "bravura" passages, +serious or comic, one is always shocked by some affectation or +absurdity; something in direct defiance of all those principles which +have been established by the authority of the best critics, and the +example of the best writers: indeed, bad taste seems to be Mr. Smith's +evil genius, both as to sentiment and expression. It is always hovering +near him, and, like one of the harpies, is sure to pounce down before +the end of the feast, and spoil the banquet, and disgust the guests. + +The present publication is by far the worst of all his performances, +avowed or imputed. Literary merit it has none; but in arrogance, +presumption, and absurdity, it far outdoes all his former outdoings. +Indeed, we regard it as one of the most deplorable mistakes that has +ever been committed by a man of supposed talents.... + + + + +ON MACAULAY + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, March, 1849] + +_The History of England from the Accession of James II_. +By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 2 vols. 8vo. 1849. + +The reading world will not need our testimony, though we willingly give +it, that Mr. Macaulay possesses great talents and extraordinary +acquirements. He unites powers and has achieved successes, not only +various, but different in their character, and seldom indeed conjoined +in one individual. He was while in Parliament, though not quite an +orator, and still less a debater, the most brilliant rhetorician of the +House. His Roman ballads (as we said in an article on their first +appearance) exhibit a novel idea worked out with a rare felicity, so as +to combine the spirit of the ancient minstrels with the regularity of +construction and sweetness of versification which modern taste requires; +and his critical Essays exhibit a wide variety of knowledge with a great +fertility of illustration, and enough of the salt of pleasantry and +sarcasm to flavour and in some degree disguise a somewhat declamatory +and pretentious dogmatism. It may seem too epigrammatic, but it is, in +our serious judgment, strictly true, to say that his History seems to be +a kind of combination and exaggeration of the peculiarities of all his +former efforts. It is as full of political prejudice and partisan +advocacy as any of his parliamentary speeches. It makes the facts of +English History as fabulous as his Lays do those of Roman tradition; and +it is written with as captious, as dogmatical, and as cynical a spirit +as the bitterest of his Reviews. That upon so serious an undertaking he +has lavished uncommon exertion, is not to be doubted; nor can any one +during the first reading escape the _entraînement_ of his picturesque, +vivid, and pregnant execution: but we have fairly stated the impression +left on ourselves by a more calm and leisurely perusal. We have been so +long the opponents of the political party to which Mr. Macaulay belongs +that we welcomed the prospect of again meeting him on the neutral ground +of literature. We are of that class of Tories--Protestant Tories, as +they were called--that have no sympathy with the Jacobites. We are as +strongly convinced as Mr. Macaulay can be of the necessity of the +Revolution of 1688--of the general prudence and expediency of the steps +taken by our Whig and Tory ancestors of the Convention Parliament, and +of the happiness, for a century and a half, of the constitutional +results. We were, therefore, not without hope that at least in these two +volumes, almost entirely occupied with the progress and accomplishment +of that Revolution, we might without any sacrifice of our political +feelings enjoy unalloyed the pleasures reasonably to be expected from +Mr. Macaulay's high powers both of research and illustration. That hope +has been deceived: Mr. Macaulay's historical narrative is poisoned with +a rancour more violent than even the passions of the time; and the +literary qualities of the work, though in some respects very remarkable, +are far from redeeming its substantial defects. There is hardly a page-- +we speak literally, hardly a page--that does not contain something +objectionable either in substance or in colour: and the whole of the +brilliant and at first captivating narrative is perceived on examination +to be impregnated to a really marvellous degree with bad taste, bad +feeling, and, we are under the painful necessity of adding--bad faith. + +These are grave charges: but we make them in sincerity, and we think +that we shall be able to prove them; and if, here or hereafter, we +should seem to our readers to use harsher terms than good taste might +approve, we beg in excuse to plead that it is impossible to fix one's +attention on, and to transcribe large portions of a work, without being +in some degree infected with its spirit; and Mr. Macaulay's pages, +whatever may be their other characteristics, are as copious a +repertorium of vituperative eloquence as, we believe, our language can +produce, and especially against everything in which he chooses (whether +right or wrong) to recognise the shibboleth of Toryism. We shall +endeavour, however, in the expression of our opinions, to remember the +respect we owe to our readers and to Mr. Macaulay's general character +and standing in the world of letters, rather than the provocations and +examples of the volumes immediately before us. + +Mr. Macaulay announces his intention of bringing down the history of +England almost to our own times; but these two volumes are complete in +themselves, and we may fairly consider them as a history of the +Revolution; and in that light the first question that presents itself to +us is why Mr. Macaulay has been induced to re-write what had already +been so often and even so recently written--among others, by Dalrymple, +a strenuous but honest Whig, and by Mr. Macaulay's own oracles, Fox and +Mackintosh? It may be answered that both Fox and Mackintosh left their +works imperfect. Fox got no farther than Monmouth's death; but +Mackintosh came down to the Orange invasion, and covered full nine-tenths +of the period as yet occupied by Mr. Macaulay. Why then did Mr. +Macaulay not content himself with beginning where Mackintosh left off-- +that is, with the Revolution? and it would have been the more natural, +because, as our readers know, it is there that Hume's history +terminates. + +What reason does he give for this work of supererogation? None. He does +not (as we shall see more fully by and by) take the slightest notice of +Mackintosh's history, no more than if it had never existed. Has he +produced a new fact? Not one. Has he discovered any new materials? None, +as far as we can judge, but the collections of Fox and Mackintosh, +confided to him by their families.[1] It seems to us a novelty in +literary practice that a writer raised far by fame and fortune above the +vulgar temptations of the craft should undertake to tell a story already +frequently and recently told by masters of the highest authority and +most extensive information, without having, or even professing to have, +any additional means or special motive to account for the attempt. + +[1] It appears from two notes of acknowledgments to M. Guizot and the + keepers of the archives at The Hague, that Mr. Macaulay obtained + some additions to the copies which Mackintosh already had of the + letters of Ronquillo the Spanish and Citters the Dutch minister at + the court of James. We may conjecture that these additions were + insignificant, since Mr. Macaulay has nowhere, that we have + observed, specially noticed them; but except these, whatever they + may be, we find no trace of anything that Fox and Mackintosh had not + already examined and classed. + +We suspect, however, that we can trace Mr. Macaulay's design to its true +source--the example and success of the author of Waverley. The +historical novel, if not invented, at least first developed and +illustrated by the happy genius of Scott, took a sudden and extensive +hold of the public taste; he himself, in most of his subsequent novels, +availed himself largely of the historical element which had contributed +so much to the popularity of Waverley. The press has since that time +groaned with his imitators. We have had historical novels of all classes +and grades. We have had served up in this form the Norman Conquest and +the Wars of the Roses, the Gunpowder Plot and the Fire of London, +Darnley and Richelieu--and almost at the same moment with Mr. Macaulay's +appeared a professed romance of Mr. Ainsworth's on the same subject-- +James II. Nay, on a novelist of this popular order has been conferred +the office of _Historiographer_ to the Queen. + +Mr. Macaulay, too mature not to have well measured his own peculiar +capacities, not rich in invention but ingenious in application, saw the +use that might be made of this principle, and that history itself would +be much more popular with a large embroidery of personal, social, and +even topographical anecdote and illustration, instead of the sober garb +in which we had been in the habit of seeing it. Few histories indeed +ever were or could be written without some admixture of this sort. The +father of the art himself, old Herodotus, vivified his text with a +greater share of what we may call personal anecdote than any of his +classical followers. Modern historians, as they happened to have more or +less of what we may call _artistic_ feeling, admitted more or less of +this decoration into their text, but always with an eye (which Mr. +Macaulay never exercises) to the appropriateness and value of the +illustration. Generally, however, such matters have been thrown into +notes, or, in a few instances--as by Dr. Henry and in Mr. Knight's +interesting and instructive "Pictorial History"--into separate chapters. +The large class of memoir-writers may also be fairly considered as +anecdotical historians--and they are in fact the sources from which the +novelists of the new school extract their principal characters and main +incidents. + +Mr. Macaulay deals with history, evidently, as we think, in imitation of +the novelists--his first object being always picturesque effect--his +constant endeavour to give from all the repositories of gossip that have +reached us a kind of circumstantial reality to his incidents, and a sort +of dramatic life to his personages. For this purpose he would not be +very solicitous about contributing any substantial addition to history, +strictly so called; on the contrary, indeed, he seems to have willingly +taken it as he found it, adding to it such lace and trimmings as he +could collect from the Monmouth-street of literature, seldom it may be +safely presumed of very delicate quality. It is, as Johnson drolly said, +"an old coat with a new facing--the old dog in a new doublet." The +conception was bold, and--so far as availing himself, like other +novelists, of the fashion of the day to produce a popular and profitable +effect--the experiment has been eminently successful. + +But besides the obvious incentives just noticed, Mr. Macaulay had also +the stimulus of what we may compendiously call a strong party spirit. +One would have thought that the Whigs might have been satisfied with +their share in the historical library of the Revolution:--besides Rapin, +Echard, and Jones, who, though of moderate politics in general, were +stout friends to the Revolution, they have had of professed and zealous +Whigs, Burnet, the foundation of all, Kennett, Oldmixon, Dalrymple, +Laing, Brodie, Fox, and finally Mackintosh and his continuator, besides +innumerable writers of less note, who naturally adopted the successful +side; and we should not have supposed that the reader of any of those +historians, and particularly the later ones, could complain that they +had been too sparing of imputation, or even vituperation, to the +opposite party. But not so Mr. Macaulay. The most distinctive feature on +the face of his pages is personal virulence--if he has at all succeeded +in throwing an air of fresh life into his characters, it is mainly due, +as any impartial and collected reader will soon discover, to the simple +circumstance of his hating the individuals of the opposite party as +bitterly, as passionately, as if they were his own personal enemies-- +more so, indeed, we hope than he would a mere political antagonist of +his own day. When some one suggested to the angry O'Neil that one of the +Anglo-Irish families whom he was reviling as strangers had been four +hundred years settled in Ireland, the Milesian replied, "_I hate the +churls as if they had come but yesterday_." Mr. Macaulay seems largely +endowed with this (as with a more enviable) species of memory, and he +hates, for example, King Charles I as if he had been murdered only +yesterday. Let us not be understood as wishing to abridge an historian's +full liberty of censure--but he should not be a satirist, still less a +libeller. We do not say nor think that Mr. Macaulay's censures were +always unmerited--far from it--but they are always, we think without +exception, immoderate. Nay, it would scarcely be too much to say that +this massacre of character is the point on which Mr. Macaulay must +chiefly rest any claims he can advance to the praise of impartiality, +for while he paints everything that looks like a Tory in the blackest +colours, he does not altogether spare any of the Whigs against whom he +takes a spite, though he always visits them with a gentler correction. +In fact, except Oliver Cromwell, King William, a few gentlemen who had +the misfortune to be executed or exiled for high treason, and every +dissenting minister that he has or can find occasion to notice, there +are hardly any persons mentioned who are not stigmatized as knaves or +fools, differing only in degrees of "turpitude" and "imbecility". Mr. +Macaulay has almost realized the work that Alexander Chalmers's playful +imagination had fancied, a _Biographia Flagitiosa_, or _The Lives of +Eminent Scoundrels_. This is also an imitation of the Historical Novel, +though rather in the track of Eugene Aram and Jack Sheppard than of +Waverley or Woodstock; but what would you have? To attain the +picturesque--the chief object of our artist--he adopts the ready process +of dark colours and a rough brush. Nature, even at the worst, is never +gloomy enough for a Spagnoletto, and Judge Jeffries himself, for the +first time, excites a kind of pity when we find him (like one to whom he +was nearly akin) not so black as he is painted. + +From this first general view of Mr. Macaulay's Historical Novel, we now +proceed to exhibit in detail some grounds for the opinion which we have +ventured to express. + +We premise that we are about to enter into details, because there is in +fact little to question or debate about but details. We have already +hinted that there is absolutely no new fact of any consequence, and, we +think we can safely add, hardly a new view of any historical fact, in +the whole book. Whatever there may remain questionable or debatable in +the history of the period, we should have to argue with Burnet, +Dalrymple, or Mackintosh, and not with Mr. Macaulay. It would, we know, +have a grander air if we were to make his book the occasion of +disquisitions on the rise and progress of the constitution--on the +causes by which the monarchy of the Tudors passed, through the murder of +Charles, to the despotism of Cromwell--how again that produced a +restoration which settled none of the great moral or political questions +which had generated all those agitations, and which, in return, those +agitations had complicated and inflamed--and how, at last, the +undefined, discordant, and antagonistic pretensions of the royal and +democratical elements were reconciled by the Revolution and the Bill of +Rights--and finally, whether with too much or too little violence to the +principles of the ancient constitution--all these topics, we say, would, +if we were so inclined, supply us, as they have supplied Mr. Macaulay, +with abundant opportunities of grave tautology and commonplace; but we +decline to raise sham debates on points where there is no contest. We +can have little historic difference, properly so called, with one who +has no historical difference on the main facts with anybody else: +instead, then, of pretending to treat any great questions, either of +constitutional learning or political philosophy, we shall confine +ourselves to the humbler but more practical and more useful task above +stated. + +Our first complaint is of a comparatively small and almost mechanical, +and yet very real, defect--the paucity and irregularity of his dates, +and the mode in which the few that he does give are overlaid, as it +were, by the text. This, though it may be very convenient to the writer, +and quite indifferent to the reader, of an historical romance, is +perplexing to any one who might wish to read and weigh the book as a +serious history, of which dates are the guides and landmarks; and when +they are visibly neglected we cannot but suspect that the historian will +be found not very solicitous about strict accuracy. This negligence is +carried to such an extent that, in what looks like a very copious table +of contents, one of the most important events of the whole history-- +that, indeed, on which the Revolution finally turned--the marriage of +Princess Mary to the Prince of Orange, is not noticed; nor is any date +affixed to the very cursory mention of it in the text. It is rather hard +to force the reader who buys this last new model history, in general so +profuse of details, to recur to one of the old-fashioned ones to +discover that this important event happened in the year 1675, and on the +4th of November--a day thrice over remarkable in William's history--for +his birth, his marriage, and his arrival with his invading army on the +coast of Devon. + +Our second complaint is of one of the least important, perhaps, but most +prominent defects of Mr. Macaulay's book--his Style--not merely the +choice and order of words, commonly called style, but the turn of mind +which prompts the choice of expressions as well as of topics. We need +not repeat that Mr. Macaulay has a great facility of language, a +prodigal _copia verborum_--that he narrates rapidly and clearly--that he +paints very forcibly,--and that his readers throughout the tale are +carried on, or away, by something of the sorcery which a brilliant +orator exercises over his auditory. But he has also in a great degree +the faults of the oratorical style. He deals much too largely in +epithets--a habit exceedingly dangerous to historical truth. He +habitually constructs a piece of what should be calm, dispassionate +narrative, upon the model of the most passionate peroration--adhering in +numberless instances to precisely the same specific formula of artifice. +His diction is often inflated into fustian, and he indulges in +exaggeration till it sometimes, unconsciously no doubt, amounts to +falsehood. It is a common fault of those who strive at producing +oratorical effects, to oscillate between commonplace and extravagance; +and while studying Mr. Macaulay, one feels as if vibrating between facts +that every one knows and consequences which nobody can believe. We are +satisfied that whoever will take, as we have been obliged to do, the +pains of sifting what Mr. Macaulay has produced from his own mind with +what he has borrowed from others, will be entirely of our opinion. In +truth, when, after reading a page or two of this book, we have occasion +to turn to the same transaction in Burnet, Dalrymple, or Hume, we feel +as if we were exchanging the glittering agility of a rope-dancer for +gentlemen in the attire and attitude of society. And we must say that +there is not one of those writers that does not give a clearer and more +trustworthy account of all that is really historical in the period than +can be collected from Mr. Macaulay's more decorated pages. We invite our +readers to try Mr. Macaulay's merits as an historian by the test of +comparison with his predecessors. + + * * * * * + +Every great painter is supposed to make a larger use of one particular +colour. What a monstrous bladderful of _infamy_ Mr. Macaulay must have +squeezed on his palette when he took to portrait-painting! We have no +concern, except as friends to historical justice, for the characters of +any of the parties thus stigmatized, nor have we room or time to discuss +these, or the hundred other somewhat similar cases which the volumes +present; but we have looked at the authorities cited by Mr. Macaulay, +and we do not hesitate to say that, "as is his wont," he has, with the +exception of Jeffries, outrageously exaggerated them. + +We must next notice the way in which Mr. Macaulay refers to and uses his +authorities--no trivial points in the execution of a historical work-- +though we shall begin with comparatively small matters. In his chapter +on manners, which we may call the most remarkable in his book, one of +his most frequent references is to "Chamberlayne's State of England, +1684." It is referred to at least a dozen or fourteen times in that +chapter alone; but we really have some doubt whether Mr. Macaulay knew +the nature of the book he so frequently quoted. Chamberlayne's work, of +which the real title is "_Angliae_ [or, after the Scotch Union, _Magnae +Britanniae_] _Notitia, or the Present State of England_" [or _Great +Britain_], was a kind of periodical publication, half history and half +court-calendar. It was first published in 1669, and new editions or +reprints, with new dates, were issued, not annually, we believe, but so +frequently that there are between thirty and forty of them in the +Museum, ending with 1755. From the way and for the purposes for which +Mr. Macaulay quotes Chamberlayne, we should almost suspect that he had +lighted on the volume for 1684, and, knowing of no other, considered it +as a substantive work published in that year. _Once_ indeed he cites the +date of 1686, but there was, it seems, no edition of that year, and this +may be an accidental error; but however that may be, our readers will +smile when they hear that the two first and several following passages +which Mr. Macaulay cites from Chamberlayne (i. 290 and 291), as +_characteristic_ of the _days of Charles II_, distinctively from more +modern times, are to be found _literatim_ in every succeeding +"Chamberlayne" down to 1755--the last we have seen--were thus +continually reproduced because the proprietors and editors of the table +book knew they were _not_ particularly characteristical of one year or +reign more than another--and now, in 1849, might be as well quoted as +characteristics of the reign of George II as of Charles II. We must add +that there are references to Chamberlayne and to several weightier books +(some of which we shall notice more particularly hereafter), as +justifying assertions for which, on examining the said books with our +best diligence, we have not been able to find a shadow of authority. + +Our readers know that there was a Dr. John Eachard who wrote a +celebrated work on the "Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the +Clergy." They also know that there was a Dr. Lawrence Echard who wrote +both a History of England, and a History of the Revolution. Both of +these were remarkable men; but we almost doubt whether Mr. Macaulay, who +quotes the works of each, does not confound their persons, for he refers +to them both by the common (as it may once have been) name of _Each_ard, +and at least twenty times by the wrong name. This, we admit, is a small +matter; but what will some Edinburgh Reviewer (_temp_. Albert V) say if +he finds a writer confounding _Catherine_ and _Thomas_ Macaulay as "the +celebrated author of the great Whig History of England"--a confusion +hardly worse than that of the two Eachards--for Catherine, though now +forgotten by an ungrateful public, made quite as much noise in her day +as Thomas does in ours. + +But we are sorry to say we have a heavier complaint against Mr. +Macaulay. We accuse him of a habitual and really injurious perversion of +his authorities. This unfortunate indulgence, in whatever juvenile +levity it may have originated, and through whatever steps it may have +grown into an unconscious habit, seems to us to pervade the whole work-- +from Alpha to Omega--from Procopius to Mackintosh--and it is on that +very account the more difficult to bring to the distinct conception of +our readers. Individual instances can be, and shall be, produced; but +how can we extract and exhibit the minute particles that colour every +thread of the texture?--how extract the impalpable atoms that have +fermented the whole brewing? We must do as Dr. Faraday does at the +Institution when he exhibits in miniature the larger processes of +Nature. We will suppose, then--taking a simple phrase as the fairest for +the experiment--that Mr. Macaulay found Barillon saying in French, "_le +drôle m'a fait peur_," or Burnet saying in English, "_the fellow +frightened me_." We should be pretty sure not to find the same words in +Mr. Macaulay. He would pause--he would first consider whether "the +fellow" spoken of was a _Whig_ or a _Tory_. If a Whig, the thing would +be treated as a joke, and Mr. Macaulay would transmute it playfully into +"_the rogue startled me_"; but if a _Tory_, it would take a deeper dye, +and we should find "_the villain assaulted me_"; and in either case we +should have a grave reference to + + Jan. 31, +"Barillon,-------- 1686"; or, "Burnet, i. 907." + Feb. 1, + +If our reader will keep this formula in his mind, he will find it a fair +exponent of Mr. Macaulay's _modus operandi_.... + +We shall now proceed to more general topics. We decline, as we set out +by saying, to treat this "New Atalantis" as a serious history, and +therefore we shall not trouble our readers with matters of such remote +interest as the errors and anachronisms with which the chapter that +affects to tell our earlier history abounds. Our readers would take no +great interest in a discussion whether Hengist was as fabulous as +Hercules, Alaric a Christian born, and "the fair chapels of New College +and St. George" at Windsor of the same date. But there is one subject in +that chapter on which we cannot refrain from saying a few words--THE +CHURCH. + +We decline to draw any inferences from this work as to Mr. Macaulay's +own religious opinions; but it is our duty to say--and we trust we may +do so without offence--that Mr. Macaulay's mode of dealing with the +general principle of Church government, and the doctrine, discipline, +and influence of the Church of England, cannot fail to give serious +pain, and sometimes to excite a stronger feeling than pain, in the mind +of every friend to that Church, whether in its spiritual or corporate +character. + +He starts with a notion that the fittest engine to redeem England from +the mischiefs and mistakes of oligarchical feudalism was to be found in +the imposing machinery and deception of the Roman Church; overlooking +the great truth that it was not the Romish Church, but the genius of +Christianity, working its vast but silent change, which was really +guiding on the chariot of civilization; but in this broad principle +there was not enough of the picturesqueness of detail to captivate his +mind. It would not suit him to distinguish between the Church of Christ +and the web of corruptions that had grown about her, but could not +effectually arrest the benignant influence inherent in her mainspring. +He therefore leads his readers to infer that Christianity came first to +Britain with St. Austin, and for aught that Mr. Macaulay condescends to +inform us, the existence of a prior Anglo-Saxon Church was a monkish +fiction. The many unhappy circumstances of the position taken up by the +Romish Church in its struggles for power--some of them unavoidable, it +may be, if such a battle were to be fought--are actually displayed as so +many blessings, attainable only by a system which the historian himself +condemns elsewhere as baneful and untrue. He maintains these strange +paradoxes and contradictions with a pertinacity quite surprising. He +doubts whether a true form of Christianity would have answered the +purposes of liberty and civilization half so well as the acknowledged +duplicities of the Church of Rome. + + It may perhaps be doubted whether a purer religion might not have been + found a less efficient agent.--i. 23. + + There is a point in the life both of an individual and a society at + which submission and faith, such as at a later period would be justly + called servility and credulity, are useful qualities.--i. 47. + +These are specimens of the often exposed fallacies in which he delights +to indulge. Place right and wrong in a state of uncertainty by reflected +lights, and you may fill up your picture as you like. And such for ever +is Mr. Macaulay's principle of art. It is not the elimination of error +that he seeks for, but an artistic balance of conflicting forces. And +this he pursues throughout: deposing the dignity of the historian for +the clever antithesis of the pamphleteer. At last, on this great and +important point of religious history--a point which more than any other +influences every epoch of English progress, he arrives at this pregnant +and illustrative conclusion-- + + It is difficult to say whether England owes more to the Roman Catholic + religion or to the Reformation.--i. 49. + +England owes nothing to "the Roman Catholic religion." She owes +everything to CHRISTIANITY, which Romanism injured and hampered but +could not destroy, and which the Reformation freed at least from the +worst of those impure and impeding excrescences. + +With regard to his treatment of the Reformation, and especially of the +Church of England, it is very difficult to give our readers an adequate +idea. Throughout a system of depreciation--we had almost said insult--is +carried on: sneers, sarcasms, injurious comparisons, sly +misrepresentations, are all adroitly mingled throughout the narrative, +so as to produce an unfavourable impression, which the author has not +the frankness to attempt directly. Even when obliged to approach the +subject openly, it is curious to observe how, under a slight veil of +impartiality, imputations are raised and calumnies accredited. For +instance, early in the first volume he gives us his view of the English +Reformation, as a kind of middle term, emerging out of the antagonist +struggles of the Catholics and Calvinists: and it is impossible not to +see that, between the three parties, he awards to the Catholics the +merit of unity and consistency; to the Calvinists, of reason and +independence; to the Anglicans, the lowest motives of expediency and +compromise. To enforce this last topic he relies on the inconsistencies, +some real and some imaginary, imputed to Cranmer, whose notions of +worldly expedience he chooses to represent as the source of the Anglican +Church.... + +Every one of the circumstances on which we may presume that Mr. Macaulay +would rely as justifying these charges has been long since, to more +candid judgments, either disproved, explained, or excused, and in truth +whatever blame can be justly attributed to any of them, belongs mainly, +if not exclusively, to those whose violence and injustice drove a +naturally upright and most conscientious man into the shifts and +stratagems of self-defence. With the greatest fault and the only crime +that Charles in his whole life committed Mr. Macaulay does not reproach +him--the consent to the execution of Lord Strafford--that indeed, as he +himself penitentially confessed, was a deadly weight on his conscience, +and is an indelible stain on his character; but even that guilt and +shame belongs in a still greater degree to Mr. Macaulay's patriot +heroes. + +This leads us to the conclusive plea which we enter to Mr. Macaulay's +indictment, namely--that all those acts alleged as the excuses of +rebellion and regicide occurred after the rebellion had broken out, and +were at worst only devices of the unhappy King to escape from the +regicide which he early foresaw. It was really the old story of the wolf +and the lamb. It was far down the stream of rebellion that these acts of +supposed perfidy on the part of Charles could be said to have troubled +it. + +But while he thus deals with the lamb, let us see how he treats the +wolf. We have neither space nor taste for groping through the long and +dark labyrinth of Cromwell's proverbial duplicity and audacious +apostacy: we shall content ourselves with two facts, which, though +stated in the gentlest way by Mr. Macaulay, will abundantly justify the +opinion which all mankind, except a few republican zealots, hold of that +man's sincerity, of whose abilities, wonderful as they were, the most +remarkable, and perhaps the most serviceable to his fortunes, was his +hypocrisy; so much so, that South--a most acute observer of mankind, and +who had been educated under the Commonwealth and Protectorate--in his +sermon on "Worldly Wisdom," adduces Cromwell as an instance of "habitual +dissimulation and imposture." Oliver, Mr. Macaulay tells us, modelled +his army on the principle of composing it of men fearing God, and +zealous for _public liberty_, and in the very next page he is forced to +confess that + + thirteen years followed in which for the first and the last time the + civil power of our country was subjected to military dictation.--i. + 120. + +Again, + + Oliver had made his choice. He had kept the hearts of his soldiers, + but he had _broken_ with every other class of his fellow citizens.--i. + 129. + +That is, he had broken through all the promises, pledges, and specious +pretences by which he had deceived and enslaved the nation, which Mr. +Macaulay calls with such opportune _naïveté, his fellow citizens_! Then +follows, not a censure of this faithless usurpation, but many laboured +apologies, and even defences of it, and a long series of laudatory +epithets, some of which are worth collecting as a rare contrast to Mr. +Macaulay's usual style, and particularly to the abuse of Charles, which +we have just exhibited. + + His _genius and resolution_ made him more _absolute master of his + country_ than any of her legitimate Kings had been.--i. 129. + +He having cut off the legitimate King's head on a pretence that Charles +had wished to make himself _absolutely master of the country_. + + Everything yielded to the _vigour and ability_ of Cromwell.--i. 130. + + The Government, though in the form of a Republic, was in truth a + despotism, moderated only by the _wisdom, the sober-mindedness, and + the magnanimity_ of the despot.--i. 137. + +With a vast deal more of the same tone. + +But Mr. Macaulay particularly expatiates on the influence that Cromwell +exercised over foreign states: and there is hardly any topic to which he +recurs with more pleasure, or, as we think, with less sagacity, than the +terror with which Cromwell and the contempt with which the Stuarts +inspired the nations of Europe. He somewhat exaggerates the extent of +this feeling, and greatly misstates or mistakes the cause; and as this +subject is in the present state of the world of more importance than any +others in the work, we hope we may be excused for some observations +tending to a sounder opinion on that subject. + +It was not, as Mr. Macaulay everywhere insists, the personal abilities +and genius of Cromwell that exclusively, or even in the first degree, +carried his foreign influence higher than that of the Stuarts. The +internal struggles that distracted and consumed the strength of these +islands throughout their reigns necessarily rendered us little +formidable to our neighbours; and it is with no good grace that a Whig +historian stigmatises that result as shameful; for, without discussing +whether it was justifiable or not, the fact is certain, that it was +opposition of the Whigs--often in rebellion and always in faction +against the Government--which disturbed all progress at home and +paralysed every effort abroad. We are not, we say, now discussing +whether that opposition was not justifiable and may not have been +ultimately advantageous in several constitutional points; we think it +decidedly was: but at present all we mean to do is to show that it had a +great share in producing on our foreign influence the lowering effects +of which Mr. Macaulay complains. + +And there is still another consideration which escapes Mr. Macaulay in +his estimate of such usurpers as Cromwell and Buonaparte. A usurper is +always more terrible both at home and abroad than a legitimate +sovereign: first, the usurper is likely to be (and in these two cases +was) a man of superior genius and military glory, wielding the +irresistible power of the sword; but there is still stronger contrast-- +legitimate Governments are bound--at home by laws--abroad by treaties, +family ties, and international interests; they acknowledge the law of +nations, and are limited, even in hostilities, by many restraints and +bounds. The despotic usurpers had no fetters of either sort--they had no +opposition at home, and no scruples abroad. Law, treaties, rights, and +the like, had been already broken through like cobwebs, and kings +naturally humbled themselves before a vigour that had dethroned and +murdered kings, and foreign nations trembled at a power that had subdued +in their own fields and cities the pride of England and the gallantry of +France! To contrast Cromwell and Charles II, Napoleon and Louis XVIII, +is sheer nonsense and mere verbiage--it is as if one should compare the +house-dog and the wolf, and argue that the terror inspired by the latter +was very much to his honour. All this is such a mystery to Mr. Macaulay +that he wanders into two theories so whimsical, that we hesitate between +passing them by as absurdities, or producing them for amusement; we +adopt the latter. One is that Cromwell could have no interest and +therefore no personal share in the death of Charles. "Whatever Cromwell +was," says Mr. Macaulay, "he was no fool; and he must have known that +Charles I was obviously a less difficulty in his way than Charles II." +Cromwell, we retain the phrase, "was no fool," and he thought and +_found_ that Charles II, was, as far as he was concerned, no difficulty +at all. The real truth was, that the revolutionary party in England in +1648, like that in France in 1792, was but a rope of sand which nothing +could cement and consolidate but the _blood of the Kings--that_ was a +common crime and a common and indissoluble tie which gave all their +consistency and force to both revolutions--a stroke of original sagacity +in Cromwell and of imitative dexterity in Robespierre. If Mr. Macaulay +admits, as he subsequently does (i. 129), that the regicide was "a +sacrament of blood," by which the party became irrevocably bound to each +other and separated from the rest of the nation, how can he pretend that +Cromwell derived no advantage from it? In fact, his admiration--we had +almost said fanaticism--for Cromwell betrays him throughout into the +blindest inconsistencies. + +The second vision of Mr. Macaulay is, if possible, still more absurd. He +imagines a Cromwell dynasty! If it had not been for Monk and his army, +the rest of the nation would have been loyal to the son of the +illustrious Oliver. + + Had the Protector and the Parliament been suffered to proceed + undisturbed, there can be little doubt that an order of things similar + to that which was afterwards established under the House of Hanover, + would have been established under the house of Cromwell.--i. 142. + +And yet in a page or two Mr. Macaulay is found making an admission-- +made, indeed, with the object of disparaging Monk and the royalists--but +which gives to his theory of a Cromwellian dynasty the most conclusive +refutation. + + It was probably not till Monk had been some days in the capital that + he made up his mind. The cry of the whole people was for a free + parliament; and there could _be no doubt that a parliament really free + would instantly restore the exiled family_.--i. 147. + +All this hypothesis of a Cromwellian dynasty _looks_ like sheer +nonsense; but we have no doubt it has a meaning, and we request our +readers not to be diverted by the almost ludicrous partiality and +absurdity of Mr. Macaulay's speculations from an appreciation of the +deep hostility to the monarchy from which they arise. They are like +bubbles on the surface of a dark pool, which indicate there is something +rotten below. + +We should if we had time have many other complaints to make of the +details of this chapter, which are deeply coloured with all Mr. +Macaulay's prejudices and passions. He is, we may almost say of course, +violent and unjust against Strafford and Clarendon; and the most +prominent touch of candour that we can find in this period of his +history is, that he slurs over the murder of Laud in an abscure +half-line (i. 119) as if he were--as we hope he really is--ashamed of +it. + +We now arrive at what we have heard called the celebrated third chapter +--celebrated it deserves to be, and we hope our humble observations may +add something to its celebrity. There is no feature of Mr. Macaulay's +book on which, we believe, he more prides himself, and which has been in +truth more popular with his readers, than the descriptions which he +introduces of the residences, habits, and manners of our ancestors. They +are, provided you do not look below the surface, as entertaining as +Pepys or Pennant, or any of the many scrap-book histories which have +been recently fabricated from those old materials; but when we come to +examine them, we find that in these cases, as everywhere else, Mr. +Macaulay's propensity to caricature and exaggerate leads him not merely +to disfigure circumstances, but totally to forget the principle on which +such episodes are admissible into regular history--namely, the +illustration of the story. They should be, as it were, woven into the +narrative, and not, as Mr. Macaulay generally treats them, stitched on +like patches. This latter observation does not of course apply to the +collecting a body of miscellaneous facts into a separate chapter, as +Hume and others have done; but Mr. Macaulay's chapter, besides, as we +shall show, the prevailing inaccuracy of its details, has one general +and essential defect specially its own. + +The moment Mr. Macaulay has selected for suspending his narrative to +take a view of the surface and society of England is the death of +Charles II. Now we think no worse point of time could have been chosen +for tracing the obscure but very certain connection between political +events and the manners of a people. The restoration, for instance, was +an era in manners as well as in politics--so was in a fainter degree the +Revolution--either, or both, of those periods would have afforded a +natural position for contemplating a going and a coming order of things; +but we believe that there are no two periods in our annals which were so +identical in morals and politics--so undistinguishable, in short, in any +national view--as the latter years of Charles and the earlier years of +James. Here then is an objection _in limine_ to this famous chapter--and +not _in limine_ only, but in substance; for in fact the period he has +chosen would not have furnished out the chapter, four-fifths of which +belong to a date later than that which he professes to treat of. In +short, the chapter is like an old curiosity-shop, into which--no matter +whether it happens to stand in Charles Street, William Street, or George +Street--the knick-knacks of a couple of centuries are promiscuously +jumbled. What does it signify, in a history of the reign of Charles II, +that a writer, "_sixty years after the Revolution_" (i. 347), says that +in the lodging-houses at Bath "the hearth-slabs" were "freestone, not +marble"--that "the best apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, +and furnished with rush-bottomed chairs"?--nay, that he should have the +personal good taste to lament that in those Boeotian days "_not a +wainscot was painted_" (348); and yet this twaddle of the reign of +George II, patched into the times of Charles II, is the appropriate +occasion which he takes to panegyrise this new mode of elucidating +history?--... + +It is a curious and, to persons of our opinions, not unsatisfactory +circumstance, that, though Mr. Macaulay almost invariably applies the +term _Tory_ in an opprobrious or contemptuous sense, yet so great is the +power of truth in surmounting the fantastical forms and colours laid +over it by this brilliant _badigeonneur_, that on the whole no one, we +believe, can rise from the work without a conviction that the Tories +(whatever may be said of their prejudices) were the honestest and most +conscientious of the whole _dramatis personae_; and it is this fact that +in several instances and circumstances imprints, as it were by force, +upon Mr. Macaulay's pages an air of impartiality and candour very +discordant from their general spirit. + +We are now arrived at the fourth chapter--really the first, strictly +speaking, of Mr. Macaulay's history--the accession of James II, where +also Sir James Mackintosh's history commences. And here we have to open +to our readers the most extraordinary instance of _parallelism_ between +two writers, unacknowledged by the later one, which we have ever seen. +Sir James Mackintosh left behind him a history of the Revolution, which +was published in 1834, three years after his death, in quarto: it comes +down to the Orange invasion, and, though it apparently had not received +the author's last corrections, and was clumsily edited, and tagged with +a continuation by a less able hand, the work is altogether (bating not a +little ultra-Whiggery) very creditable to Mackintosh's diligence, taste, +and power of writing; it is indeed, we think, his best and most +important work, and that by which he will be most favourably known to +posterity. From that work Mr. Macaulay has borrowed largely--prodigally-- +helped himself with both hands--not merely without acknowledging his +obligation, but without so much as alluding to the existence of any such +work. Nay--though this we are sure was never designed--he inserts a note +full of kindness and respect to Sir James Mackintosh, which would +naturally lead an uninformed reader to conclude that Sir James +Mackintosh, though he had _meditated_ such a work, had never even begun +writing it. On the 391st page of Mr. Macaulay's first volume, at the +mention of the old news-letters which preceded our modern newspapers, +Mr. Macaulay says, that "they form a valuable part of the literary +treasures collected by the late Sir James Mackintosh"; and to this he +adds the following foot-note: + + I take this opportunity of expressing my warm gratitude to the family + of my dear and honoured friend Sir James Mackintosh, for confiding to + me the materials collected by him _at a time when he meditated a work + similar to that which I have undertaken._ I have never seen, and I do + not believe that there anywhere exists, within the same compass, so + noble a _collection of extracts_ from public and private archives. The + judgment with which Sir James, in great masses of the rudest ore of + history, selected what was valuable and rejected what was worthless, + can be fully appreciated only by one who has toiled after him in the + same mine.--i. 391. + +Could any one imagine from this that Mackintosh had not only _meditated_ +a work, but actually written, and that his friends had published, a +large closely printed quarto volume, on the same subject, from the same +materials, and sometimes in the very same words as Mr. Macaulay's? + +The coincidence--the identity, we might almost say--of the two works is +so great, that, while we have been comparing them, we have often been +hardly able to distinguish which was which. We rest little on the +similiarity of facts, for the facts were ready made for both; and Mr. +Macaulay tells us that he worked from Mackintosh's materials; there +would, therefore, even if he had never seen Mackintosh's work, be a +community of topics and authorities; but, seeing as we do in every page +that he was writing with Mackintosh's volume before his eyes, we cannot +account for his utter silence about it.... + +Having thus shown Mr. Macaulay's mode of dealing with what forms the +chief and most characteristic feature of his book--its anecdotical +gossip--we shall now endeavour to exhibit the deceptive style in which +he treats the larger historical facts: in truth the style is the same--a +general and unhesitating sacrifice of accuracy and reality to +picturesque effect and party prejudices. He treats historical personages +as the painter does his _layman_--a supple figure which he models into +what he thinks the most striking attitude, and dresses up with the +gaudiest colours and most fantastical draperies. + +It is very difficult to condense into any manageable space the proofs of +a general system of accumulating and aggravating all that was ever, +whether truly or falsely, reproached to the Tories, and alleviating +towards the Whigs the charges which he cannot venture to deny or even to +question. The mode in which this is managed so as to keep up some show +of impartiality is very dexterous. The reproach, well or ill founded, +which he thinks most likely to damage the character of any one he +dislikes, is repeated over and over again in hope that the iteration +will at last be taken for proof, such as the perfidy of Charles I, the +profligacy and selfishness of Charles II, the cold and cruel stupidity +of James, the baseness of Churchill, the indecent violence of Rochester, +the contemptible subserviency of his brother, Clarendon, and so on +through a whole dictionary of abuse on every one whom he takes or +mistakes for a Tory, and on a few Whigs whom for some special reasons of +his own he treats like Tories. On the other hand, when he finds himself +reluctantly forced to acknowledge even the greatest enormity of the +Whigs--corruption--treason--murder he finds much gentler terms for the +facts; selects a scapegoat, some subaltern villain, or some one whom +history has already gibbeted, "to bear upon him all their iniquities," +and that painful sacrifice once made, he avoids with tender care a +recurrence to so disagreeable a subject.... + +After so much political detail it will be some kind of diversion to our +readers to examine Mr. Macaulay's most elaborate strategic and +topographical effort, worked up with all the combined zeal and skill of +an ex-Secretary-at-War and a pictorial historian--a copious description +of the battle of Sedgemoor. Mr. Macaulay seems to have visited +Bridgwater with a zeal worthy of a better result: for it has produced a +description of the surrounding country as pompous and detailed as if it +had been the scene of some grand strategic operations--a parade not +merely unnecessary, but absurd, for the so-called battle was but a +bungling skirmish. Monmouth had intended to surprise the King's troops +in their quarters by a midnight attack, but was stopped by a wide and +deep trench, of which he was not apprised, called Bussex Rhine, behind +which the King's army lay. "The trenches which drain the moor are," Mr. +Macaulay adds, "in that country called _rhines_." On each side of this +ditch the parties stood firing at each other in the dark. Lord Grey and +the cavalry ran away without striking a blow; Monmouth followed them, +too, soon; for some time the foot stood with a degree of courage and +steadiness surprising in such raw and half-armed levies; at last the +King's cavalry got round their flank, and they too ran: the King's foot +then crossed the ditch with little or no resistance, and slaughtered, +with small loss on their own side, a considerable number of the +fugitives, the rest escaping back to Bridgwater. Our readers will judge +whether such a skirmish required a long preliminary description of the +surrounding country. Mr. Macaulay might just as usefully have described +the plain of Troy. Indeed at the close of his long topographical and +etymological narrative Mr. Macaulay has the tardy candour to confess +that-- + + little is now to be learned by visiting the field of battle, for the + face of the country has been greatly changed, and the old _Bussex + Rhine_, on the banks of which the great struggle took place, has long + disappeared. + +This is droll. After spending a deal of space and fine writing in +describing the present prospect, he concludes by telling us candidly it +is all of no use, for the whole scene has changed. This is like +Walpole's story of the French lady who asked for her lover's picture; +and when he demurred observing that, if her husband were to see it, it +might betray their secret--"O dear, no," she said--just like Mr. +Macaulay--"I _will have the picture_, but it _need not be like_!" + +But even as to the change, we again doubt Mr. Macaulay's accuracy. The +word _Rhine_ in Somersetshire, as perhaps--_parva componere magnis_--in +the great German river, means _running_ water, and we therefore think it +very unlikely that a running stream should have disappeared; but we also +find in the Ordnance Survey of Somersetshire, made in our own time, the +course and name of _Bussck's Rhine_ distinctly laid down in front of +Weston, where it probably ran in Monmouth's day; and we are further +informed, in return to some inquiries that we have caused to be made, +that the _Rhine_ is now, in 1849, as visible and well known as ever it +was. + +But this grand piece of the military topography of a battlefield where +there was no battle must have its picturesque and pathetic episode, and +Mr. Macaulay finds one well suited to such a novel. When Monmouth had +made up his mind to attempt to _surprise_ the royal army, Mr. Macaulay +is willing (for a purpose which we shall see presently) to persuade +himself that the Duke let the whole town into his secret:-- + + That an attack was to be made under cover of the night was no secret + in Bridgwater. The town was full of women, who had repaired thither by + hundreds from the surrounding region to see their husbands, sons, + lovers, and brothers once more. There were many sad partings that day; + and many parted never to meet again. The report of the intended attack + came to the ears of a young girl who was zealous for the king. Though + of modest character, she had the courage to resolve that she would + herself bear the intelligence to Feversham. She stole out of + Bridgwater, and made her way to the royal camp. But that camp was not + a place where female innocence could be safe. Even the officers, + despising alike the irregular force to which they were opposed, and + the negligent general who commanded them, had indulged largely in + wine, and were ready for any excess of licentiousness and cruelty. One + of them seized the unhappy maiden, refused to listen to her errand, + and brutally outraged her. She fled in agonies of rage and shame, + leaving the wicked army to its doom.--i. 606, 7. + +--the _doom of the wicked army_, be it noted _en passant_, being a +complete victory. Mr. Macaulay cites Kennett for this story, and adds +that he is "_forced_ to believe the story to be true, because Kennett +declares that it was communicated to him in the year 1718 by a brave +officer who had fought at Sedgemoor, and had himself seen the poor girl +depart in an agony of distress,"--_ib_. + +We shall not dwell on the value of an anonymous story told +_three-and-thirty years_ after the Battle of Sedgemoor. The tale is +sufficiently refuted by notorious facts and dates, and indeed by its +internal absurdity. We know from the clear and indisputable evidence of +Wade, who commanded Monmouth's infantry, all the proceedings of that day. +Monmouth no doubt intended to move that night, and made open preparation +for it, and the partings so pathetically described may have, therefore, +taken place, and the rather because the intended movement was to leave +that part of the country altogether--_not_ to meet the King's troops, but +to endeavour to escape them by a forced march across the Avon and into +Gloucestershire. So far might have been known. But about _three_ o'clock +that afternoon Monmouth received intelligence by a spy that the King's +troops had advanced to Sedgemoor, but had taken their positions so +injudiciously, that there seemed a possibility of surprising them in a +night attack. On this Monmouth assembled a council of war, which agreed +that, instead of retreating that night towards the Avon as they had +intended, they should advance and attack, provided the spy, who was to +be sent out to a new reconnoissance, should report that the troops were +not intrenched. We may be sure that--as the news only arrived at three +in the afternoon--the assembling the council of war--the deliberation-- +the sending back the spy--his return and another deliberation--must have +protracted the final decision to so late an hour that evening, that it +is utterly impossible that the change of the design of a march northward +to that of an "_attack to be made under cover of the night_," could have +been that _morning_ no secret in Bridgwater. But our readers see it was +necessary for Mr. Macaulay to raise this fable, in order to account for +the poor girl's knowing so important a secret. So far we have argued the +case on Mr. Macaulay's own showing, which, we confess, was very +incautious on our part; but on turning to his authority we find, as +usual, a story essentially different. Kennett says-- + + A brave Captain in the Horse Guards, now living (1718), was in the + action at Sedgemoor, and gave me the account of it:--That on _Sunday + morning, July 5_, a young woman came from Monmouth's quarters to give + notice of his design to surprise the King's camp _that night_; but + this young woman being carried to a chief officer in a neighbouring + village, she was led upstairs and debauched by him, and, coming down + in a great fright and disorder (as he himself saw her), she went back, + and her message was not told.--_Kennett_, in. 432. + +This knocks the whole story on the head. Kennett was not aware (Wade's +narrative not being published when he wrote) that the King's troops did +not come in sight of Sedgemoor till about three o'clock P.M. of that +Sunday on the early morning of which he places the girl's visit to the +camp, and it was not till late that same evening that Monmouth changed +his original determination, and formed the sudden resolution with which, +to support Kennett's story, the whole town must have been acquainted at +least twelve hours before. These are considerations which ought not to +have escaped a philosophical historian who had the advantage, which +Kennett had not, of knowing the exact time when these details +occurred.... + +We must here conclude. We have exhausted our time and our space, but not +our topics. We have selected such of the more prominent defects and +errors of Mr. Macaulay as were manageable within our limits; but +numerous as they are, we beg that they may be considered as specimens +only of the infinitely larger assortment that the volumes would afford, +and be read not merely as individual instances, but as indications of +the general style of the work, and the prevailing _animus_ of the +writer. We have chiefly directed our attention to points of mere +historical inaccuracy and infidelity; but they are combined with a +greater admixture of other--we know not whether to call them literary or +moral--defects, than the insulated passages sufficiently exhibit. These +faults, as we think them, but which may to some readers be the prime +fascinations of the work, abound on its surface. And their very number +and their superficial prominence constitute a main charge against the +author, and prove, we think, his mind to be unfitted for the severity of +historical inquiry. He takes much pains to parade--perhaps he really +believes in--his impartiality, with what justice we appeal to the +foregoing pages; but he is guilty of a prejudice as injurious in its +consequences to truth as any political bias. He abhors whatever is not +in itself picturesque, while he clings with the tenacity of a Novelist +to the _piquant_ and the startling. Whether it be the boudoir of a +strumpet or the death-bed of a monarch--the strong character of a +statesman-warrior abounding in contrasts and rich in mystery, or the +personal history of a judge trained in the Old Bailey to vulgarize and +ensanguine the King's Bench--he luxuriates with a vigour and variety of +language and illustration which renders his "History" an attractive and +absorbing story-book. And so spontaneously redundant are these errors-- +so inwoven in the very texture of Mr. Macaulay's mind--that he seems +never able to escape from them. Even after the reader is led to believe +that all that can be said either of praise or vituperation as to +character, of voluptuous description and minute delineation as to fact +and circumstance, has been passed in review before him--when a new +subject, indeed, seems to have been started--all at once the old theme +is renewed, and the old ideas are redressed in all the affluent imagery +and profuse eloquence of which Mr. Macaulay is so eminent a master. Now +of the fancy and fashion of this we should not complain--quite the +contrary--in a professed novel: there is a theatre in which it would be +exquisitely appropriate and attractive; but the Temple of History is not +the floor for a morris-dance--the Muse Clio is not to be worshipped in +the halls of Terpsichore. We protest against this species of _carnival_ +history; no more like the reality than the Eglintoun Tournament or the +Costume Quadrilles of Buckingham Palace; and we deplore the squandering +of so much melodramatic talent on a subject which we have hitherto +reverenced as the figure of Truth arrayed in the simple argments +[Transcriber's note: sic] of Philosophy. We are ready to admit an +hundred times over Mr. Macaulay's literary powers--brilliant even under +the affectation with which he too frequently disfigures them. He is a +great painter, but a suspicious narrator; a grand proficient in the +picturesque, but a very poor professor of the historic. These volumes +have been, and his future volumes as they appear will be, devoured with +the same eagerness that _Oliver Twist_ or _Vanity Fair_ excite--with the +same quality of zest, though perhaps with a higher degree of it;--but +his pages will seldom, we think, receive a second perusal--and the work, +we apprehend, will hardly find a permanent place on the historic shelf-- +nor ever assuredly, if continued in the spirit of the first two volumes, +be quoted as authority on any question or point of the History of +England. + + + + +LOCKHART ON THE AUTHOR OF "VATHEK"[1] + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, June, 1834] + +[1] "Italy: with sketches of Spain and Portugal. In a series of letters + written during a residence in these Countries." By William Beckford, + Esq., author of _Vathek_. London, 1834. + +Vathek is, indeed, without reference to the time of life [before he had +closed his twentieth year] when the author penned it, a very remarkable +performance; but, like most of the works of the great poet (Byron) who +has eloquently praised it, it is stained with poison-spots--its +inspiration is too often such as might have been inhaled in the "Hall of +Eblis." We do not allude so much to its audacious licentiousness, as to +the diabolical levity of its contempt for mankind. The boy-author +appears to have already rubbed all the bloom off his heart; and, in the +midst of his dazzling genius, one trembles to think that a stripling of +years so tender should have attained the cool cynicism of a _Candide_. +How different is the effect of that Eastern tale of our own days, which +Lord Byron ought not to have forgotten when he was criticising his +favourite romance. How perfectly does _Thalaba_ realize the ideal +demanded in the Welsh Triad, of "fulness of erudition, simplicity of +language, and purity of manners." But the critic was repelled by the +purity of that delicious creation, more than attracted by the erudition +which he must have respected, and the diction which he could not but +admire-- + + The low sweet voice so musical, + That with such deep and undefined delight + Fills the surrender'd soul. + +It has long been known that Mr. Beckford prepared, shortly after the +publication of his _Vathek_, some other tales in the same vein--the +histories, it is supposed, of the princes in his "Hall of Eblis." A +rumour had also prevailed, that the author drew up, early in life, some +account of his travels in various parts of the world; nay, that he had +printed a few copies of this account, and that its private perusal had +been eminently serviceable to more than one of the most popular poets of +the present age. But these were only vague reports; and Mr. Beckford, +after achieving, on the verge of manhood, a literary reputation, which, +however brilliant, could not satisfy the natural ambition of such an +intellect--seemed, for more than fifty years, to have wholly withdrawn +himself from the only field of his permanent distinction. The world +heard enough of his gorgeous palace at Cintra (described in _Childe +Harold_), afterwards of the unsubstantial pageant of his splendour at +Fonthill, and latterly of his architectural caprices at Bath. But his +literary name seemed to have belonged to another age; and, perhaps, in +this point of view, it may not have been unnatural for Lord Byron, when +comparing _Vathek_ with other Eastern tales, to think rather of _Zadig_ +and _Rasselas_, than + + Of Thalaba--the wild and wondrous song. + +The preface to the present volumes informs us that they include a +reprint of the book of travels, of which a small private edition passed +through the press forty years ago, and of the existence of which--though +many of our readers must have heard some hints--few could have had any +_knowledge_. Mr. Beckford has at length been induced to publish his +letters, in order to vindicate his own original claim to certain +thoughts, images, and expressions, which had been adopted by other +authors whom he had from time to time received beneath his roof, and +indulged with a perusal of his secret lucubrations. The mere fact that +such a work has lain for near half-a-century, printed but unpublished, +would be enough to stamp the author's personal character as not less +extraordinary than his genius. It is, indeed, sufficiently obvious that +Mr. Rogers had read it before he wrote his "Italy "--a poem, however, +which possesses so many exquisite beauties entirely its own, that it may +easily afford to drop the honour of some, perhaps unconsciously, +appropriated ones; and we are also satisfied that this book had passed +through Mr. Moore's hands before he gave us his light and graceful +"Rhymes on the Road," though the traces of his imitation are rarer than +those which must strike everyone who is familiar with the "Italy." We +are not so sure as to Lord Byron; but, although we have not been able to +lay our finger on any one passage in which he has evidently followed Mr. +Beckford's vein, it will certainly rather surprise us should it +hereafter be made manifest that he had not seen, or at least heard an +account of, this performance, before he conceived the general plan of +his "Childe Harold." Mr. Beckford's book is entirely unlike any book of +travel _in prose_ that exists in any European language; and if we could +fancy Lord Byron to have written the "Harold" in the measure of "Don +Juan," and to have availed himself of the facilities which the _ottima +rima_ affords for intermingling high poetry with merriment of all sorts, +and especially with sarcastic sketches of living manners, we believe the +result would have been a work more nearly akin to that now before us +than any other in the library. + +Mr. Beckford, like "Harold," passes through various regions of the +world, and, disdaining to follow the guide-book, presents his reader +with a series of detached, or very slenderly connected sketches of _the +scenes that had made the deepest impression upon himself_. He, when it +suits him, puts the passage of the Alps into a parenthesis. On one +occasion, he really treats Rome as if it had been nothing more than a +post station on the road from Florence to Naples; but, again, if the +scenery and people take his fancy, "he has a royal reluctance to move +on, as his own hero showed when his eye glanced on the grands caractères +rouges, tracés par la main de Carathis?... _Qui me donnera des loix_?-- +s'écria le Caliphe." + +"England's wealthiest son" performs his travels, of course, in a style +of great external splendour. + + Conspictuus longé cunctisque notabilis intrat-- + +Courts and palaces, as well as convents and churches, and galleries of +all sorts, fly open at his approach: he is caressed in every capital--he +is _fêté_ in every château. But though he appears amidst such +accompaniments with all the airiness of a Juan, he has a thread of the +blackest of Harold in his texture; and every now and then seems willing +to draw a veil between him and the world of vanities. He is a poet, and +a great one too, though we know not that he ever wrote a line of verse. +His rapture amidst the sublime scenery of mountains and forests--in the +Tyrol especially, and in Spain--is that of a spirit cast originally in +one of nature's finest moulds; and he fixes it in language which can +scarcely be praised beyond its deserts--simple, massive, nervous, +apparently little laboured, yet revealing, in its effect, the perfection +of art. Some immortal passages in Gray's letters and Byron's diaries, +are the only things, in our tongue, that seem to us to come near the +profound melancholy, blended with a picturesqueness of description at +once true and startling, of many of these extraordinary pages. Nor is +his sense for the _highest_ beauty of art less exquisite. He seems to +describe classical architecture, and the pictures of the great Italian +schools, with a most passionate feeling of the grand, and with an +inimitable grace of expression. On the other hand, he betrays, in a +thousand places, a settled voluptuousness of temperament, and a +capricious recklessness of self-indulgence, which will lead the world to +identify him henceforth with his _Vathek_, as inextricably as it has +long since connected Harold with the poet that drew him; and then, that +there may be no limit to the inconsistencies of such a strange genius, +this spirit, at once so capable of the noblest enthusiasm, and so dashed +with the gloom of over-pampered luxury, can stoop to chairs and china, +ever and anon, with the zeal of an auctioneer--revel in the design of a +clock or a candlestick, and be as ecstatic about a fiddler or a soprano +as the fools in Hogarth's _concert_. On such occasions he reminds us, +and will, we think, remind everyone, of the Lord of Strawberry Hill. But +even here all we have is on a grander scale. The oriental prodigality of +his magnificence shines out even in trifles. He buys a library where the +other would have cheapened a missal. He is at least a male Horace +Walpole; as superior to the "silken Baron," as Fonthill, with its +York-like tower embosomed among hoary forests, was to that silly band-box +which may still be admired on the road to Twickenham ... + +We have no discussions of any consequence in these volumes: even the +ultra-aristocratical opinions and feelings of the author--who is, we +presume, a Whig--are rather hinted than avowed. From a thousand passing +sneers, we may doubt whether he has any religion at all; but still he +_may_ be only thinking of the outward and visible absurdities of +popery--therefore we have hardly a pretext for treating these matters +seriously. In short, this is meant to be, as he says in his preface, +nothing but a "book of light reading"; and though no one can read it +without having many grave enough feelings roused and agitated within +him, there are really no passages to provoke or justify any detailed +criticism either as to morals or politics ... + +We risk nothing in predicting that Mr. Beckford's _Travels_ will +henceforth be classed among the most elegant productions of modern +literature: they will be forthwith translated into every language of the +Continent--and will keep his name alive, centuries after all the brass +and marble he ever piled together have ceased to vibrate with the echoes +of _Modenhas_. + + + + +ON COLERIDGE + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, August, 1834] + +_The Poetical Works of S.T. Coleridge_. 3 vols. 12mo. London, 1834. + + +Let us be indulged, in the mean time, in this opportunity of making a +few remarks on the genius of the extraordinary man whose poems, now for +the first time completely collected, are named at the head of this +article. The larger part of this publication is, of course, of old date, +and the author still lives; yet, besides the considerable amount of new +matter in this edition, which might of itself, in the present dearth of +anything eminently original in verse, justify our notice, we think the +great, and yet somewhat hazy, celebrity of Coleridge, and the +ill-understood character of his poetry, will be, in the opinion of a +majority of our readers, more than an excuse for a few elucidatory +remarks upon the subject. Idolized by many, and used without scruple by +more, the poet of "Christabel" and the "Ancient Mariner" is but little +truly known in that common literary world, which, without the +prerogative of conferring fame hereafter, can most surely give or +prevent popularity for the present. In that circle he commonly passes +for a man of genius, who has written some very beautiful verses, but +whose original powers, whatever they were, have been long since lost or +confounded in the pursuit of metaphysic dreams. We ourselves venture to +think very differently of Mr. Coleridge, both as a poet and a +philosopher, although we are well enough aware that nothing which we can +say will, as matters now stand, much advance his chance of becoming a +fashionable author. Indeed, as we rather believe, we should earn small +thanks from him for our happiest exertions in such a cause; for +certainly, of all the men of letters whom it has been our fortune to +know, we never met any one who was so utterly regardless of the +reputation of the mere author as Mr. Coleridge--one so lavish and +indiscriminate in the exhibition of his own intellectual wealth before +any and every person, no matter who--one so reckless who might reap +where he had most prodigally sown and watered. "God knows,"--as we once +heard him exclaim upon the subject of his unpublished system of +philosophy,--"God knows, I have no author's vanity about it. I should be +absolutely glad if I could hear that the _thing_ had been done before +me." It is somewhere told of Virgil, that he took more pleasure in the +good verses of Varius and Horace than in his own. We would not answer +for that; but the story has always occurred to us, when we have seen Mr. +Coleridge criticising and amending the work of a contemporary author +with much more zeal and hilarity than we ever perceived him to display +about anything of his own. + +Perhaps our readers may have heard repeated a saying of Mr. Wordsworth, +that many men of this age had done wonderful _things_, as Davy, Scott, +Cuvier, &c.; but that Coleridge was the only wonderful _man_ he ever +knew. Something, of course, must be allowed in this as in all other such +cases for the antithesis; but we believe the fact really to be, that the +greater part of those who have occasionally visited Mr. Coleridge have +left him with a feeling akin to the judgment indicated in the above +remark. They admire the man more than his works, or they forget the +works in the absorbing impression made by the living author. And no +wonder. Those who remember him in his more vigorous days can bear +witness to the peculiarity and transcendant power of his conversational +eloquence. It was unlike anything that could be heard elsewhere; the +kind was different, the degree was different, the manner was different. +The boundless range of scientific knowledge, the brilliancy and +exquisite nicety of illustration, the deep and ready reasoning, the +strangeness and immensity of bookish lore--were not all; the dramatic +story, the joke, the pun, the festivity, must be added--and with these +the clerical-looking dress, the thick waving silver hair, the +youthful-coloured cheek, the indefinable mouth and lips, the quick yet +steady and penetrating greenish grey eye, the slow and continuous +enunciation, and the everlasting music of his tones,--all went to make +up +the image and constitute the living presence of the man. He is now no +longer young, and bodily infirmities, we regret to know, have pressed +heavily upon him. His natural force is indeed abated; but his eye is not +dim, neither is his mind yet enfeebled. "O youth!" he says in one of the +most exquisitely finished of his later poems-- + + O youth! for years so many and sweet, + 'Tis known that thou and I were one, + I'll think it but a fond conceit-- + It cannot be that thou art gone! + Thy vesper bell hath not yet tolled:-- + And thou wert aye a masker bold! + What strange disguise hast now put on, + To make believe that thou art gone? + I see these locks in silvery slips, + This drooping gait, this altered size;-- + But springtide blossoms on thy lips, + And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! + Life is but thought: so think I will + That Youth and I are house-mates still. + +Mr. Coleridge's conversation, it is true, has not now all the brilliant +versatility of his former years; yet we know not whether the contrast +between his bodily weakness and his mental power does not leave a deeper +and more solemnly affecting impression, than his most triumphant +displays in youth could ever have done. To see the pain-stricken +countenance relax, and the contracted frame dilate under the kindling of +intellectual fire alone--to watch the infirmities of the flesh shrinking +out of sight, or glorified and transfigured in the brightness of the +awakening spirit--is an awful object of contemplation; and in no other +person did we ever witness such a distinction,--nay, alienation of mind +from body,--such a mastery of the purely intellectual over the purely +corporeal, as in the instance of this remarkable man. Even now his +conversation is characterized by all the essentials of its former +excellence; there is the same individuality, the same _unexpectedness_, +the same universal grasp; nothing is too high, nothing too low for it: +it glances from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, with a speed and +a splendour, an ease and a power, which almost seem inspired: yet its +universality is not of the same kind with the superficial ranging of the +clever talkers whose criticism and whose information are called forth +by, and spent upon, the particular topics in hand. No; in this more, +perhaps, than in anything else is Mr. Coleridge's discourse +distinguished: that it springs from an inner centre, and illustrates by +light from the soul. His thoughts are, if we may so say, as the radii of +a circle, the centre of which may be in the petals of a rose, and the +circumference as wide as the boundary of things visible and invisible. +In this it was that we always thought another eminent light of our time, +recently lost to us, an exact contrast to Mr. Coleridge as to quality +and style of conversation. You could not in all London or England hear a +more fluent, a more brilliant, a more exquisitely elegant converser than +Sir James Mackintosh; nor could you ever find him unprovided. But, +somehow or other, it always seemed as if all the sharp and brilliant +things he said were poured out of so many vials filled and labelled for +the particular occasion; it struck us, to use a figure, as if his mind +were an ample and well-arranged _hortus siccus_, from which you might +have specimens of every kind of plant, but all of them cut and dried for +store. You rarely saw nature working at the very moment in him. With +Coleridge it was and still is otherwise. He may be slower, more +rambling, less pertinent; he may not strike at the instant as so +eloquent; but then, what he brings forth is fresh coined; his flowers +are newly gathered, they are wet with dew, and, if you please, you may +almost see them growing in the rich garden of his mind. The projection +is visible; the enchantment is done before your eyes. To listen to +Mackintosh was to inhale perfume; it pleased, but did not satisfy. The +effect of an hour with Coleridge is to set you thinking; his words haunt +you for a week afterwards; they are spells, brightenings, revelations. +In short, it is, if we may venture to draw so bold a line, the whole +difference between talent and genius. + +A very experienced short-hand writer was employed to take down Mr. +Coleridge's lectures on Shakespeare, but the manuscript was almost +entirely unintelligible. Yet the lecturer was, as he always is, slow and +measured. The writer--we have some notion it was no worse an artist than +Mr. Gurney himself--gave this account of the difficulty: that with +regard to every other speaker whom he had ever heard, however rapid or +involved, he could almost always, by long experience in his art, guess +the form of the latter part, or apodosis, of the sentence by the form of +the beginning; but that the conclusion of every one of Coleridge's +sentences was a _surprise_ upon him. He was obliged to listen to the +last word. Yet this unexpectedness, as we termed it before, is not the +effect of quaintness or confusion of construction; so far from it, that +we believe foreigners of different nations, especially Germans and +Italians, have often borne very remarkable testimony to the grammatical +purity and simplicity of his language, and have declared that they +generally understood what he said much better than the sustained +conversation of any other Englishman whom they had met. It is the +uncommonness of the thoughts or the image which prevents your +anticipating the end. + +We owe, perhaps, an apology to our readers for the length of the +preceding remarks; but the fact is, so very much of the intellectual +life and influence of Mr. Coleridge has consisted in the oral +communication of his opinions, that no sketch could be reasonably +complete without a distinct notice of the peculiar character of his +powers in this particular. We believe it has not been the lot of any +other literary man in England, since Dr. Johnson, to command the devoted +admiration and steady zeal of so many and such widely differing +disciples--some of them having become, and others being likely to +become, fresh and independent sources of light and moral action in +themselves upon the principles of their common master. One half of these +affectionate disciples have learned their lessons of philosophy from the +teacher's mouth. He has been to them as an old oracle of the Academy or +Lyceum. The fulness, the inwardness, the ultimate scope of his doctrines +has never yet been published in print, and if disclosed, it has been +from time to time in the higher moments of conversation, when occasion, +and mood, and person begot an exalted crisis. More than once has Mr. +Coleridge said, that with pen in hand, he felt a thousand checks and +difficulties in the expression of his meaning; but that--authorship +aside--he never found the smallest hitch or impediment in the fullest +utterance of his most subtle fancies by word of mouth. His abstrusest +thoughts became rhythmical and clear when chaunted to their own music. +But let us proceed now to the publication before us. + +This is the first complete collection of the poems of Samuel Taylor +Coleridge. The addition to the last edition is not less than a fourth of +the whole, and the greatest part of this matter has never been printed +before. It consists of many juvenile pieces, a few of the productions of +the poet's middle life, and more of his later years. With regard to the +additions of the first class, we should not be surprised to hear +friendly doubts expressed as to the judgment shown in their publication. +We ourselves think otherwise; and we are very glad to have had an +opportunity of perusing them. There may be nothing in these earlier +pieces upon which a poet's reputation could be built; yet they are +interesting now as measuring the boyish powers of a great author. We +never read any juvenile poems that so distinctly foretokened the +character of all that the poet has since done; in particular, the very +earliest and loosest of these little pieces indicate that unintermitting +thoughtfulness, and that fine ear for verbal harmony in which we must +venture to think that not one of our modern poets approaches to +Coleridge. + + * * * * * + +We, of course, cite these lines for little besides their luxurious +smoothness; and it is very observable, that although the indications of +the more strictly intellectual qualities of a great poet are very often +extremely faint, as in Byron's case, in early youth,--it is universally +otherwise with regard to high excellence in _versification_ considered +apart and by itself. Like the ear for music, the sense of metrical +melody is always a natural gift; both indeed are evidently connected +with the physical arrangement of the organs, and never to be acquired by +any effort of art. When possessed, they by no means necessarily lead on +to the achievement of consummate harmony in music or in verse; and yet +consummate harmony in either has never been found where the natural gift +has not made itself conspicuous long before. Spenser's Hymns, and +Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," and "Rape of Lucrece," are striking +instances of the overbalance of mere sweetness of sound. Even "Comus" is +what we should, in this sense, call luxurious; and all four gratify the +outward ear much more than that inner and severer sense which is +associated with the reason, and requires a meaning even in the very +music for its full satisfaction. Compare the versification of the +youthful pieces mentioned above with that of the maturer works of those +great poets, and you will recognize how possible it is for verses to be +exquisitely melodious, and yet to fall far short of that exalted +excellence of numbers of which language is in itself capable. You will +feel the simple truth, that melody is a part only of harmony. Those +early flashes were indeed auspicious tokens of the coming glory, and +involved some of the conditions and elements of its existence; but the +rhythm of the "Faerie Queene" and of "Paradise Lost" was also the fruit +of a distinct effort of uncommon care and skill. The endless variety of +the pauses in the versification of these poems could not have been the +work of chance, and the adaptation of words with reference to their +asperity, or smoothness, or strength, is equally refined and scientific. +Unless we make a partial exception of the "Castle of Indolence," we do +not remember a single instance of the reproduction of the exact rhythm +of the Spenserian stanza, especially of the concluding line. The precise +Miltonic movement in blank verse has never, to our knowledge, been +caught by any later poet. It is Mr. Coleridge's own strong remark, that +you might as well think of pushing a brick out of a wall with your +forefinger, as attempt to remove a word out of the finished passages in +Shakespeare or Milton. The motion or transposition will alter the +thought, or the feeling, or at least the tone. They are as pieces of +Mosaic work, from which you cannot strike the smallest block without +making a hole in the picture. + +And so it is--in due proportion--with Coleridge's best poems. They are +distinguished in a remarkable degree by the perfection of their rhythm +and metrical arrangement. The labour bestowed upon this point must have +been very great; the tone and quantity of words seem weighed in scales +of gold. It will, no doubt, be considered ridiculous by the Fannii and +Fanniae of our day to talk of varying the trochee with the iambus, or of +resolving either into the tribrach. Yet it is evident to us that these, +and even minuter points of accentual scansion, have been regarded by Mr. +Coleridge as worthy of study and observation. We do not, of course, mean +that rules of this kind were always in his mind while composing, any +more than that an expert disputant is always thinking of the +distinctions of mood and figure, whilst arguing; but we certainly +believe that Mr. Coleridge has almost from the commencement of his +poetic life looked upon versification as constituting in and by itself a +much more important branch of the art poetic than most of his eminent +contemporaries appear to have done. And this more careful study shows +itself in him in no technical peculiarities or fantastic whims, against +which the genius of our language revolts; but in a more exact adaptation +of the movement to the feeling, and in a finer selection of particular +words with reference to their local fitness for sense and sound. Some of +his poems are complete models of versification, exquisitely easy to all +appearance, and subservient to the meaning, and yet so subtle in the +links and transitions of the parts as to make it impossible to produce +the same effect merely by imitating the syllabic metre as it stands on +the surface. The secret of the sweetness lies within, and is involved in +the feeling. It is this remarkable power of making his verse musical +that gives a peculiar character to Mr. Coleridge's lyric poems. In some +of the smaller pieces, as the conclusion of the "Kubla Khan," for +example, not only the lines by themselves are musical, but the whole +passage sounds all at once as an outburst or crash of harps in the still +air of autumn. The verses seem as if _played_ to the ear upon some +unseen instrument. And the poet's manner of reciting verse is similar. +It is not rhetorical, but musical: so very near recitative, that for any +one else to attempt it would be ridiculous; and yet it is perfectly +miraculous with what exquisite searching he elicits and makes sensible +every particle of the meaning, not leaving a shadow of a shade of the +feeling, the mood, the degree, untouched. We doubt if a finer rhapsode +ever recited at the Panathenaic festival; and the yet unforgotten Doric +of his native Devon is not altogether without a mellowing effect in his +utterance of Greek. He would repeat the + + [Greek: autar Achilleus dakrusas, etaron aphar ezeto. k. t. l.] + +with such an interpreting accompaniment of look, and tone and gesture, +that we believe any commonly-educated person might understand the import +of the passage without knowing alpha from omega. A chapter of Isaiah +from his mouth involves the listener in an act of exalted devotion. We +have mentioned this, to show how the whole man is made up of music; and +yet Mr. Coleridge has no _ear_ for music, as it is technically called. +Master as he is of the intellectual recitative, he could not _sing_ an +air to save his life. But his delight in music is intense and +unweariable, and he can detect good from bad with unerring +discrimination. Poor Naldi, whom most of us remember, and all who +remember must respect, said to our poet once at a concert--"That he did +not seem much interested with a piece of Rossini's which had just been +performed." Coleridge answered, "It sounded to me exactly like _nonsense +verses_. But this thing of Beethoven's that they have begun--stop, let +us listen to this, I beg!" ... + +The minute study of the laws and properties of metre is observable in +almost every piece in these volumes. Every kind of lyric measure, rhymed +and unrhymed, is attempted with success; and we doubt whether, upon the +whole, there are many specimens of the heroic couplet or blank verse +superior in construction to what Mr. Coleridge has given us. We mention +this the rather, because it was at one time, although that time is past, +the fashion to say that the Lake school--as two or three poets, +essentially unlike to each other, were foolishly called--had abandoned +the old and established measures of the English poetry for new conceits +of their own. There was no truth in that charge; but we will say this, +that, notwithstanding the prevalent opinion to the contrary, we are not +sure, after perusing _some passages_ in Mr. Southey's "Vision of +Judgment," and the entire "Hymn to the Earth," in hexameters, in the +second of the volumes now before us, that the question of the total +inadmissibility of that measure in English verse can be considered as +finally settled; the true point not being whether such lines are as good +as, or even like, the Homeric or Virgilian models, but whether they are +not in themselves a pleasing variety, and on that account alone, if for +nothing else, not to be rejected as wholly barbarous ... + +We should not have dwelt so long upon this point of versification, +unless we had conceived it to be one distinguishing excellence of Mr. +Coleridge's poetry, and very closely connected with another, namely, +fulness and individuality of thought. It seems to be a fact, although we +do not pretend to explain it, that condensation of meaning is generally +found in poetry of a high import in proportion to perfection in metrical +harmony. Petrarch, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton are obvious +instances. Goethe and Coleridge are almost equally so. Indeed, whether +in verse, or prose, or conversation, Mr. Coleridge's mind may be fitly +characterized as an energetic mind--a mind always at work, always in a +course of reasoning. He cares little for anything, merely because it was +or is; it must be referred, or be capable of being referred, to some law +or principle, in order to attract his attention. This is not from +ignorance of the facts of natural history or science. His written and +published works alone sufficiently show how constantly and accurately he +has been in the habit of noting all the phenomena of the material world +around us; and the great philosophical system now at length in +preparation for the press demonstrates, we are told, his masterly +acquaintance with almost all the sciences, and with not a few of the +higher and more genial of the arts. Yet his vast acquirements of this +sort are never put forward by or for themselves; it is in his apt and +novel illustrations, his indications of analogies, his explanation of +anomalies, that he enables the hearer or reader to get a glimpse of the +extent of his practical knowledge. He is always reasoning out from an +inner point, and it is the inner point, the principle, the law which he +labours to bring forward into light. If he can convince you or himself +of the principle _à priori_, he generally leaves the facts to take care +of themselves. He leads us into the laboratories of art or nature as a +showman guides you through a caravan crusted with spar and stalactites, +all cold, and dim, and motionless, till he lifts his torch aloft, and on +a sudden you gaze in admiration on walls and roof of flaming crystals +and stars of eternal diamond. + +All this, whether for praise or for blame, is perceptible enough in Mr. +Coleridge's verse, but perceptible, of course, in such degree and mode +as the law of poetry in general, and the nature of the specific poem in +particular, may require. But the main result from this frame and habit +of his mind is very distinctly traceable in the uniform subjectivity of +almost all his works. He does not belong to that grand division of +poetry and poets which corresponds with painting and painters; or which +Pindar and Dante are the chief;--those masters of the picturesque, who, +by a felicity inborn, view and present everything in the completeness of +actual objectivity--and who have a class derived from and congenial +with them, presenting few pictures indeed, but always full of +picturesque matter; of which secondary class Spenser and Southey may be +mentioned as eminent instances. To neither of these does Mr. Coleridge +belong; in his "Christabel," there certainly are several _distinct +pictures_ of great beauty; but he, as a poet, clearly comes within the +other division which answers to music and the musician, in which you +have a magnificent mirage of words with the subjective associations of +the poet curling, and twisting, and creeping round, and through, and +above every part of it. This is the class to which Milton belongs, in +whose poems we have heard Mr. Coleridge say that he remembered but two +proper pictures--Adam bending over the sleeping Eve at the beginning of +the fifth book of the "Paradise Lost," and Delilah approaching Samson +towards the end of the "Agonistes." But when we point out the intense +personal feeling, the self-projection, as it were, which characterizes +Mr. Coleridge's poems, we mean that such feeling is the soul and spirit, +not the whole body and form, of his poetry. For surely no one has ever +more earnestly and constantly borne in mind the maxim of Milton, that +poetry ought to be _simple, sensuous, and impassioned_. The poems in +these volumes are no authority for that dreamy, half-swooning style of +verse which was criticized by Lord Byron (in language too strong for +print) as the fatal sin of Mr. John Keats, and which, unless abjured +betimes, must prove fatal to several younger aspirants--male and female-- +who for the moment enjoy some popularity. The poetry before us is +distinct and clear, and accurate in its imagery; but the imagery is +rarely or never exhibited for description's sake alone; it is rarely or +never exclusively objective; that is to say, put forward as a spectacle, +a picture on which the mind's eye is to rest and terminate. You may if +your sight is short, or your imagination cold, regard the imagery in +itself and go no farther; but the poet's intention is that you should +feel and imagine a great deal more than you see. His aim is to awaken in +the reader the same mood of mind, the same cast of imagination and fancy +whence issued the associations which animate and enlighten his pictures. +You must think with him, must sympathize with him, must suffer yourself +to be lifted out of your own school of opinion or faith, and fall back +upon your own consciousness, an unsophisticated man. If you decline +this, _non tibi spirat_. From his earliest youth to this day, Mr. +Coleridge's poetry has been a faithful mirror reflecting the images of +his mind. Hence he is so original, so individual. With a little trouble, +the zealous reader of the "Biographia Literaria" may trace in these +volumes the whole course of mental struggle and self-evolvement narrated +in that odd but interesting work; but he will see the track marked in +light; the notions become images, the images glorified, and not +unfrequently the abstruse position stamped clearer by the poet than by +the psychologist. No student of Coleridge's philosophy can fully +understand it without a perusal of the illumining, and if we may so say, +_popularizing_ commentary of his poetry. It is the Greek put into the +vulgar tongue. And we must say, it is somewhat strange to hear any one +condemn those philosophical principles as altogether unintelligible, +which are inextricably interwoven in every page of a volume of poetry +which he professes to admire.... + +To this habit of intellectual introversion we are very much inclined to +attribute Mr. Coleridge's never having seriously undertaken a great +heroic poem. The "Paradise Lost" may be thought to stand in the way of +our laying down any general rule on the subject; yet that poem is as +peculiar as Milton himself, and does not materially affect our opinion, +that the pure epic can hardly be achieved by the poet in whose mind the +reflecting turn _greatly_ predominates. The extent of the action in such +a poem requires a free and fluent stream of narrative verse; +description, purely objective, must fill a large space in it, and its +permanent success depends on a rapidity, or at least a liveliness, of +movement which is scarcely compatible with much of what Bacon calls +_inwardness_ of meaning. The reader's attention could not be preserved; +his journey being long, he expects his road to be smooth and +unembarrassed. The condensed passion of the ode is out of place in +heroic song. Few persons will dispute that the two great Homeric poems +are the most delightful of epics; they may not have the sublimity of the +"Paradise Lost," nor the picturesqueness of the "Divine Comedy," nor the +etherial brilliancy of the "Orlando"; but, dead as they are in language, +metre, accent,--obsolete in religion, manners, costume, and country,-- +they nevertheless even now _please_ all those who can read them beyond +all other narrative poems. There is a salt in them which keeps them +sweet and incorruptible throughout every change. They are the most +popular of all the remains of ancient genius, and translations of them +for the twentieth time are amongst the very latest productions of our +contemporary literature. From beginning to end, these marvellous poems +are exclusively objective; everything is in them, except the poet +himself. It is not to Vico or Wolfe that we refer, when we say that +_Homer_ is _vox et praeterea nihil_; as musical as the nightingale, and +as invisible.... + +The "Remorse" and "Zapolya" strikingly illustrate the predominance of +the meditative, pausing habit of Mr. Coleridge's mind. The first of +these beautiful dramas was acted with success, although worse acting was +never seen. Indeed, Kelly's sweet music was the only part of the +theatrical apparatus in any respect worthy of the play. The late Mr. +Kean made some progress in the study of Ordonio, with a view of +reproducing the piece; and we think that Mr. Macready, either as Ordonio +or Alvar, might, with some attention to music, costume, and scenery, +make the representation attractive even in the present day. But in +truth, taken absolutely and in itself, the "Remorse" is more fitted for +the study than the stage; its character is romantic and pastoral in a +high degree, and there is a profusion of poetry in the minor parts, the +effect of which could never be preserved in the common routine of +representation. What this play wants is dramatic movement; there is +energetic dialogue and a crisis of great interest, but the action does +not sufficiently grow on the stage itself. Perhaps, also, the purpose of +Alvar to waken remorse in Ordonio's mind is put forward too prominently, +and has too much the look of a mere moral experiment to be probable +under the circumstances in which the brothers stand to each other. +Nevertheless, there is a calmness as well as superiority of intellect in +Alvar which seem to justify, in some measure, the sort of attempt on his +part, which, in fact, constitutes the theme of the play; and it must be +admitted that the whole underplot of Isidore and Alhadra is lively and +affecting in the highest degree. We particularly refer to the last scene +between Ordonio and Isidore in the cavern, which we think genuine +Shakespeare; and Alhadra's narrative of her discovery of her husband's +murder is not surpassed in truth and force by anything of the kind that +we know.... + +We have not yet referred to the "Ancient Mariner," "Christabel," the +"Odes on France," and the "Departing Year," or the "Love Poems." All +these are well known by those who know no other parts of Coleridge's +poetry, and the length of our preceding remarks compels us to be brief +in our notice. Mrs. Barbauld, meaning to be complimentary, told our +poet, that she thought the "Ancient Mariner" very beautiful, but that it +had the fault of containing no moral. "Nay, madam," replied the poet, +"if I may be permitted to say so, the only fault in the poem is that +there is _too much_ In a work of such pure imagination I ought not to +have stopped to give reasons for things, or inculcate humanity to +beasts. 'The Arabian Nights' might have taught me better." They might-- +the tale of the merchant's son who puts out the eyes of a genii by +flinging his date-shells down a well, and is therefore ordered to +prepare for death--might have taught this law of imagination; but the +fault is small indeed; and the "Ancient Mariner" is, and will ever be, +one of the most perfect pieces of imaginative poetry, not only in our +language, but in the literature of all Europe. We have, certainly, +sometimes doubted whether the miraculous destruction of the vessel in +the presence of the pilot and hermit, was not an error, in respect of +its bringing the purely preternatural into too close contact with the +actual frame-work of the poem. The only link between those scenes of +out-of-the-world wonders, and the wedding guest, should, we rather +suspect, have been the blasted, unknown being himself who described +them. There should have been no other witnesses of the truth of any part +of the tale, but the "Ancient Mariner" himself. This is by the way: but +take the work altogether, there is nothing else like it; it is a poem by +itself; between it and other compositions, in _pari materia_, there is a +chasm which you cannot overpass; the sensitive reader feels himself +insulated, and a sea of wonder and mystery flows round him as round the +spell-stricken ship itself. It was a sad mistake in the ablest artist-- +Mr. Scott, we believe--who in his engravings has made the ancient +mariner an old decrepit man. That is not the true image; no! he should +have been a growthless, decayless being, impassive to time or season, a +silent cloud--the wandering Jew. The curse of the dead men's eyes should +not have passed away. But this was, perhaps, too much for any pencil, +even if the artist had fully entered into the poet's idea. Indeed, it is +no subject for painting. The "Ancient Mariner" displays Mr. Coleridge's +peculiar mastery over the wild and preternatural in a brilliant manner; +but in his next poem, "Christabel," the exercise of his power in this +line is still more skilful and singular. The thing attempted in +"Christabel" is the most difficult of execution in the whole field of +romance--witchery by daylight; and the success is complete. Geraldine, +so far as she goes, is perfect. She is _sui generis_. The reader feels +the same terror and perplexity that Christabel in vain struggles to +express, and the same spell that fascinates her eyes. Who and what is +Geraldine--whence come, whither going, and what designing? What did the +poet mean to make of her? What could he have made of her? Could he have +gone on much farther without having had recourse to some of the ordinary +shifts of witch tales? Was she really the daughter of Roland de Vaux, +and would the friends have met again and embraced?... + +We are not amongst those who wish to have "Christabel" finished. It +cannot be finished. The poet has spun all he could without snapping. The +theme is too fine and subtle to bear much extension. It is better as it +is, imperfect as a story, but complete as an exquisite production of the +imagination, differing in form and colour from the "Ancient Mariner," +yet differing in effect from it only so as the same powerful faculty is +directed to the feudal or the mundane phases of the preternatural.... + +It has been impossible to express, in the few pages to which we are +necessarily limited, even a brief opinion upon all those pieces which +might seem to call for notice in an estimate of this author's poetical +genius. We know no writer of modern times whom it would not be easier to +characterize in one page than Coleridge in two. The volumes before us +contain so many integral efforts of imagination, that a distinct notice +of each is indispensable, if we would form a just conclusion upon the +total powers of the man. Wordsworth, Scott, Moore, Byron, Southey, are +incomparably more uniform in the direction of their poetic mind. But if +you look over these volumes for indications of their author's poetic +powers, you find him appearing in at least half a dozen shapes, so +different from each other, that it is in vain to attempt to mass them +together. It cannot indeed be said, that he has ever composed what is +popularly termed a _great_ poem; but he is great in several lines, and +the union of such powers is an essential term in a fair estimate of his +genius. The romantic witchery of the "Christabel," and "Ancient +Mariner," the subtle passion of the love-strains, the lyrical splendour +of the three great odes, the affectionate dignity, thoughtfulness, and +delicacy of the blank verse poems--especially the "Lover's Resolution," +"Frost at Midnight," and that most noble and interesting "Address to Mr. +Wordsworth"--the dramas, the satires, the epigrams--these are so +distinct and so whole in themselves, that they might seem to proceed +from different authors, were it not for that same individualizing power, +that "shaping spirit of imagination" which more or less sensibly runs +through them all. It is the _predominance_ of this power, which, in our +judgment, constitutes the essential difference between Coleridge and any +other of his great contemporaries. He is the most imaginative of the +English poets since Milton. Whatever he writes, be it on the most +trivial subject, be it in the most simple strain, his imagination, _in +spite of himself_, affects it. There never was a better illustrator of +the dogma of the Schoolmen--_in omnem actum intellectualem imaginatio +influit_. We believe we might affirm, that throughout all the mature +original poems in these volumes, there is not one image, the +_expression_ of which does not, in a greater or less degree, +individualize it and appropriate it to the poet's feelings. Tear the +passage out of its place, and nail it down at the head of a chapter of a +modern novel, and it will be like hanging up in a London exhibition-room +a picture painted for the dim light of a cathedral. Sometimes a single +word--an epithet--has the effect to the reader of a Claude Lorraine +glass; it tints without obscuring or disguising the object. The poet has +the same power in conversation. We remember him once settling an +elaborate discussion carried on in his presence, upon the respective +sublimity of Shakespeare and Schiller in Othello and the Robbers, by +saying, "Both are sublime; only Schiller's is the _material_ sublime-- +that's all!" _All_ to be sure; but more than enough to show the whole +difference. And upon another occasion, where the doctrine of the +Sacramentaries and the Roman Catholics on the subject of the Eucharist +was in question, the poet said, "They are both equally wrong; the first +have volatilized the Eucharist into a metaphor--the last have condensed +it into an idol." Such utterance as this flashes light; it supersedes +all argument--it abolishes proof by proving itself. + +We speak of Coleridge, then, as the poet of imagination; and we add, +that he is likewise the poet of thought and verbal harmony. That his +thoughts are sometimes hard and sometimes even obscure, we think must be +admitted; it is an obscurity of which all very subtle thinkers are +occasionally guilty, either by attempting to express evanescent feelings +for which human language is an inadequate vehicle, or by expressing, +however adequately, thoughts and distinctions to which the common reader +is unused. As to the first kind of obscurity, the words serving only as +hieroglyphics to denote a once existing state of mind in the poet, but +not logically inferring what that state was, the reader can only guess +for himself by the context, whether he ever has or not experienced in +himself a corresponding feeling; and, therefore, undoubtedly this is an +obscurity which strict criticism cannot but condemn. But, if an author +be obscure, merely because this or that reader is unaccustomed to the +mode or direction of thinking in which such author's genius makes him +take delight--such a writer must indeed bear the consequence as to +immediate popularity; but he cannot help the consequence, and if he be +worth anything for posterity, he will disregard it. In this sense almost +every great writer, whose natural bent has been to turn the mind upon +itself, is--must be--obscure; for no writer, with such a direction of +intellect, will be great, unless he is individual and original; and if +he is individual and original, then he must, in most cases, himself make +the readers who shall be competent to sympathize with him. + +The English flatter themselves by a pretence that Shakespeare and Milton +are popular in England. It is good taste, indeed, to wish to have it +believed that those poets are popular. Their names are so; but if it be +said that the works of Shakespeare and Milton are popular--that is, +liked and studied--amongst the wide circle whom it is now the fashion to +talk of as enlightened, we are obliged to express our doubts whether a +grosser delusion was ever promulgated. Not a play of Shakespeare's can +be ventured on the London stage without mutilation--and without the most +revolting balderdash foisted into the rents made by managers in his +divine dramas; nay, it is only some three or four of his pieces that can +be borne at all by our all-intelligent public, unless the burthen be +lightened by dancing, singing, or processioning. This for the stage. But +is it otherwise with "the _reading_ public"? We believe it is worse; we +think, verily, that the apprentice or his master who sits out Othello or +Richard at the theatres, does get a sort of glimpse, a touch, an +atmosphere of intellectual grandeur; but he could not keep himself awake +during the perusal of that which he admires--or fancies he admires--in +scenic representation. As to understanding Shakespeare--as to entering +into all Shakespeare's thoughts and feelings--as to seeing the idea of +Hamlet, or Lear, or Othello, as Shakespeare saw it--this we believe +falls, and can only fall, to the lot of the really cultivated few, and +of those who may have so much of the temperament of genius in +themselves, as to comprehend and sympathize with the criticism of men of +genius. Shakespeare is now popular by name, because, in the first place, +great men, more on a level with the rest of mankind, have said that he +is admirable, and also because, in the absolute universality of his +genius, he has presented points to all. Every man, woman, and child, may +pick at least one flower from his garden, the name and scent of which +are familiar. To all which must of course be added, the effect of +theatrical representation, be that representation what it may. There are +tens of thousands of persons in this country whose only acquaintance +with Shakespeare, such as it is, is through the stage. + +We have been talking of the contemporary mass; but this is not all; a +great original writer _of a philosophic turn_--especially a poet--will +almost always have the fashionable world also against him at first, +because he does not give the sort of pleasure expected of him at the +time, and because, not contented with that, he is sure, by precept or +example, to show a contempt for the taste and judgment of the +expectants. He is always, and by the law of his being, an idoloclast. By +and by, after years of abuse or neglect, the aggregate of the single +minds who think for themselves, and have seen the truth and force of his +genius, becomes important; the merits of the poet by degrees constitute +a question for discussion; his works are one by one read; men recognize +a superiority in the abstract, and learn to be modest where before they +had been scornful; the coterie becomes a sect; the sect dilates into a +party; and lo! after a season, no one knows how, the poet's fame is +universal. All this, to the very life, has taken place in this country +within the last twenty years. The noblest philosophical poem since the +time of Lucretius was, within time of short memory, declared to be +intolerable, by one of the most brilliant writers in one of the most +brilliant publications of the day. It always puts us in mind of Waller-- +no mean parallel--who, upon the coming out of the "Paradise Lost," wrote +to the duke of Buckingham, amongst other pretty things, as follows:-- +"Milton, the old blind schoolmaster, has lately written a poem on the +Fall of Man--_remarkable for nothing but its extreme length!_" Our +divine poet asked a fit audience, although it should be but few. His +prayer was heard; a fit audience for the "Paradise Lost" has ever been, +and at this moment must be, a small one, and we cannot affect to believe +that it is destined to be much increased by what is called the march of +intellect. + +Can we lay down the pen without remembering that Coleridge the poet is +but half the name of Coleridge? This, however, is not the place, nor the +time, to discuss in detail his qualities or his exertions as a +psychologist, moralist, and general philosopher. That time may come, +when his system, as a whole, shall be fairly placed before the world, as +we have reason to hope it will soon be; and when the preliminary works-- +the "Friend," the "Lay Sermons," the "Aids to Reflection," and the +"Church and State,"--especially the last two--shall be seen in their +proper relations as preparatory exercises for the reader. His "Church +and State, according to the Idea of Each"--a little book--we cannot help +recommending as a storehouse of grand and immovable principles, bearing +upon some of the most vehemently disputed topics of constitutional +interest in these momentous times. Assuredly this period has not +produced a profounder and more luminous essay. We have heard it asked, +what was the proposed object of Mr. Coleridge's labours as a +metaphysical philosopher? He once answered that question himself, in +language never to be forgotten by those who heard it, and which, +whatever may be conjectured of the probability or even possibility of +its being fully realized, must be allowed to express the completest idea +of a system of philosophy ever yet made public. + +"My system," said he, "if I may venture to give it so fine a name, is +the only attempt that I know, ever made, to reduce all knowledge into +harmony. It opposes no other system, but shows what was true in each; +and how that which was true in the particular in each of them, became +error, _because_ it was only half the truth. I have endeavoured to unite +the insulated fragments of truth, and therewith to frame a perfect +mirror. I show to each system that I fully understand and rightfully +appreciate what that system means; but then I lift up that system to a +higher point of view, from which I enable it to see its former position, +where it was indeed, but under another light and with different +relations,--so that the fragment of truth is not only acknowledged, but +explained. So the old astronomers discovered and maintained much that +was true; but because they were placed on a false ground, and looked +from a wrong point of view, they never did--they never could--discover +the truth--that is, the whole truth. As soon as they left the earth, +their false centre, and took their stand in the sun, immediately they +saw the whole system in its true light, and the former station +remaining--but remaining _as a part_ of the prospect. I wish, in short, +to connect a moral copula, natural history with political history; or, +in other words, to make history scientific, and science historical:--to +take from history its accidentality, and from science its fatalism." + +Whether we shall ever, hereafter, have occasion to advert to any new +poetical efforts of Mr. Coleridge, or not, we cannot say. We wish we had +a reasonable cause to expect it. If not, then this hail and farewell +will have been well made. We conclude with, we believe, the last verses +he has written-- + + _My Baptismal Birth-Day._ + + God's child in Christ adopted,--Christ my all,-- + What that earth boasts were not lost cheaply, rather + Than forfeit the blest name, by which I call + The Holy One, the Almighty God, my Father? + Father! in Christ we live, and Christ in Thee; + Eternal Thou, and everlasting we. + The heir of heaven, henceforth I fear not death: + In Christ I live: in Christ I draw the breath + Of the true life:--Let then earth, sea, and sky + Make war against me! On my heart I show + Their mighty Master's seal. In vain they try + To end my life, that can but end its woe. + Is that a death-bed where a Christian lies? + Yes! but not his--'tis Death itself there dies.--Vol. ii, p. 151. + + + + +SIR WALTER SCOTT ON JANE AUSTEN + + +[From. _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1815] + +_Emma; a Novel_. By the Author of _Sense and Sensibility, Pride and +Prejudice_, etc. 3 vols. 12mo. London. 1815. + +There are some vices in civilized society so common that they are hardly +acknowledged as stains upon the moral character, the propensity to which +is nevertheless carefully concealed, even by those who most frequently +give way to them; since no man of pleasure would willingly assume the +gross epithet of a debauchee or a drunkard. One would almost think that +novel-reading fell under this class of frailties, since among the crowds +who read little else, it is not common to find an individual of +hardihood sufficient to avow his taste for these frivolous studies. A +novel, therefore, is frequently "bread eaten in secret"; and it is not +upon Lydia Languish's toilet alone that Tom Jones and Peregrine Pickle +are to be found ambushed behind works of a more grave and instructive +character. And hence it has happened, that in no branch of composition, +not even in poetry itself, have so many writers, and of such varied +talents, exerted their powers. It may perhaps be added, that although +the composition of these works admits of being exalted and decorated by +the higher exertions of genius; yet such is the universal charm of +narrative, that the worst novel ever written will find some gentle +reader content to yawn over it, rather than to open the page of the +historian, moralist, or poet. We have heard, indeed, of one work of +fiction so unutterably stupid, that the proprietor, diverted by the +rarity of the incident, offered the book, which consisted of two volumes +in duodecimo, handsomely bound, to any person who would declare, upon +his honour, that he had read the whole from beginning to end. But +although this offer was made to the passengers on board an Indiaman, +during a tedious outward-bound voyage, the _Memoirs of Clegg the +Clergyman_ (such was the title of this unhappy composition) completely +baffled the most dull and determined student on board, and bid fair for +an exception to the general rule above-mentioned,--when the love of +glory prevailed with the boatswain, a man of strong and solid parts, to +hazard the attempt, and he actually conquered and carried off the prize! + +The judicious reader will see at once that we have been pleading our own +cause while stating the universal practice, and preparing him for a +display of more general acquaintance with this fascinating department of +literature, than at first sight may seem consistent with the graver +studies to which we are compelled by duty: but in truth, when we +consider how many hours of languor and anxiety, of deserted age and +solitary celibacy, of pain even and poverty, are beguiled by the perusal +of these light volumes, we cannot austerely condemn the source from +which is drawn the alleviation of such a portion of human misery, or +consider the regulation of this department as beneath the sober +consideration of the critic. + +If such apologies may be admitted in judging the labours of ordinary +novelists, it becomes doubly the duty of the critic to treat with +kindness as well as candour works which, like this before us, proclaim a +knowledge of the human heart, with the power and resolution to bring +that knowledge to the service of honour and virtue. The author is +already known to the public by the two novels announced in her title-page, +and both, the last especially, attracted, with justice, an +attention from the public far superior to what is granted to the +ephemeral productions which supply the regular demand of watering-places +and circulating libraries. They belong to a class of fictions which has +arisen almost in our own times, and which draws the characters and +incidents introduced more immediately from the current of ordinary life +than was permitted by the former rules of the novel. In its first +appearance, the novel was the legitimate child of the romance; and +though the manners and general turn of the composition were altered so +as to suit modern times, the author remained fettered by many +peculiarities derived from the original style of romantic fiction. These +may be chiefly traced in the conduct of the narrative, and the tone of +sentiment attributed to the fictitious personages. On the first point, +although + + The talisman and magic wand were broke, + Knights, dwarfs, and genii vanish'd into smoke, + +still the reader expected to peruse a course of adventures of a nature +more interesting and extraordinary than those which occur in his own +life, or that of his next-door neighbours. + +The hero no longer defeated armies by his single sword, clove giants to +the chine, or gained kingdoms. But he was expected to go through perils +by sea and land, to be steeped in poverty, to be tried by temptation, to +be exposed to the alternate vicissitudes of adversity and prosperity, +and his life was a troubled scene of suffering and achievement. Few +novelists, indeed, adventured to deny to the hero his final hour of +tranquillity and happiness, though it was the prevailing fashion never +to relieve him out of his last and most dreadful distress until the +finishing chapters of his history; so that although his prosperity in +the record of his life was short, we were bound to believe it was long +and uninterrupted when the author had done with him. The heroine was +usually condemned to equal hardships and hazards. She was regularly +exposed to being forcibly carried off like a Sabine virgin by some +frantic admirer. And even if she escaped the terrors of masked ruffians, +an insidious ravisher, a cloak wrapped forcibly around her head, and a +coach with the blinds up driving she could not conjecture whither, she +had still her share of wandering, of poverty, of obloquy, of seclusion, +and of imprisonment, and was frequently extended upon a bed of sickness, +and reduced to her last shilling before the author condescended to +shield her from persecution. In all these dread contingencies the mind +of the reader was expected to sympathize, since by incidents so much +beyond the bounds of his ordinary experience, his wonder and interest +ought at once to be excited. But gradually he became familiar with the +land of fiction, the adventures of which he assimilated not with those +of real life, but with each other. Let the distress of the hero or +heroine be ever so great, the reader reposed an imperturbable confidence +in the talents of the author, who, as he had plunged them into distress, +would in his own good time, and when things, as Tony Lumkin says, were +in a concatenation accordingly, bring his favourites out of all their +troubles. Mr. Crabbe has expressed his own and our feelings excellently +on this subject. + + For should we grant these beauties all endure + Severest pangs, they've still the speediest cure; + Before one charm be withered from the face, + Except the bloom which shall again have place, + In wedlock ends each wish, in triumph all disgrace. + And life to come, we fairly may suppose, + One light bright contrast to these wild dark woes. + +In short, the author of novels was, in former times, expected to tread +pretty much in the limits between the concentric circles of probability +and possibility; and as he was not permitted to transgress the latter, +his narrative, to make amends, almost always went beyond the bounds of +the former. Now, although it may be urged that the vicissitudes of human +life have occasionally led an individual through as many scenes of +singular fortune as are represented in the most extravagant of these +fictions, still the causes and personages acting on these changes have +varied with the progress of the adventurer's fortune, and do not present +that combined plot, (the object of every skilful novelist), in which all +the more interesting individuals of the dramatis personae have their +appropriate share in the action and in bringing about the catastrophe. +Here, even more than in its various and violent changes of fortune, +rests the improbability of the novel. The life of man rolls forth like a +stream from the fountain, or it spreads out into tranquillity like a +placid or stagnant lake. In the latter case, the individual grows old +among the characters with whom he was born, and is contemporary,--shares +precisely the sort of weal and woe to which his birth destined him,-- +moves in the same circle,--and, allowing for the change of seasons, is +influenced by, and influences the same class of persons by which he was +originally surrounded. The man of mark and of adventure, on the +contrary, resembles, in the course of his life, the river whose +mid-current and discharge into the ocean are widely removed from each +other, as well as from the rocks and wild flowers which its fountains +first reflected; violent changes of time, of place, and of circumstances, +hurry him forward from one scene to another, and his adventures will +usually be found only connected with each other because they have +happened to the same individual. Such a history resembles an ingenious, +fictitious narrative, exactly in the degree in which an old dramatic +chronicle of the life and death of some distinguished character, where +all the various agents appear and disappear as in the page of history, +approaches a regular drama, in which every person introduced plays an +appropriate part, and every point of the action tends to one common +catastrophe. + +We return to the second broad line of distinction between the novel, as +formerly composed, and real life,--the difference, namely, of the +sentiments. The novelist professed to give an imitation of nature, but +it was, as the French say, _la belle nature_. Human beings, indeed, were +presented, but in the most sentimental mood, and with minds purified by +a sensibility which often verged on extravagance. In the serious class +of novels, the hero was usually + + A knight of love, who never broke a vow. + +And although, in those of a more humorous cast, he was permitted a +licence, borrowed either from real life or from the libertinism of the +drama, still a distinction was demanded even from Peregrine Pickle, or +Tom Jones; and the hero, in every folly of which he might be guilty, was +studiously vindicated from the charge of infidelity of the heart. The +heroine was, of course, still more immaculate; and to have conferred her +affections upon any other than the lover to whom the reader had destined +her from their first meeting, would have been a crime against sentiment +which no author, of moderate prudence, would have hazarded, under the +old _régime_. + +Here, therefore, we have two essentials and important circumstances, in +which the earlier novels differed from those now in fashion, and were +more nearly assimilated to the old romances. And there can be no doubt +that, by the studied involution and extrication of the story, by the +combination of incidents new, striking and wonderful beyond the course +of ordinary life, the former authors opened that obvious and strong +sense of interest which arises from curiosity; as by the pure, elevated, +and romantic cast of the sentiment, they conciliated those better +propensities of our nature which loves to contemplate the picture of +virtue, even when confessedly unable to imitate its excellences. + +But strong and powerful as these sources of emotion and interest may be, +they are, like all others, capable of being exhausted by habit. The +imitators who rushed in crowds upon each path in which the great masters +of the art had successively led the way, produced upon the public mind +the usual effect of satiety. The first writer of a new class is, as it +were, placed on a pinnacle of excellence, to which, at the earliest +glance of a surprised admirer, his ascent seems little less than +miraculous. Time and imitation speedily diminish the wonder, and each +successive attempt establishes a kind of progressive scale of ascent +between the lately deified author, and the reader, who had deemed his +excellence inaccessible. The stupidity, the mediocrity, the merit of his +imitators, are alike fatal to the first inventor, by showing how +possible it is to exaggerate his faults and to come within a certain +point of his beauties. + +Materials also (and the man of genius as well as his wretched imitator +must work with the same) become stale and familiar. Social life, in our +civilized days, affords few instances capable of being painted in the +strong dark colours which excite surprise and horror; and robbers, +smugglers, bailiffs, caverns, dungeons, and mad-houses, have been all +introduced until they ceased to interest. And thus in the novel, as in +every style of composition which appeals to the public taste, the more +rich and easily worked mines being exhausted, the adventurous author +must, if he is desirous of success, have recourse to those which were +disdained by his predecessors as unproductive, or avoided as only +capable of being turned to profit by great skill and labour. + +Accordingly a style of novel has arisen, within the last fifteen or +twenty years, differing from the former in the points upon which the +interest hinges; neither alarming our credulity nor amusing our +imagination by wild variety of incident, or by those pictures of +romantic affection and sensibility, which were formerly as certain +attributes of fictitious characters as they are of rare occurrence among +those who actually live and die. The substitute for these excitements, +which had lost much of their poignancy by the repeated and injudicious +use of them, was the art of copying from nature as she really exists in +the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the +splendid scenes of an imaginary world, a correct and striking +representation of that which is daily taking place around him. + +In adventuring upon this task, the author makes obvious sacrifices, and +encounters peculiar difficulty. He who paints from _le beau idéal_, if +his scenes and sentiments are striking and interesting, is in a great +measure exempted from the difficult task of reconciling them with the +ordinary probabilities of life: but he who paints a scene of common +occurrence, places his composition within that extensive range of +criticism which general experience offers to every reader. The +resemblance of a statue of Hercules we must take on the artist's +judgment; but every one can criticize that which is presented as the +portrait of a friend, or neighbour. Something more than a mere sign-post +likeness is also demanded. The portrait must have spirit and character, +as well as resemblance; and being deprived of all that, according to +Bayes, goes "to elevate and surprize," it must make amends by displaying +depth of knowledge and dexterity of execution. We, therefore, bestow no +mean compliment upon the author of _Emma_, when we say that, keeping +close to common incidents, and to such characters as occupy the ordinary +walks of life, she has produced sketches of such spirit and originality, +that we never miss the excitation which depends upon a narrative of +uncommon events, arising from the consideration of minds, manners and +sentiments, greatly above our own. In this class she stands almost +alone; for the scenes of Miss Edgeworth are laid in higher life, varied +by more romantic incident, and by her remarkable power of embodying and +illustrating national character. But the author of _Emma_ confines +herself chiefly to the middling classes of society; her most +distinguished characters do not rise greatly above well-bred country +gentlemen and ladies; and those which are sketched with most originality +and precision, belong to a class rather below that standard. The +narrative of all her novels is composed of such common occurrences as +may have fallen under the observation of most folks; and her dramatis +personae conduct themselves upon the motives and principles which the +readers may recognize as ruling their own and that of most of their +acquaintances. The kind of moral, also, which these novels inculcate, +applies equally to the paths of common life, as will best appear from a +short notice of the author's former works, with a more full abstract of +that which we at present have under consideration. + +_Sense and Sensibility_, the first of these compositions, contains the +history of two sisters. The elder, a young lady of prudence and +regulated feelings, becomes gradually attached to a man of an excellent +heart and limited talents, who happens unfortunately to be fettered by a +rash and ill-assorted engagement. In the younger sister, the influence +of sensibility and imagination predominates; and she, as was to be +expected, also falls in love, but with more unbridled and wilful +passion. Her lover, gifted with all the qualities of exterior polish and +vivacity, proves faithless, and marries a woman of large fortune. The +interest and merit of the piece depend altogether upon the behaviour of +the elder sister, while obliged at once to sustain her own +disappointment with fortitude, and to support her sister, who abandons +herself, with unsuppressed feelings, to the indulgence of grief. The +marriage of the unworthy rival at length relieves her own lover from his +imprudent engagement, while her sister, turned wise by precept, example, +and experience, transfers her affection to a very respectable and +somewhat too serious admirer, who had nourished an unsuccessful passion +through the three volumes. + +In _Pride and Prejudice_ the author presents us with a family of young +women, bred up under a foolish and vulgar mother, and a father whose +good abilities lay hid under such a load of indolence and insensibility, +that he had become contented to make the foibles and follies of his wife +and daughters the subject of dry and humorous sarcasm, rather than of +admonition, or restraint. This is one of the portraits from ordinary +life which shews our author's talents in a very strong point of view. A +friend of ours, whom the author never saw or heard of, was at once +recognized by his own family as the original of Mr. Bennet, and we do +not know if he has yet got rid of the nickname. A Mr. Collins, too, a +formal, conceited, yet servile young sprig of divinity, is drawn with +the same force and precision. The story of the piece consists chiefly in +the fates of the second sister, to whom a man of high birth, large +fortune, but haughty and reserved manners, becomes attached, in spite of +the discredit thrown upon the object of his affection by the vulgarity +and ill-conduct of her relations. The lady, on the contrary, hurt at the +contempt of her connections, which the lover does not even attempt to +suppress, and prejudiced against him on other accounts, refuses the hand +which he ungraciously offers, and does not perceive that she has done a +foolish thing until she accidentally visits a very handsome seat and +grounds belonging to her admirer. They chance to meet exactly as her +prudence had begun to subdue her prejudice; and after some essential +services rendered to her family, the lover becomes encouraged to renew +his addresses, and the novel ends happily. + +_Emma_ has even less story than either of the preceding novels. Miss +Emma Woodhouse, from whom the book takes its name, is the daughter of a +gentleman of wealth and consequence residing at his seat in the +immediate vicinage of a country village called Highbury. The father, a +good-natured, silly valetudinary, abandons the management of his +household to Emma, he himself being only occupied by his summer and +winter walk, his apothecary, his gruel, and his whist table. The latter +is supplied from the neighbouring village of Highbury with precisely the +sort of persons who occupy the vacant corners of a regular whist table, +when a village is in the neighbourhood, and better cannot be found +within the family. We have the smiling and courteous vicar, who +nourishes the ambitious hope of obtaining Miss Woodhouse's hand. We have +Mrs. Bates, the wife of a former rector, past everything but tea and +whist; her daughter, Miss Bates, a good-natured, vulgar, and foolish old +maid; Mr. Weston, a gentleman of a frank disposition and moderate +fortune, in the vicinity, and his wife an amiable and accomplished +person, who had been Emma's governess, and is devotedly attached to her. +Amongst all these personages, Miss Woodhouse walks forth, the princess +paramount, superior to all her companions in wit, beauty, fortune, and +accomplishments, doated upon by her father and the Westons, admired, and +almost worshipped by the more humble companions of the whist table. The +object of most young ladies is, or at least is usually supposed to be, a +desirable connection in marriage. But Emma Woodhouse, either +anticipating the taste of a later period of life, or, like a good +sovereign, preferring the weal of her subjects of Highbury to her own +private interest, sets generously about making matches for her friends +without thinking of matrimony on her own account. We are informed that +she had been eminently successful in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Weston; +and when the novel commences she is exerting her influence in favour of +Miss Harriet Smith, a boarding-school girl without family or fortune, +very good humoured, very pretty, very silly, and, what suited Miss +Woodhouse's purpose best of all, very much disposed to be married. + +In these conjugal machinations Emma is frequently interrupted, not only +by the cautions of her father, who had a particular objection to any +body committing the rash act of matrimony, but also by the sturdy +reproof and remonstrances of Mr. Knightley, the elder brother of her +sister's husband, a sensible country gentleman of thirty-five, who had +known Emma from her cradle, and was the only person who ventured to find +fault with her. In spite, however, of his censure and warning, Emma lays +a plan of marrying Harriet Smith to the vicar; and though she succeeds +perfectly in diverting her simple friend's thoughts from an honest +farmer who had made her a very suitable offer, and in flattering her +into a passion for Mr. Elton, yet, on the other hand, that conceited +divine totally mistakes the nature of the encouragement held out to him, +and attributes the favour which he found in Miss Woodhouse's eyes to a +lurking affection on her own part. This at length encourages him to a +presumptuous declaration of his sentiments; upon receiving a repulse, he +looks abroad elsewhere, and enriches the Highbury society by uniting +himself to a dashing young woman with as many thousands as are usually +called ten, and a corresponding quantity of presumption and ill +breeding. + +While Emma is thus vainly engaged in forging wedlock-fetters for others, +her friends have views of the same kind upon her, in favour of a son of +Mr. Weston by a former marriage, who bears the name, lives under the +patronage, and is to inherit the fortune of a rich uncle. Unfortunately +Mr. Frank Churchill had already settled his affections on Miss Jane +Fairfax, a young lady of reduced fortune; but as this was a concealed +affair, Emma, when Mr. Churchill first appears on the stage, has some +thoughts of being in love with him herself; speedily, however, +recovering from that dangerous propensity, she is disposed to confer him +upon her deserted friend Harriet Smith. Harriet has in the interim, +fallen desperately in love with Mr. Knightley, the sturdy, advice-giving +bachelor; and, as all the village supposes Frank Churchill and Emma to +be attached to each other, there are cross purposes enough (were the +novel of a more romantic cast) for cutting half the men's throats and +breaking all the women's hearts. But at Highbury Cupid walks decorously, +and with good discretion, bearing his torch under a lanthorn, instead of +flourishing it around to set the house on fire. All these entanglements +bring on only a train of mistakes and embarrassing situations, and +dialogues at balls and parties of pleasure, in which the author displays +her peculiar powers of humour and knowledge of human life. The plot is +extricated with great simplicity. The aunt of Frank Churchill dies; his +uncle, no longer under her baneful influence, consents to his marriage +with Jane Fairfax. Mr. Knightley and Emma are led, by this unexpected +incident, to discover that they had been in love with each other all +along. Mr. Woodhouse's objections to the marriage of his daughter are +overpowered by the fears of house-breakers, and the comfort which he +hopes to derive from having a stout son-in-law resident in the family; +and the facile affections of Harriet Smith are transferred, like a bank +bill by indorsation, to her former suitor, the honest farmer, who had +obtained a favourable opportunity of renewing his addresses. Such is the +simple plan of a story which we peruse with pleasure, if not with deep +interest, and which perhaps we might more willingly resume than one of +those narratives where the attention is strongly riveted, during the +first perusal, by the powerful excitement of curiosity. + +The author's knowledge of the world, and the peculiar tact with which +she presents characters that the reader cannot fail to recognize, +reminds us something of the merits of the Flemish school of painting. +The subjects are not often elegant, and certainly never grand; but they +are finished up to nature, and with a precision which delights the +reader. This is a merit which it is very difficult to illustrate by +extracts, because it pervades the whole work, and is not to be +comprehended from a single passage. The following is a dialogue between +Mr. Woodhouse, and his elder daughter Isabella, who shares his anxiety +about health, and has, like her father, a favourite apothecary. The +reader must be informed that this lady, with her husband, a sensible, +peremptory sort of person, had come to spend a week with her father. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps the reader may collect from the preceding specimen both the +merits and faults of the author. The former consists much in the force +of a narrative conducted with much neatness and point, and a quiet yet +comic dialogue, in which the characters of the speakers evolve +themselves with dramatic effect. The faults, on the contrary, arise from +the minute detail which the author's plan comprehends. Characters of +folly or simplicity, such as those of old Woodhouse and Miss Bates, are +ridiculous when first presented, but if too often brought forward or too +long dwelt upon, their prosing is apt to become as tiresome in fiction +as in real society. Upon the whole, the turn of this author's novels +bears the same relation to that of the sentimental and romantic cast, +that cornfields and cottages and meadows bear to the highly adorned +grounds of a show mansion, or the rugged sublimities of a mountain +landscape. It is neither so captivating as the one, nor so grand as the +other, but it affords to those who frequent it a pleasure nearly allied +with the experience of their own social habits; and what is of some +importance, the youthful wanderer may return from his promenade to the +ordinary business of life, without any chance of having his head turned +by the recollection of the scene through which he has been wandering. + +One word, however, we must say in behalf of that once powerful divinity, +Cupid, king of gods and men, who in these times of revolution, has been +assailed, even in his own kingdom of romance, by the authors who were +formerly his devoted priests. We are quite aware that there are few +instances of first attachment being brought to a happy conclusion, and +that it seldom can be so in a state of society so highly advanced as to +render early marriages among the better class, acts, generally speaking, +of imprudence. But the youth of this realm need not at present be taught +the doctrine of selfishness. It is by no means their error to give the +world or the good things of the world all for love; and before the +authors of moral fiction couple Cupid indivisibly with calculating +prudence, we would have them reflect, that they may sometimes lend their +aid to substitute more mean, more sordid, and more selfish motives of +conduct, for the romantic feelings which their predecessors perhaps +fanned into too powerful a flame. Who is it, that in his youth has felt +a virtuous attachment, however romantic or however unfortunate, but can +trace back to its influence much that his character may possess of what +is honourable, dignified, and disinterested? If he recollects hours +wasted in unavailing hope, or saddened by doubt and disappointment; he +may also dwell on many which have been snatched from folly or +libertinism, and dedicated to studies which might render him worthy of +the object of his affection, or pave the way perhaps to that distinction +necessary to raise him to an equality with her. Even the habitual +indulgence of feelings totally unconnected with ourself and our own +immediate interest, softens, graces, and amends the human mind; and +after the pain of disappointment is past, those who survive (and by good +fortune those are the greater number) are neither less wise nor less +worthy members of society for having felt, for a time, the influence of +a passion which has been well qualified as the "tenderest, noblest and +best." + + + + +ARCHBISHOP WHATELY ON +JANE AUSTEN + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1821] + +_Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion_. By the Author of _Sense and +Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park_, and _Emma_. 4 vols. +New Edition. + +The times seem to be past when an apology was requisite from reviewers +for condescending to notice a novel; when they felt themselves bound in +dignity to deprecate the suspicion of paying much regard to such +trifles, and pleaded the necessity of occasionally stooping to humour +the taste of their fair readers. The delights of fiction, if not more +keenly or more generally relished, are at least more readily +acknowledged by men of sense and taste; and we have lived to hear the +merits of the best of this class of writings earnestly discussed by some +of the ablest scholars and soundest reasoners of the present day. + +We are inclined to attribute this change, not so much to an alteration +in the public taste, as in the character of the productions in question. +Novels may not, perhaps, display more genius now than formerly, but they +contain more solid sense; they may not afford higher gratification, but +it is of a nature which men are less disposed to be ashamed of avowing. +We remarked, in a former Number, in reviewing a work of the author now +before us, that "a new style of novel has arisen, within the last +fifteen or twenty years, differing from the former in the points upon +which the interest hinges; neither alarming our credulity nor amusing +our imagination by wild variety of incident, or by those pictures of +romantic affection and sensibility, which were formerly as certain +attributes of fictitious characters as they are of rare occurrence among +those who actually live and die. The substitute for these excitements, +which had lost much of their poignancy by the repeated and injudicious +use of them, was the art of copying from nature as she really exists in +the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the +splendid scenes of an imaginary world, a correct and striking +representation of that which is daily taking place around him." + +Now, though the origin of this new school of fiction may probably be +traced, as we there suggested, to the exhaustion of the mines from which +materials for entertainment had been hitherto extracted, and the +necessity of gratifying the natural craving of the reader for variety, +by striking into an untrodden path; the consequences resulting from this +change have been far greater than the mere supply of this demand. When +this Flemish painting, as it were, is introduced--this accurate and +unexaggerated delineation of events and characters--it necessarily +follows, that a novel, which makes good its pretensions of giving a +perfectly correct picture of common life, becomes a far more +_instructive_ work than one of equal or superior merit of the other +class; it guides the judgment, and supplies a kind of artificial +experience. It is a remark of the great father of criticism, that poetry +(_i.e._, narrative, and dramatic poetry) is of a more philosophical +character than history; inasmuch as the latter details what has actually +happened, of which many parts may chance to be exceptions to the general +rules of probability, and consequently illustrate no general principles; +whereas the former shews us what must naturally, or would probably, +happen under given circumstances; and thus displays to us a +comprehensive view of human nature, and furnishes general rules of +practical wisdom. It is evident, that this will apply only to such +fictions as are quite _perfect_ in respect of the probability of their +story; and that he, therefore, who resorts to the fabulist rather than +the historian, for instruction in human character and conduct, must +throw himself entirely on the judgment and skill of his teacher, and +give him credit for talents much more rare than the accuracy and +veracity which are the chief requisites in history. We fear, therefore, +that the exultation which we can conceive some of our gentle readers to +feel, at having Aristotle's warrant for (what probably they had never +dreamed of) the _philosophical character_ of their studies, must, in +practice, be somewhat qualified, by those sundry little violations of +probability which are to be met with in most novels; and which so far +lower their value, as models of real life, that a person who had no +other preparation for the world than is afforded by them, would form, +probably, a less accurate idea of things as they are, than he would of a +lion from studying merely the representations on China tea-pots. + +Accordingly, a heavy complaint has long lain against works of fiction, +as giving a false picture of what they profess to imitate, and +disqualifying their readers for the ordinary scenes and everyday duties +of life. And this charge applies, we apprehend, to the generality of +what are strictly called novels, with even more justice than to +romances. When all the characters and events are very far removed from +what we see around us,--when, perhaps, even supernatural agents are +introduced, the reader may indulge, indeed, in occasional day-dreams, +but will be so little reminded by what he has been reading, of anything +that occurs in actual life, that though he may perhaps feel some +disrelish for the tameness of the scene before him, compared with the +fairy-land he has been visiting, yet at least his judgment will not be +depraved, nor his expectations misled; he will not apprehend a meeting +with Algerine banditti on English shores, nor regard the old woman who +shews him about an antique country seat, as either an enchantress or the +keeper of an imprisoned damsel. But it is otherwise with those fictions +which differ from common life in little or nothing but the improbability +of the occurrences: the reader is insensibly led to calculate upon some +of those lucky incidents and opportune coincidences of which he has been +so much accustomed to read, and which, it is undeniable, _may_ take +place in real life; and to feel a sort of confidence, that however +romantic his conduct may be, and in whatever difficulties it may involve +him, all will be sure to come right at last, as is invariably the case +with the hero of a novel. + +On the other hand, so far as these pernicious effects fail to be +produced, so far does the example lose its influence, and the exercise +of poetical justice is rendered vain. The reward of virtuous conduct +being brought about by fortunate accidents, he who abstains (taught, +perhaps, by bitter disappointments) from reckoning on such accidents, +wants that encouragement to virtue, which alone has been held out to +him. "If I were _a man in a novel_," we remember to have heard an +ingenious friend observe, "I should certainly act so and so, because I +should be sure of being no loser by the most heroic self-devotion and of +ultimately succeeding in the most daring enterprises." + +It may be said, in answer, that these objections apply only to the +_unskilful_ novelist, who, from ignorance of the world, gives an +unnatural representation of what he professes to delineate. This is +partly true, and partly not; for there is a distinction to be made +between the _unnatural_ and the merely _improbable_: a fiction is +unnatural when there is some assignable reason against the events taking +place as described,--when men are represented as acting contrary to the +character assigned them, or to human nature in general; as when a young +lady of seventeen, brought up in ease, luxury and retirement, with no +companions but the narrow-minded and illiterate, displays (as a heroine +usually does) under the most trying circumstances, such wisdom, +fortitude, and knowledge of the world, as the best instructors and the +best examples can rarely produce without the aid of more mature age and +longer experience.--On the other hand, a fiction is still _improbable_, +though _not unnatural_, when there is no reason to be assigned why +things should not take place as represented, except that the +_overbalance of chances is_ against it; the hero meets, in his utmost +distress, most opportunely, with the very person to whom he had formerly +done a signal service, and who happens to communicate to him a piece of +intelligence which sets all to rights. Why should he not meet him as +well as any one else? all that can be said is, that there is no reason +why he should. The infant who is saved from a wreck, and who afterwards +becomes such a constellation of virtues and accomplishments, turns out +to be no other than the nephew of the very gentleman, on whose estate +the waves had cast him, and whose lovely daughter he had so long sighed +for in vain: there is no reason to be given, except from the calculation +of chances, why he should not have been thrown on one part of the coast +as well as another. Nay, it would be nothing unnatural, though the most +determined novel-reader would be shocked at its improbability, if all +the hero's enemies, while they were conspiring his ruin were to be +struck dead together by a lucky flash of lightning: yet many denouements +which _are_ decidedly unnatural, are better tolerated than this would +be. We shall, perhaps, best explain our meaning by examples, taken from +a novel of great merit in many respects. When Lord Glenthorn, in whom a +most unfavourable education has acted on a most unfavourable +disposition, after a life of torpor, broken only by short sallies of +forced exertion, on a sudden reverse of fortune, displays at once the +most persevering diligence in the most repulsive studies, and in middle +life, without any previous habits of exertion, any hope of early +business, or the example of friends, or the stimulus of actual want, to +urge him, outstrips every competitor, though every competitor has every +advantage against him; this is unnatural.--When Lord Glenthorn, the +instant he is stripped of his estates, meets, falls in love with, and is +conditionally accepted by the very lady who is remotely intitled to +those estates; when, the instant he has fulfilled the conditions of +their marriage, the family of the person possessed of the estates +becomes extinct, and by the concurrence of circumstances, against every +one of which the chances were enormous, the hero is re-instated in all +his old domains; this is merely improbable. The distinction which we +have been pointing out may be plainly perceived in the events of real +life; when any thing takes place of such a nature as we should call, in +a fiction, merely improbable, because there are many chances against it, +we call it a lucky or unlucky accident, a singular coincidence, +something very extraordinary, odd, curious, etc.; whereas any thing +which, in a fiction, would be called unnatural, when it actually occurs +(and such things do occur), is still called unnatural, inexplicable, +unaccountable, inconceivable, etc., epithets which are not applied to +events that have merely the balance of chances against them. + +Now, though an author who understands human nature is not likely to +introduce into his fictions any thing that is unnatural, he will often +have much that is improbable: he may place his personages, by the +intervention of accident, in striking situations, and lead them through +a course of extraordinary adventures; and yet, in the midst of all this, +he will keep up the most perfect consistency of character, and make them +act as it would be natural for men to act in such situations and +circumstances. Fielding's novels are a good illustration of this: they +display great knowledge of mankind; the characters are well preserved; +the persons introduced all act as one would naturally expect they +should, in the circumstances in which they are placed; but these +circumstances are such as it is incalculably improbable should ever +exist: several of the events, taken singly, are much against the chances +of probability; but the combination of the whole in a connected series, +is next to impossible. Even the romances which admit a mixture of +supernatural agency, are not more unfit to prepare men for real life, +than such novels as these; since one might just as reasonably calculate +on the intervention of a fairy, as on the train of lucky chances which +combine first to involve Tom Jones in his difficulties, and afterwards +to extricate him. Perhaps, indeed, the supernatural fable is of the two +not only (as we before remarked) the less mischievous in its moral +effects, but also the more correct kind of composition in point of +taste: the author lays down a kind of hypothesis of the existence of +ghosts, witches, or fairies, and professes to describe what would take +place under that hypothesis; the novelist, on the contrary, makes no +demand of extraordinary machinery, but professes to describe what may +actually take place, according to the existing laws of human affairs: if +he therefore present us with a series of events quite unlike any which +ever do take place, we have reason to complain that he has not made good +his professions. + +When, therefore, the generality, even of the most approved novels, were +of this character (to say nothing of the heavier charges brought, of +inflaming the passions of young persons by warm descriptions, weakening +their abhorrence of profligacy by exhibiting it in combination with the +most engaging qualities, and presenting vice in all its allurements, +while setting forth the triumphs of "virtue rewarded") it is not to be +wondered that the grave guardians of youth should have generally +stigmatized the whole class, as "serving only to fill young people's +heads with romantic love-stories, and rendering them unfit to mind +anything else." That this censure and caution should in many instances +be indiscriminate, can surprize no one, who recollects how rare a +quality discrimination is; and how much better it suits indolence, as +well as ignorance, to lay down a rule, than to ascertain the exceptions +to it: we are acquainted with a careful mother whose daughters while +they never in their lives read a _novel_ of any kind, are permitted to +peruse, without reserve, any _plays_ that happen to fall in their way; +and with another, from whom no lessons, however excellent, of wisdom and +piety, contained in a _prose-fiction,_ can obtain quarter; but who, on +the other hand, is no less indiscriminately indulgent to her children in +the article of tales in _verse_, of whatever character. + +The change, however, which we have already noticed, as having taken +place in the character of several modern novels, has operated in a +considerable degree to do away this prejudice; and has elevated this +species of composition, in some respects at least, into a much higher +class. For most of that instruction which used to be presented to the +world in the shape of formal dissertations, or shorter and more +desultory moral essays, such as those of the _Spectator_ and _Rambler_, +we may now resort to the pages of the acute and judicious, but not less +amusing, novelists who have lately appeared. If their views of men and +manners are no less just than those of the essayists who preceded them, +are they to be rated lower because they present to us these views, not +in the language of general description, but in the form of +well-constructed fictitious narrative? If the practical lessons they +inculcate are no less sound and useful, it is surely no diminution of +their merit that they are conveyed by example instead of precept: nor, +if their remarks are neither less wise nor less important, are they the +less valuable for being represented as thrown out in the course of +conversations suggested by the circumstances of the speakers, and +perfectly in character. The praise and blame of the moralist are surely +not the less effectual for being bestowed, not in general declamation, +on classes of men, but on individuals representing those classes, who +are so clearly delineated and brought into action before us, that we +seem to be acquainted with them, and feel an interest in their fate. + +Biography is allowed, on all hands, to be one of the most attractive and +profitable kinds of reading: now such novels as we have been speaking +of, being a kind of fictitious biography, bear the same relation to the +real, that epic and tragic poetry, according to Aristotle, bear to +history: they present us (supposing, of course, each perfect in its +kind) with the general, instead of the particular,--the probable, +instead of the true; and, by leaving out those accidental +irregularities, and exceptions to general rules, which constitute the +many improbabilities of real narrative, present us with a clear and +_abstracted_ view of the general rules themselves; and thus concentrate, +as it were, into a small compass, the net result of wide experience. + +Among the authors of this school there is no one superior, if equal, to +the lady whose last production is now before us, and whom we have much +regret in finally taking leave of: her death (in the prime of life, +considered as a writer) being announced in this the first publication to +which her name is prefixed. We regret the failure not only of a source +of innocent amusement, but also of that supply of practical good sense +and instructive example, which she would probably have continued to +furnish better than any of her contemporaries:--Miss Edgeworth, indeed, +draws characters and details conversations, such as they occur in real +life, with a spirit and fidelity not to be surpassed; but her stories +are most romantically improbable (in the sense above explained), almost +all the important events of them being brought about by most +_providential_ coincidences; and this, as we have already remarked, is +not merely faulty, inasmuch as it evinces a want of skill in the writer, +and gives an air of clumsiness to the fiction, but is a very +considerable drawback on its practical utility: the personages either of +fiction or history being then only profitable examples, when their good +or ill conduct meets its appropriate reward, not from a sort of +independent machinery of accidents, but as a necessary or probable +result, according to the ordinary course of affairs. Miss Edgeworth also +is somewhat too avowedly didactic: that seems to be true of her, which +the French critics, in the extravagance of their conceits, attributed to +Homer and Virgil; viz., that they first thought of a moral, and then +framed a fable to illustrate it; she would, we think, instruct more +successfully, and she would, we are sure, please more frequently, if she +kept the design of teaching more out of sight, and did not so glaringly +press every circumstance of her story, principal or subordinate, into +the service of a principle to be inculcated, or information to be given. +A certain portion of moral instruction must accompany every +well-invented narrative. Virtue must be represented as producing, at the +long run, happiness; and vice, misery; and the accidental events, that +in +real life interrupt this tendency, are anomalies which, though true +individually, are as false generally as the accidental deformities which +vary the average outline of the human figure. They would be as much out +of place in a fictitious narrative, as a wen in an academic model. But +any _direct_ attempt at moral teaching, and any attempt whatever to give +scientific information will, we fear, unless managed with the utmost +discretion, interfere with what, after all, is the immediate and +peculiar object of the novelist, as of the poet, _to please_. If +instruction do not join as a volunteer, she will do no good service. +Miss Edgeworth's novels put us in mind of those clocks and watches which +are condemned "a double or a treble debt to pay": which, besides their +legitimate object, to show the hour, tell you the day of the month or +the week, give you a landscape for a dial-plate, with the second hand +forming the sails of a windmill, or have a barrel to play a tune, or an +alarum to remind you of an engagement: all very good things in their +way; but so it is that these watches never tell the time so well as +those in which that is the exclusive object of the maker. Every +additional movement is an obstacle to the original design. We do not +deny that we have learned much physic, and much law, from _Patronage_, +particularly the latter, for Miss Edgeworth's law is of a very original +kind; but it was not to learn law and physic that we took up the book, +and we suspect we should have been more pleased if we had been less +taught. With regard to the influence of religion, which is scarcely, if +at all, alluded to in Miss Edgeworth's novels, we would abstain from +pronouncing any decision which should apply to her personally. She may, +for aught we know, entertain opinions which would not permit her, with +consistency, to attribute more to it than she has done; in that case she +stands acquitted, in _foro conscientiae_, of wilfully suppressing any +thing which she acknowledges to be true and important; but, as a writer, +it must still be considered as a blemish, in the eyes at least of those +who think differently, that virtue should be studiously inculcated with +scarcely any reference to what they regard as the main spring of it; +that vice should be traced to every other source except the want of +religious principle; that the most radical change from worthlessness to +excellence should be represented as wholly independent of that agent +which they consider as the only one that can accomplish it; and that +consolation under affliction should be represented as derived from every +source except the one which they look to as the only true and sure one: +"is it not because there is no God in Israel that ye have sent to +inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron?" + +Miss Austin has the merit (in our judgment most essential) of being +evidently a Christian writer: a merit which is much enhanced, both on +the score of good taste, and of practical utility, by her religion being +not at all obtrusive. She might defy the most fastidious critic to call +any of her novels (as _Caelebs_ was designated, we will not say +altogether without reason), a "dramatic sermon." The subject is rather +alluded to, and that incidentally, than studiously brought forward and +dwelt upon. In fact she is more sparing of it than would be thought +desirable by some persons; perhaps even by herself, had she consulted +merely her own sentiments; but she probably introduced it as far as she +thought would be generally acceptable and profitable: for when the +purpose of inculcating a religious principle is made too palpably +prominent, many readers, if they do not throw aside the book with +disgust, are apt to fortify themselves with that respectful kind of +apathy with which they undergo a regular sermon, and prepare themselves +as they do to swallow a dose of medicine, endeavouring to _get it down_ +in large gulps, without tasting it more than is necessary. + +The moral lessons also of this lady's novels, though clearly and +impressively conveyed, are not offensively put forward, but spring +incidentally from the circumstances of the story; they are not forced +upon the reader, but he is left to collect them (though without any +difficulty) for himself: hers is that unpretending kind of instruction +which is furnished by real life; and certainly no author has ever +conformed more closely to real life, as well in the incidents, as in the +characters and descriptions. Her fables appear to us to be, in their own +way, nearly faultless; they do not consist (like those of some of the +writers who have attempted this kind of common-life novel writing) of a +string of unconnected events which have little or no bearing on one main +plot, and are introduced evidently for the sole purpose of bringing in +characters and conversations; but have all that compactness of plan and +unity of action which is generally produced by a sacrifice of +probability: yet they have little or nothing that is not probable; the +story proceeds without the aid of extraordinary accidents; the events +which take place are the necessary or natural consequences of what has +preceded; and yet (which is a very rare merit indeed) the final +catastrophe is scarcely ever clearly foreseen from the beginning, and +very often comes, upon the generality of readers at least, quite +unexpected. We know not whether Miss Austin ever had access to the +precepts of Aristotle; but there are few, if any, writers of fiction who +have illustrated them more successfully. + +The vivid distinctness of description, the minute fidelity of detail, +and air of unstudied ease in the scenes represented, which are no less +necessary than probability of incident, to carry the reader's +imagination along with the story, and give fiction the perfect +appearance of reality, she possesses in a high degree; and the object is +accomplished without resorting to those deviations from the ordinary +plan of narrative in the third person, which have been patronized by +some eminent masters. We allude to the two other methods of conducting a +fictitious story, viz., either by narrative in the first person, when +the hero is made to tell his own tale, or by a series of letters; both +of which we conceive have been adopted with a view of heightening the +resemblance of the fiction to reality. At first sight, indeed, there +might appear no reason why a story told in the first person should have +more the air of a real history than in the third; especially as the +majority of real histories actually are in the third person; +nevertheless, experience seems to show that such is the case: provided +there be no want of skill in the writer, the resemblance to real life, +of a fiction thus conducted, will approach much the nearest (other +points being equal) to a deception, and the interest felt in it, to that +which we feel in real transactions. We need only instance Defoe's +Novels, which, in spite of much improbability, we believe have been +oftener mistaken for true narratives, than any fictions that ever were +composed. Colonel Newport is well known to have been cited as an +historical authority; and we have ourselves found great difficulty in +convincing many of our friends that Defoe was not himself the citizen, +who relates the plague of London. The reason probably is, that in the +ordinary form of narrative, the writer is not content to exhibit, like a +real historian, a bare detail of such circumstances as might actually +have come under his knowledge; but presents us with a description of +what is passing in the minds of the parties, and gives an account of +their feelings and motives, as well as their most private conversations +in various places at once. All this is very amusing, but perfectly +unnatural: the merest simpleton could hardly mistake a fiction of _this_ +kind for a true history, unless he believed the writer to be endued with +omniscience and omnipresence, or to be aided by familiar spirits, doing +the office of Homer's Muses, whom he invokes to tell him all that could +not otherwise be known; + + [Greek: _Umeis gar theoi eote pareote te, iote te panta._] + +Let the events, therefore, which are detailed, and the characters +described, be ever so natural, the way in which they are presented to us +is of a kind of supernatural cast, perfectly unlike any real history +that ever was or can be written, and thus requiring a greater stretch of +imagination in the reader. On the other hand, the supposed narrator of +his own history never pretends to dive into the thoughts and feelings of +the other parties; he merely describes his own, and gives his +conjectures as to those of the rest, just as a real autobiographer might +do; and thus an author is enabled to assimilate his fiction to reality, +without withholding that delineation of the inward workings of the human +heart, which is so much coveted. Nevertheless novels in the first person +have not succeeded so well as to make that mode of writing become very +general. It is objected to them, not without reason, that they want a +_hero_: the person intended to occupy that post being the narrator +himself, who of course cannot so describe his own conduct and character +as to make the reader thoroughly acquainted with him; though the attempt +frequently produces an offensive appearance of egotism. + +The plan of a fictitious correspondence seems calculated in some measure +to combine the advantages of the other two; since, by allowing each +personage to be the speaker in turn, the feelings of each may be +described by himself, and his character and conduct by another. But +these novels are apt to become excessively tedious; since, to give the +letters the appearance of reality (without which the main object +proposed would be defeated), they must contain a very large proportion +of matter which has no bearing at all upon the story. There is also +generally a sort of awkward disjointed appearance in a novel which +proceeds entirely in letters, and holds together, as it were, by +continual splicing. + +Miss Austin, though she has in a few places introduced letters with +great effect, has on the whole conducted her novels on the ordinary +plan, describing, without scruple, private conversations and +uncommunicated feelings: but she has not been forgetful of the important +maxim, so long ago illustrated by Homer, and afterwards enforced by +Aristotle,[1] of saying as little as possible in her own person, and +giving a dramatic air to the narrative, by introducing frequent +conversations; which she conducts with a regard to character hardly +exceeded even by Shakespeare himself. Like him, she shows as admirable a +discrimination in the characters of fools as of people of sense; a merit +which is far from common. To invent, indeed, a conversation full of +wisdom or of wit, requires that the writer should himself possess +ability; but the converse does not hold good: it is no fool that can +describe fools well; and many who have succeeded pretty well in painting +superior characters, have failed in giving individuality to those weaker +ones, which it is necessary to introduce in order to give a faithful +representation of real life: they exhibit to us mere folly in the +abstract, forgetting that to the eye of a skilful naturalist the insects +on a leaf present as wide differences as exist between the elephant and +the lion. Slender, and Shallow, and Aguecheek, as Shakespeare has +painted them, though equally fools, resemble one another no more than +"Richard," and "Macbeth," and "Julius Caesar"; and Miss Austin's "Mrs. +Bennet," "Mr. Rushworth," and "Miss Bates," are no more alike than her +"Darcy," "Knightley," and "Edmund Bertram." Some have complained, +indeed, of finding her fools too much like nature, and consequently +tiresome; there is no disputing about tastes; all we can say is, that +such critics must (whatever deference they may outwardly pay to received +opinions) find the "Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Twelfth Night" very +tiresome; and that those who look with pleasure at Wilkie's pictures, or +those of the Dutch school, must admit that excellence of imitation may +confer attraction on that which would be insipid or disagreeable in the +reality. + +[1] [Greek: _ouden anthes_] Arist. Poet. + +Her minuteness of detail has also been found fault with; but even where +it produces, at the time, a degree of tediousness, we know not whether +that can justly be reckoned a blemish, which is absolutely essential to +a very high excellence. Now, it is absolutely impossible, without this, +to produce that thorough acquaintance with the characters, which is +necessary to make the reader heartily interested in them. Let any one +cut out from the _Iliad_ or from Shakespeare's plays every thing (we are +far from saying that either might not lose some parts with advantage, +but let him reject every thing) which is absolutely devoid of importance +and of interest _in itself_; and he will find that what is left will +have lost more than half its charms. We are convinced that some writers +have diminished the effect of their works by being scrupulous to admit +nothing into them which had not some absolute, intrinsic, and +independent merit. They have acted like those who strip off the leaves +of a fruit tree, as being of themselves good for nothing, with the view +of securing more nourishment to the fruit, which in fact cannot attain +its full maturity and flavour without them. + + * * * * * + +To say the truth, we suspect one of Miss Austin's great merits in our +eyes to be, the insight she gives us into the peculiarities of female +character. Authoresses can scarcely ever forget the _esprit de corps_-- +can scarcely ever forget that they _are authoresses_. They seem to feel +a sympathetic shudder at exposing naked a female mind. _Elles se +peignent en buste_, and leave the mysteries of womanhood to be described +by some interloping male, like Richardson or Marivaux, who is turned out +before he has seen half the rites, and is forced to spin from his own +conjectures the rest. Now from this fault Miss Austin is free. Her +heroines are what one knows women must be, though one never can get them +to acknowledge it. As liable to "fall in love first," as anxious to +attract the attention of agreeable men, as much taken with a striking +manner, or a handsome face, as unequally gifted with constancy and +firmness, as liable to have their affections biassed by convenience or +fashion, as we, on our part, will admit men to be. As some illustration +of what we mean, we refer our readers to the conversation between Miss +Crawford and Fanny, vol. iii, p. 102. Fanny's meeting with her father, +p. 199; her reflections after reading Edmund's letter, 246; her +happiness (good, and heroine though she be) in the midst of the misery +of all her friends, when she finds that Edmund has decidedly broken with +her rival; feelings, all of them, which, under the influence of strong +passion, must alloy the purest mind, but with which scarcely any +_authoress_ but Miss Austin would have ventured to temper the aetherial +materials of a heroine. + +But we must proceed to the publication of which the title is prefixed to +this article. It contains, it seems, the earliest and the latest +productions of the author; the first of them having been purchased, we +are told, many years back by a bookseller, who, for some reason +unexplained, thought proper to alter his mind and withhold it. We do not +much applaud his taste; for though it is decidedly inferior to her other +works, having less plot, and what there is, less artificially wrought +up, and also less exquisite nicety of moral painting; yet the same kind +of excellences which characterise the other novels may be perceived in +this, in a degree which would have been highly creditable to most other +writers of the same school, and which would have entitled the author to +considerable praise, had she written nothing better. + +We already begin to fear, that we have indulged too much in extracts, +and we must save some room for _Persuasion_, or we could not resist +giving a specimen of John Thorpe, with his horse that _cannot_ go less +than 10 miles an hour, his refusal to drive his sister "because she has +such thick ankles," and his sober consumption of five pints of port a +day; altogether the best portrait of a species, which, though almost +extinct, cannot yet be quite classed among the Palaeotheria, the Bang-up +Oxonian. Miss Thorpe, the jilt of middling life, is, in her way, quite +as good, though she has not the advantage of being the representative of +a rare or a diminishing species. We fear few of our readers, however +they may admire the naïveté, will admit the truth of poor John Morland's +postscript, "I can never expect to know such another woman." + +The latter of these novels, however, _Persuasion_, which is more +strictly to be considered as a posthumous work, possesses that +superiority which might be expected from the more mature age at which it +was written, and is second, we think, to none of the former ones, if not +superior to all. In the humorous delineation of character it does not +abound quite so much as some of the others, though it has great merit +even on that score; but it has more of that tender and yet elevated kind +of interest which is aimed at by the generality of novels, and in +pursuit of which they seldom fail of running into romantic extravagance: +on the whole, it is one of the most elegant fictions of common life we +ever remember to have met with. + +Sir Walter Elliot, a silly and conceited baronet, has three daughters, +the eldest two, unmarried, and the third, Mary, the wife of a +neighbouring gentleman, Mr. Charles Musgrove, heir to a considerable +fortune, and living in a genteel cottage in the neighbourhood of the +Great house which he is hereafter to inherit. The second daughter, Anne, +who is the heroine, and the only one of the family possessed of good +sense (a quality which Miss Austin is as sparing of in her novels, as we +fear her great mistress, Nature, has been in real life), when on a visit +to her sister, is, by that sort of instinct which generally points out +to all parties the person on whose judgment and temper they may rely, +appealed to in all the little family differences which arise, and which +are described with infinite spirit and detail. + + * * * * * + +We ventured, in a former article, to remonstrate against the +dethronement of the once powerful God of Love, in his own most especial +domain, the novel; and to suggest that, in shunning the ordinary fault +of recommending by examples a romantic and uncalculating extravagance of +passion, Miss Austin had rather fallen into the opposite extreme of +exclusively patronizing what are called prudent matches, and too much +disparaging sentimental enthusiasm. We urged, that, mischievous as is +the extreme on this side, it is not the one into which the young folks +of the present day are the most likely to run: the prevailing fault is +not now, whatever it may have been, to sacrifice all for love: + + Venit enim magnum donandi parca juventus, + Nec tantum Veneris quantum studiosa culinae. + +We may now, without retracting our opinion, bestow unqualified +approbation; for the distresses of the present heroine all arise from +her prudent refusal to listen to the suggestions of her heart. The +catastrophe, however, is happy, and we are left in doubt whether it +would have been better for her or not, to accept the first proposal; and +this we conceive is precisely the proper medium; for, though we would +not have prudential calculations the sole principle to be regarded in +marriage, we are far from advocating their exclusion. To disregard the +advice of sober-minded friends on an important point of conduct, is an +imprudence we would by no means recommend; indeed, it is a species of +selfishness, if, in listening only to the dictates of passion, a man +sacrifices to its gratification the happiness of those most dear to him +as well as his own; though it is not now-a-days the most prevalent form +of selfishness. But it is no condemnation of a sentiment to say, that it +becomes blameable when it interferes with duty, and is uncontrolled by +conscience: the desire of riches, power, or distinction--the taste for +ease and comfort--are to be condemned when they transgress these bounds; +and love, if it keep within them, even though it be somewhat tinged with +enthusiasm, and a little at variance with what the worldly call +prudence, _i.e._, regard for pecuniary advantage, may afford a better +moral discipline to the mind than most other passions. It will not at +least be denied, that it has often proved a powerful stimulus to +exertion where others have failed, and has called forth talents unknown +before even to the possessor. What, though the pursuit may be fruitless, +and the hopes visionary? The result may be a real and substantial +benefit, though of another kind; the vineyard may have been cultivated +by digging in it for the treasure which is never to be found. What +though the perfections with which imagination has decorated the beloved +object, may, in fact, exist but in a slender degree? still they are +believed in and admired as real; if not, the love is such as does not +merit the name; and it is proverbially true that men become assimilated +to the character (_i.e._, what they _think_ the character) of the being +they fervently adore: thus, as in the noblest exhibitions of the stage, +though that which is contemplated be but a fiction, it may be realized +in the mind of the beholder; and, though grasping at a cloud, he may +become worthy of possessing a real goddess. Many a generous sentiment, +and many a virtuous resolution, have been called forth and matured by +admiration of one, who may herself perhaps have been incapable of +either. It matters not what the object is that a man aspires to be +worthy of, and proposes as a model for imitation, if he does but +_believe_ it to be excellent. Moreover, all doubts of success (and they +are seldom, if ever, entirely wanting) must either produce or exercise +humility; and the endeavour to study another's interests and +inclinations, and prefer them to one's own, may promote a habit of +general benevolence which may outlast the present occasion. Every thing, +in short, which tends to abstract a man in any degree, or in any way, +from self,--from self-admiration and self-interest, has, so far at +least, a beneficial influence in forming the character. + +On the whole, Miss Austin's works may safely be recommended, not only as +among the most unexceptionable of their class, but as combining, in an +eminent degree, instruction with amusement, though without the direct +effort at the former, of which we have complained, as sometimes +defeating its object. For those who cannot, or will not, _learn_ +anything from productions of this kind, she has provided entertainment +which entitles her to thanks; for mere innocent amusement is in itself a +good, when it interferes with no greater: especially as it may occupy +the place of some other that may _not_ be innocent. The Eastern monarch +who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure, would +have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be +blameless. Those, again, who delight in the study of human nature, may +improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of +that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions as those before us. + + + +W. E. GLADSTONE ON TENNYSON + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1859] + +1. _Tennyson's Poems_. In Two Volumes. London, 1842. +2. _The Princess: a Medley_. London, 1847. +3. _In Memoriam_. London, 1850. +4. _Maud, and other Poems_. London, 1855. +5. _Idylls of the King_. London, 1859. + +Mr. Tennyson published his first volume, under the title of "Poems +Chiefly Lyrical," in 1830, and his second, with the name simply of +"Poems," in 1833. In 1842 he reappeared before the world in two volumes, +partly made up from the _débris_ of his earlier pieces; and from this +time forward he came into the enjoyment of a popularity at once great, +growing, and select. With a manly resolution, which gave promise of the +rare excellence he was progressively to attain, he had at this time +amputated altogether from the collection about one-half of the contents +of his earliest work, with some considerable portion of the second; he +had almost rewritten or carefully corrected other important pieces, and +had added a volume of new compositions. + +The latter handiwork showed a great advance upon the earlier; as, +indeed, 1833 had shown upon 1830. From the very first, however, he had +been noteworthy in performance as well as in promise, and it was plain +that, whatever else might happen, at least neglect was not to be his +lot. But, in the natural heat of youth he had at the outset certainly +mixed up some trivial with a greater number of worthy productions, and +had shown an impatience of criticism by which, however excusable, he was +sure to be himself the chief sufferer. His higher gifts, too, were of +the quality which, by the changeless law of nature, cannot ripen fast; +and there was, accordingly, some portion both of obscurity and of +crudity in the results of his youthful labours. Men of slighter +materials would have come more quickly to their maturity, and might have +given less occasion not only for cavil but for animadversion. It was yet +more creditable to him, than it could be even to the just among his +critics, that he should, and while yet young, have applied himself with +so resolute a hand to the work of castigation. He thus gave a remarkable +proof alike of his reverence for his art, of his insight into its +powers, of the superiority he had acquired to all the more commonplace +illusions of self-love, and perhaps of his presaging consciousness that +the great, if they mean to fulfil the measure of their greatness, should +always be fastidious against themselves. + +It would be superfluous to enter upon any general criticism of this +collection, which was examined when still recent in this Review, and a +large portion of which is established in the familiar recollection and +favour of the public. We may, however, say that what may be termed at +large the classical idea (though it is not that of Troas nor of the +Homeric period) has, perhaps, never been grasped with greater force and +justice than in "Oenone," nor exhibited in a form of more consummate +polish. "Ulysses" is likewise a highly finished poem; but it is open to +the remark that it exhibits (so to speak) a corner-view of a character +which was in itself a _cosmos_. Never has political philosophy been +wedded to the poetic form more happily than in the three short pieces on +England and her institutions, unhappily without title, and only to be +cited, like writs of law and papal bulls, by their first words. Even +among the rejected pieces there are specimens of a deep metaphysical +insight; and this power reappears with an increasing growth of ethical +and social wisdom in "Locksley Hall" and elsewhere. The Wordsworthian +poem of "Dora" is admirable in its kind. From the firmness of its +drawing, and the depth and singular purity of its colour, "Godiva" +stood, if we judge aright, as at once a great performance and a great +pledge. But, above all, the fragmentary piece on the Death of Arthur was +a fit prelude to that lordly music which is now sounding in our ears. If +we pass onward from these volumes, it is only because space forbids a +further enumeration. + +The "Princess" was published in 1847. The author has termed it "a +medley": why, we know not. It approaches more nearly to the character of +a regular drama, with the stage directions written into verse, than any +other of his works, and it is composed consecutively throughout on the +basis of one idea. It exhibits an effort to amalgamate the place and +function of woman with that of man, and the failure of that effort, +which duly winds up with the surrender and marriage of the fairest and +chief enthusiast. It may be doubted whether the idea is one well suited +to exhibition in a quasi-dramatic form. Certainly the mode of embodying +it, so far as it is dramatic, is not successful; for here again the +persons are little better than mere _personae_. They are _media_, and +weak _media_, for the conveyance of the ideas. The poem is, +nevertheless, one of high interest, on account of the force, purity and +nobleness of the main streams of thought, which are clothed in language +full of all Mr. Tennyson's excellences; and also because it marks the +earliest effort of his mind in the direction of his latest and greatest +achievements. + + * * * * * + +With passages like these still upon the mind and ear, and likewise +having in view many others in the "Princess" and elsewhere, we may +confidently assert it as one of Mr. Tennyson's brightest distinctions +that he is now what from the very first he strove to be, and what when +he wrote "Godiva" he gave ample promise of becoming--the poet of woman. +We do not mean, nor do we know, that his hold over women as his readers +is greater than his command or influence over men; but that he has +studied, sounded, painted woman in form, in motion, in character, in +office, in capability, with rare devotion, power, and skill; and the +poet who best achieves this end does also most and best for man. + +In 1850 Mr. Tennyson gave to the world, under the title of "In +Memoriam," perhaps the richest oblation ever offered by the affection of +friendship at the tomb of the departed. The memory of Arthur Henry +Hallam, who died suddenly in 1833, at the age of twenty-two, will +doubtless live chiefly in connection with this volume; but he is well +known to have been one who, if the term of his days had been prolonged, +would have needed no aid from a friendly hand, would have built for +himself an enduring monument, and would have bequeathed to his country a +name in all likelihood greater than that of his very distinguished +father. There was no one among those who were blessed with his +friendship, nay, as we see, not even Mr. Tennyson,[1] who did not feel +at once bound closely to him by commanding affection, and left far +behind by the rapid, full, and rich development of his ever-searching +mind; by his + + All comprehensive tenderness, + All subtilising intellect. + +[1] See "In Memoriam," pp. 64, 84. + +It would be easy to show what, in the varied forms of human excellence, +he might, had life been granted him, have accomplished; much more +difficult to point the finger and to say, "This he never could have +done." Enough remains from among his early efforts to accredit whatever +mournful witness may now be borne of him. But what can be a nobler +tribute than this, that for seventeen years after his death a poet, fast +rising towards the lofty summits of his art, found that young fading +image the richest source of his inspiration, and of thoughts that gave +him buoyancy for a flight such as he had not hitherto attained? + +It would be very difficult to convey a just idea of this volume either +by narrative or by quotation. In the series of monodies or meditations +which compose it, and which follow in long series without weariness or +sameness, the poet never moves away a step from the grave of his friend, +but, while circling round it, has always a new point of view. Strength +of love, depth of grief, aching sense of loss, have driven him forth as +it were on a quest of consolation, and he asks it of nature, thought, +religion, in a hundred forms which a rich and varied imagination +continually suggests, but all of them connected by one central point, +the recollection of the dead. This work he prosecutes, not in vain +effeminate complaint, but in a manly recognition of the fruit and profit +even of baffled love, in noble suggestions of the future, in +heart-soothing and heart-chastening thoughts of what the dead was and of +what he is, and of what one who has been, and therefore still is, in +near contact with him is bound to be. The whole movement of the poem is +between the mourner and the mourned: it may be called one long +soliloquy; but it has this mark of greatness, that, though the singer is +himself a large part of the subject, it never degenerates into egotism-- +for he speaks typically on behalf of humanity at large, and in his own +name, like Dante on his mystic journey, teaches deep lessons of life and +conscience to us all. + + * * * * * + +By the time "In Memoriam" had sunk into the public mind, Mr. Tennyson +had taken his rank as our first then living poet. Over the fresh hearts +and understandings of the young, notwithstanding his obscurities, his +metaphysics, his contempt of gewgaws, he had established an +extraordinary sway. We ourselves, with some thousands of other +spectators, saw him receive in that noble structure of Wren, the theatre +of Oxford, the decoration of D.C.L., which we perceive he always wears +on his title-page. Among his colleagues in the honour were Sir De Lacy +Evans and Sir John Burgoyne, fresh from the stirring exploits of the +Crimea; but even patriotism, at the fever heat of war, could not command +a more fervent enthusiasm for the old and gallant warriors than was +evoked by the presence of Mr. Tennyson. + +In the year 1855 Mr. Tennyson proceeded to publish his "Maud," the least +popular, and probably the least worthy of popularity, among his more +considerable works. A somewhat heavy dreaminess, and a great deal of +obscurity, hang about this poem; and the effort required to dispel the +darkness of the general scheme is not repaid when we discover what it +hides. The main thread of "Maud" seems to be this:--A love once +accepted, then disappointed, leads to blood-shedding, and onward to +madness with lucid alternations. The insanity expresses itself in the +ravings of the homicide lover, who even imagines himself among the dead, +in a clamour and confusion closely resembling an ill-regulated Bedlam, +but which, if the description be a faithful one, would for ever deprive +the grave of its title to the epithet of silent. It may be good frenzy, +but we doubt its being as good poetry. Of all this there may, we admit, +be an esoteric view: but we speak of the work as it offers itself to the +common eye. Both Maud and the lover are too nebulous by far; and they +remind us of the boneless and pulpy personages by whom, as Dr. Whewell +assures us, the planet Jupiter is inhabited, if inhabited at all. But +the most doubtful part of the poem is its climax. A vision of the +beloved image (p. 97) "spoke of a hope for the world in the coming +wars," righteous wars, of course, and the madman begins to receive light +and comfort; but, strangely enough, it seems to be the wars, and not the +image, in which the source of consolation lies (p. 98). + + No more shall Commerce be all in all, and Peace + Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, + And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase. + ... a peace that was full of wrongs and shames, + Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told ... + For the long long canker of peace is over and done: + And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, + And deathful grinning mouths of the fortress, names + The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire! + +What interpretation are we meant to give to all this sound and fury? We +would fain have put it down as intended to be the finishing-stroke in +the picture of a mania which has reached its zenith. We might call in +aid of this construction more happy and refreshing passages from other +poems, as when Mr. Tennyson is + + Certain, if knowledge brings the sword, + That knowledge takes the sword away.[1] + +[1] "Poems," p. 182, ed. 1853. See also "Locksley Hall," p. 278. + +And again in "The Golden Dream,"-- + + When shall all men's good + Be each man's rule, and universal peace + Lie like a shaft of light across the land? + +And yet once more in a noble piece of "In Memoriam,"-- + + Ring out old shapes of foul disease, + Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; + Ring out the thousand wars of old, + Ring in the thousand years of peace. + +But on the other hand we must recollect that very long ago, when the +apparition of invasion from across the Channel had as yet spoiled no +man's slumbers, Mr. Tennyson's blood was already up:[2]-- + + For the French, the Pope may shrive them ... + And the merry devil drive them + Through the water and the fire. + +[2] "Poems chiefly Lyrical," 1830, p. 142. + +And unhappily in the beginning of "Maud," when still in the best use of +such wits as he possesses, its hero deals largely in kindred +extravagances (p. 7):-- + + When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, + And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones, + Is it peace or war? better war! loud war by land and by sea, + War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. + +He then anticipates that, upon an enemy's attacking this country, "the +smooth-faced, snub-nosed rogue," who typifies the bulk of the British +people, "the nation of shopkeepers," as it has been emasculated and +corrupted by excess of peace, will leap from his counter and till to +charge the enemy; and thus it is to be reasonably hoped that we shall +attain to the effectual renovation of society. + +We frankly own that our divining rod does not enable us to say whether +the poet intends to be in any and what degree sponsor to these +sentiments, or whether he has put them forth in the exercise of his +undoubted right to make vivid and suggestive representations of even the +partial and narrow aspects of some endangered truth. This is at best, +indeed, a perilous business, for out of such fervid partial +representations nearly all grave human error springs; and it should only +be pursued with caution and in season. But we do not recollect that 1855 +was a season of serious danger from a mania for peace and its pursuits; +and even if it had been so, we fear that the passages we have quoted far +overpass all the bounds of moderation and good sense. It is, indeed, +true that peace has its moral perils and temptations for degenerate man, +as has every other blessing, without exception, that he can receive from +the hand of God. It is moreover not less true that, amidst the clash of +arms, the noblest forms of character may be reared, and the highest acts +of duty done; that these great and precious results may be due to war as +their cause; and that one high form of sentiment in particular, the love +of country, receives a powerful and general stimulus from the bloody +strife. But this is as the furious cruelty of Pharaoh made place for the +benign virtue of his daughter; as the butchering sentence of Herod +raised without doubt many a mother's love into heroic sublimity; as +plague, as famine, as fire, as flood, as every curse and every scourge +that is wielded by an angry Providence for the chastisement of man, is +an appointed instrument for tempering human souls in the seven-times +heated furnace of affliction, up to the standard of angelic and +archangelic virtue. War, indeed, has the property of exciting much +generous and noble feeling on a large scale; but with this special +recommendation it has, in its modern forms especially, peculiar and +unequalled evils. As it has a wider sweep of desolating power than the +rest, so it has the peculiar quality that it is more susceptible of +being decked in gaudy trappings, and of fascinating the imagination of +those whose passions it inflames. But it is on this very account a +perilous delusion to teach that war is a cure for moral evil in any +other sense than as the sister tribulations are. The eulogies of the +frantic hero in "Maud," however, deviate into grosser folly. It is +natural that such vagaries should overlook the fixed laws of Providence; +and under these laws the mass of mankind is composed of men, women, and +children who can but just ward off hunger, cold, and nakedness; whose +whole ideas of Mammon-worship are comprised in the search for their +daily food, clothing, shelter, fuel; whom any casualty reduces to +positive want; and whose already low estimate is yet further lowered and +ground down when "the blood-red blossom of war flames with its heart of +fire." But what is a little strange is, that war should be recommended +as a specific for the particular evil of Mammon-worship. Such it never +was, even in the days when the Greek heroes longed for the booty of +Troy, and anticipated lying by the wives of its princes and its +citizens. Still it had, in times now gone by, ennobling elements and +tendencies of the less sordid kind. But one inevitable characteristic of +modern war is, that it is associated throughout, in all its particulars, +with a vast and most irregular formation of commercial enterprise. There +is no incentive to Mammon-worship so remarkable as that which it +affords. The political economy of war is now one of its most commanding +aspects. Every farthing, with the smallest exceptions conceivable, of +the scores or hundreds of millions which a war may cost, goes directly +to stimulate production, though it is intended ultimately for waste or +for destruction. Apart from the fact that war destroys every rule of +public thrift, and saps honesty itself in the use of the public treasure +for which it makes such unbounded calls, it therefore is the greatest +feeder of that lust of gold which we are told is the essence of +commerce, though we had hoped it was only its occasional besetting sin. +It is, however, more than this; for the regular commerce of peace is +tameness itself compared with the gambling spirit which war, through the +rapid shiftings and high prices which it brings, always introduces into +trade. In its moral operation it more resembles, perhaps, the finding of +a new gold-field, than anything else. Meantime, as the most wicked +mothers do not kill their offspring from a taste for the practice in the +abstract, but under the pressure of want, and as war always brings home +want to a larger circle of the people than feel it in peace, we ask the +hero of "Maud" to let us know whether war is more likely to reduce or to +multiply the horrors which he denounces? Will more babies be poisoned +amidst comparative ease and plenty, or when, as before the fall of +Napoleon, provisions were twice as dear as they now are, and wages not +much more than half as high? Romans and Carthaginians were pretty much +given to war: but no nations were more sedulous in the cult of Mammon. +Again, the Scriptures are pretty strong against Mammon-worship, but they +do not recommend this original and peculiar cure. Nay, once more: what +sad errors must have crept into the text of the prophet Isaiah when he +is made to desire that our swords shall be converted into ploughshares, +and our spears into pruning-hooks! But we have this solid consolation +after all, that Mr. Tennyson's war poetry is not comparable to his +poetry of peace. Indeed he is not here successful at all: the work, of a +lower order than his, demands the abrupt force and the lyric fire which +do not seem to be among his varied and brilliant gifts. We say more. Mr. +Tennyson is too intimately and essentially the poet of the nineteenth +century to separate himself from its leading characteristics, the +progress of physical science and a vast commercial, mechanical, and +industrial development. Whatever he may say or do in an occasional fit, +he cannot long either cross or lose its sympathies; for while he +elevates as well as adorns it, he is flesh of its flesh and bone of its +bone. We fondly believe it is his business to do much towards the +solution of that problem, so fearful from its magnitude, how to +harmonise this new draught of external power and activity with the old +and more mellow wine of faith, self devotion, loyalty, reverence, and +discipline. And all that we have said is aimed, not at Mr. Tennyson, but +at a lay-figure which he has set up, and into the mouth of which he has +put words that cannot be his words. + +We return to our proper task, "Maud," if an unintelligible or even, for +Mr. Tennyson, an inferior work, is still a work which no inferior man +could have produced; nor would it be difficult to extract abundance of +lines, and even passages, obviously worthy of their author. And if this +poem would have made while alone a volume too light for his fame, the +defect is supplied by the minor pieces, some of which are admirable. +"The Brook," with its charming interstitial soliloquy, and the "Letters" +will, we are persuaded, always rank among Mr. Tennyson's happy efforts; +while the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," written from the +heart and sealed by the conscience of the poet, is worthy of that great +and genuine piece of manhood, its immortal subject. + +We must touch for a moment upon what has already been mentioned as a +separate subject of interest in the "Princess." We venture to describe +it as in substance a drama, with a plot imperfectly worked and with +characters insufficiently chiselled and relieved. Its author began by +presenting, and for many years continued to present, personal as well as +natural pictures of individual attitude or movement; and, as in "Oenone" +and "Godiva," he carried them to a very high pitch of perfection. But he +scarcely attempted, unless in his more homely narrations, anything like +grouping or combination. It now appears that for the higher effort he +has been gradually accumulating and preparing his resources. In the +sections of the prolonged soliloquy of "Maud" we see a crude attempt at +representing combined interests and characters with heroic elevation, +under the special difficulty of appearing, like Mathews, in one person +only; in the "Princess" we had a happier effort, though one that still +left more to be desired. Each, however, in its own stage was a +preparation for an enterprise at once bolder and more mature. + +We now come to the recent work of the poet--the "Idylls of the King." +The field, which Mr. Tennyson has chosen for this his recent and far +greatest exploit, is one of so deep and wide-reaching an interest as to +demand some previous notice of a special kind. + +Lofty example in comprehensive forms is, without doubt, one of the great +standing needs of our race. To this want it has been from the first one +main purpose of the highest poetry to answer. The quest of Beauty leads +all those who engage in it to the ideal or normal man as the summit of +attainable excellence. By no arbitrary choice, but in obedience to +unchanging laws, the painter and the sculptor must found their art upon +the study of the human form, and must reckon its successful reproduction +as their noblest and most consummate exploit. The concern of Poetry with +corporal beauty is, though important, yet secondary: this art uses form +as an auxiliary, as a subordinate though proper part in the delineation +of mind and character, of which it is appointed to be a visible organ. +But with mind and character themselves lies the highest occupation of +the Muse. Homer, the patriarch of poets, has founded his two immortal +works upon two of these ideal developments in Achilles and Ulysses; and +has adorned them with others, such as Penelope and Helen, Hector and +Diomed, every one an immortal product, though as compared with the +others either less consummate or less conspicuous. Though deformed by +the mire of after-tradition, all the great characters of Homer have +become models and standards, each in its own kind, for what was, or was +supposed to be, its distinguishing gift. + +At length, after many generations and great revolutions of mind and of +events, another age arrived, like, if not equal, in creative power to +that of Homer. The Gospel had given to the whole life of man a real +resurrection, and its second birth was followed by its second youth. +This rejuvenescence was allotted to those wonderful centuries which +popular ignorance confounds with the dark ages properly so called--an +identification about as rational as if we were to compare the life +within the womb to the life of intelligent though early childhood. +Awakened to aspirations at once fresh and ancient, the mind of man took +hold of the venerable ideals bequeathed to us by the Greeks as a +precious part of its inheritance, and gave them again to the light, +appropriated but also renewed. The old materials came forth, but not +alone; for the types which human genius had formerly conceived were now +submitted to the transfiguring action of a law from on high. Nature +herself prompted the effort to bring the old patterns of worldly +excellence and greatness--or rather the copies of those patterns still +legible, though depraved, and still rich with living suggestion--into +harmony with that higher Pattern, once seen by the eyes and handled by +the hands of men, and faithfully delineated in the Gospels for the +profit of all generations. The life of our Saviour, in its external +aspect, was that of a teacher. It was in principle a model for all, but +it left space and scope for adaptations to the lay life of Christians in +general, such as those by whom the every-day business of the world is to +be carried on. It remained for man to make his best endeavour to exhibit +the great model on its terrestrial side, in its contact with the world. +Here is the true source of that new and noble cycle which the middle +ages have handed down to us in duality of form, but with a nearly +identical substance, under the royal sceptres of Arthur in England and +of Charlemagne in France. + +Of the two great systems of Romance, one has Lancelot, the other has +Orlando for its culminating point; these heroes being exhibited as the +respective specimens in whose characters the fullest development of man, +such as he was then conceived, was to be recognised. The one put forward +Arthur for the visible head of Christendom, signifying and asserting its +social unity; the other had Charlemagne. Each arrays about the Sovereign +a fellowship of knights. In them Valour is the servant of Honour; in an +age of which violence is the besetting danger, the protection of the +weak is elevated into a first principle of action; and they betoken an +order of things in which Force should be only known as allied with +Virtue, while they historically foreshadow the magnificent aristocracy +of mediaeval Europe. The one had Guinevere for the rarest gem of beauty, +the other had Angelica. Each of them contained figures of approximation +to the knightly model, and in each these figures, though on the whole +secondary, yet in certain aspects surpassed it: such were Sir Tristram, +Sir Galahad, Sir Lamoracke, Sir Gawain, Sir Geraint, in the Arthurian +cycle; Rinaldo and Ruggiero, with others, in the Carlovingian. They were +not twin systems, but they were rather twin investitures of the same +scheme of ideals and feelings. Their consanguinity to the primitive +Homeric types is proved by a multitude of analogies of character and by +the commanding place which they assign to Hector as the flower of human +excellence. Without doubt, this preference was founded on his supposed +moral superiority to all his fellows in Homer; and the secondary prizes +of strength, valour, and the like, were naturally allowed to group +themselves around what, under the Christian scheme, had become the +primary ornament of man. The near relation of the two cycles to one +another may be sufficiently seen in the leading references we have made, +and it runs into a multitude of details both great and small, of which +we can only note a few. In both the chief hero passes through a +prolonged term of madness. Judas, in the College of Apostles, is +represented under Charlemagne in Gano di Maganza and his house, who +appear, without any development in action, in the Arthurian romance as +"the traitours of Magouns," and who are likewise reflected in Sir +Modred, Sir Agravain, and others; while the Mahometan element, which has +a natural place ready made in a history that acknowledges Charlemagne +and France, for its centres, finds its way sympathetically into one +which is bound for the most part by the shores of Albion. Both schemes +cling to the tradition of the unity of the Empire as well as of +Christendom; and accordingly, what was historical in Charlemagne is +represented in the case of Arthur by an imaginary conquest reaching as +far as Rome, the capital of the West: even the sword _Durindana_ has its +counterpart in the sword _Excalibur_. + +The moral systems of the two cycles are essentially allied: and perhaps +the differences between them may be due in greater or in less part to +the fact that they come to us through different _media_. We of the +nineteenth century read the Carlovingian romance in the pages of Ariosto +and Bojardo, who gave to their materials the colour of their times, and +of a civilization rank in some respects, while still unripe in some +others. The genius of poetry was not at the same period applying its +transmuting force to the Romance of the Round Table. The date of Sir +Thomas Mallory, who lived under Edward IV, is something earlier than +that of the great Italian romances; he appears, too, to have been on the +whole content with the humble offices of a compiler and a chronicler, +and we may conceive that his spirit and diction are still older than his +date. The consequence is, that we are brought into more immediate and +fresher contact with the original forms of this romance. So that, as +they present themselves to us, the Carlovingian cycle is the child of +the latest middle age, while the Arthurian represents the earlier. Much +might be said on the differences which have thus arisen, and on those +which may be due to a more northern and more southern extraction +respectively. Suffice it to say that the Romance of the Round Table, far +less vivid and brilliant, far ruder as a work of skill and art, has more +of the innocence, the emotion, the transparency, the inconsistency of +childhood. Its political action is less specifically Christian than that +of the rival scheme, its individual more so. It is more directly and +seriously aimed at the perfection of man. It is more free from gloss and +varnish; it tells its own tale with more entire simplicity. The ascetic +element is more strongly, and at the same time more quaintly, developed. +It has a higher conception of the nature of woman; and like the Homeric +poems, appears to eschew exhibiting her perfections in alliance with +warlike force and exploits. So also love, while largely infused into the +story, is more subordinate to the exhibition of other qualities. Again, +the Romance of the Round Table bears witness to a more distinct and +keener sense of sin: and on the whole, a deeper, broader, and more manly +view of human character, life, and duty. It is in effect more like what +the Carlovingian cycle might have been had Dante moulded it. It hardly +needs to be added that it is more mythical, inasmuch as Arthur of the +Round Table is a personage, we fear, wholly doubtful, though not +impossible; while the broad back of the historic Charlemagne, like +another Atlas, may well sustain a world of mythical accretions. This +slight comparison, be it remarked, refers exclusively to what may be +termed the latest "redactions" of the two cycles of romance. Their early +forms, in the lays of troubadours, and in the pages of the oldest +chroniclers, offer a subject of profound interest, and one still +unexhausted, although it has been examined by Mr. Panizzi and M. +Fauriel,[1] but one which is quite beyond the scope of our present +subject. + +[1] Essay on the Romantic Narrative Poetry of the Italians: London, + 1830. Histoire de la Poésie Provençale: Paris, 1846. + +It is to this rich repository that Mr. Tennyson has resorted for his +material. He has shown, as we think, rare judgment in the choice. The +Arthurian Romance has every recommendation that should win its way to +the homage of a great poet. It is national: it is Christian. It is also +human in the largest and deepest sense; and, therefore, though highly +national, it is universal; for it rests upon those depths and breadths +of our nature to which all its truly great developments in all nations +are alike essentially and closely related. The distance is enough for +atmosphere, not too much for detail; enough for romance, not too much +for sympathy. A poet of the nineteenth century, the Laureate has adopted +characters, incidents, and even language in the main, instead of +attempting to project them on a basis of his own in the region of +illimitable fancy. But he has done much more than this. Evidently by +reading and by deep meditation, as well as by sheer force of genius, he +has penetrated himself down to the very core of his being, with all that +is deepest and best in the spirit of the time, or the representation, +with which he deals; and as others, using old materials, have been free +to alter them in the sense of vulgarity or licence, so he has claimed +and used the right to sever and recombine, to enlarge, retrench, and +modify, for the purposes at once of a more powerful and elaborate art +than his original presents, and of a yet more elevated, or at least of a +far more sustained, ethical and Christian strain. + +We are rather disposed to quarrel with the title of Idylls: for no +diminutive ([Greek: _eidullion_]) can be adequate to the breadth, +vigour, and majesty which belong to the subjects, as well as to the +execution, of the volume. The poet used the name once before; but he +then applied it to pieces generally small in the scale of their +delineations, whereas these, even if broken away one from the other, are +yet like the disjoined figures from the pediment of the Parthenon in +their dignity and force. One indeed among Mr. Tennyson's merits is, that +he does not think it necessary to keep himself aloft by artificial +effort, but undulates with his matter, and flies high or low as it +requires. But even in the humblest parts of these poems--as where the +little Novice describes the miniature sorrows and discipline of +childhood--the whole receives its tone from an atmosphere which is +heroic, and which, even in its extremest simplicity, by no means parts +company with grandeur, or ceases to shine in the reflected light of the +surrounding objects. Following the example which the poet has set us in +a former volume, we would fain have been permitted, at least +provisionally, to call these Idylls by the name of Books. Term them what +we may, there are four of them--arranged, as we think, in an ascending +scale. + +The simplicity and grace of the principal character in Enid, with which +the volume opens, touches, but does not too strongly agitate, the deeper +springs of feeling. She is the beautiful daughter of Earl Yniol, who, by +his refusal of a turbulent neighbour as a suitor, has drawn upon himself +the ruin of his fortunes, and is visited in his depressed condition by +(p. 1)-- + + The brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur's court, + A tributary prince of Devon, one + Of that great order of the Table Round.... + +Geraint wins her against the detested cousin. They wed, and she becomes +the purest gem of the court of Guinevere, her place in which is +described in the beautiful exordium of the poem. An accident, slight +perhaps for the weight it is made to carry, arouses his jealousy, and he +tries her severely by isolation and rude offices on one of his tours; +but her gentleness, purity, and patience are proof against all, and we +part from the pair in a full and happy reconciliation, which is +described in lines of a beauty that leaves nothing to be desired. + +The treatment of Enid by her husband has appeared to some of Mr. +Tennyson's readers to be unnatural. It is no doubt both in itself +repulsive, and foreign to our age and country. But the brutal element in +man, which now only invades the conjugal relation in cases where it is +highly concentrated, was then far more widely diffused, and not yet +dissociated from alternations and even habits of attachment. Something +of what we now call Eastern manners at one time marked the treatment +even of the women of the West. Unnatural means contrary to nature, +irrespectively of time or place; but time and place explain and warrant +the treatment of Enid by Geraint. + +Vivien, which follows Enid, is perhaps the least popular of the four +Books. No pleasure, we grant, can be felt from the character either of +the wily woman, between elf and fiend, or of the aged magician, whose +love is allowed to travel whither none of his esteem or regard can +follow it: and in reading this poem we miss the pleasure of those +profound moral harmonies, with which the rest are charged. But we must +not on these grounds proceed to the conclusion that the poet has in this +case been untrue to his aims. For he has neither failed in power, nor +has he led our sympathies astray; and if we ask why he should introduce +us to those we cannot love, there is something in the reply that Poetry, +the mirror of the world, cannot deal with its attractions only, but must +present some of its repulsions also, and avail herself of the powerful +assistance of its contrasts. The example of Homer, who allows Thersites +to thrust himself upon the scene in the debates of heroes, gives a +sanction to what reason and all experience teach, namely, the actual +force of negatives in heightening effect; and the gentle and noble +characters and beautiful combinations, which largely predominate in the +other poems, stand in far clearer and bolder relief when we perceive the +dark and baleful shadow of Vivien lowering from between them. + +Vivien exhibits a well-sustained conflict between the wizard and, in +another sense, the witch; on one side is the wit of woman, on the other +are the endowments of the prophet and magician, at once more and less +than those of nature. She has heard from him of a charm, a charm of +"woven paces, and of waving hands," which paralyses its victim for ever +and without deliverance, and her object is to extract from him the +knowledge of it as a proof of some return for the fervid and boundless +love that she pretends. We cannot but estimate very highly the skill +with which Mr. Tennyson has secured to what seemed the weaker vessel the +ultimate mastery in the fight. Out of the eater comes forth meat. When +she seems to lose ground with him by her slander against the Round Table +which he loved, she recovers it by making him believe that she saw all +other men, "the knights, the Court, the King, dark in his light": and +when in answer to her imprecation on herself a fearful thunderbolt +descends and storm rages, then, nestling in his bosom, part in fear but +more in craft, she overcomes the last remnant of his resolution, wins +the secret she has so indefatigably wooed, and that instant uses it to +close in gloom the famous career of the over-mastered sage. + + * * * * * + +Nowhere could we more opportunely than at this point call attention to +Mr. Tennyson's extraordinary felicity and force in the use of metaphor +and simile. This gift appears to have grown with his years, alike in +abundance, truth, and grace. As the showers descend from heaven to +return to it in vapour, so Mr. Tennyson's loving observation of Nature, +and his Muse, seem to have had a compact of reciprocity well kept on +both sides. When he was young, and when "Oenone" was first published, he +almost boasted of putting a particular kind of grasshopper into Troas, +which, as he told us in a note, was probably not to be found there. It +is a small but yet an interesting and significant indication that, when +some years after he retouched the poem, he omitted the note, and +generalised the grasshopper. Whether we are right or not in taking this +for a sign of the movement of his mind, there can be no doubt that his +present use of figures is both the sign and the result of a reverence +for Nature alike active, intelligent, and refined. Sometimes applying +the metaphors of Art to Nature, he more frequently draws the materials +of his analogies from her unexhausted book, and, however often he may +call for some new and beautiful vehicle of illustration, she seems never +to withhold an answer. With regard to this particular and very critical +gift, it seems to us that he may challenge comparison with almost any +poet either of ancient or modern times. We have always been accustomed +to look upon Ariosto as one of the greatest among the masters of the art +of metaphor and simile; and it would be easy to quote from him instances +which in tenderness, grace, force, or all combined, can never be +surpassed. But we have rarely seen the power subjected to a greater +trial than in the passages just quoted from Mr. Tennyson, where metaphor +lies by metaphor as thick as shells upon their bed; yet each +individually with its outline as well drawn, its separateness as clear, +its form as true to nature, and with the most full and harmonious +contribution to the general effect. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tennyson practises largely, and with an extraordinary skill and +power, the art of designed and limited repetitions. They bear a +considerable resemblance to those Homeric _formulae_ which have been so +usefully remarked by Colonel Mure--not the formulae of constant +recurrence, which tells us who spoke and who answered, but those which +are connected with pointing moral effects, and with ulterior purpose. +These repetitions tend at once to give more definite impressions of +character, and to make firmer and closer the whole tissue of the poem. +Thus, in the last speech of Guinevere, she echoes back, with other ideas +and expressions, the sentiment of Arthur's affection, which becomes in +her mouth sublime:-- + + I must not scorn myself: he loves me still: + Let no one dream but that he loves me still. + +She prays admission among the nuns, that she may follow the pious and +peaceful tenor of their life (p. 260):-- + + And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer + The sombre close of that voluptuous day + Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King. + +And it is but a debt of justice to the Guinevere of the romancers to +observe, that she loses considerably by the marked transposition which +Mr. Tennyson has effected in the order of greatness between Lancelot and +Arthur. With him there is an original error in her estimate, +independently of the breach of a positive and sacred obligation. She +prefers the inferior man; and this preference implies a rooted ethical +defect in her nature. In the romance of Sir T. Mallory the preference +she gives to Lancelot would have been signally just, had she been free +to choose. For Lancelot is of an indescribable grandeur; but the limit +of Arthur's character is thus shown in certain words that he uses, and +that Lancelot never could have spoken. "Much more I am sorrier for my +good knight's loss than for the loss of my queen; for queens might I +have enough, but, such a fellowship of good knights shall never be +together in company." + +We began with the exordium of this great work: we must not withhold the +conclusion. We left her praying admission to the convent-- + + She said. They took her to themselves; and she, + Still hoping, fearing, "is it yet too late?" + Dwelt with them, till in time their Abbess died. + Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life, + And for the power of ministration in her, + And likewise for the high rank she had borne, + Was chosen Abbess: there, an Abbess, lived + For three brief years; and there, an Abbess, pass'd + To where beyond these voices there is peace. + +No one, we are persuaded, can read this poem without feeling, when it +ends, what may be termed the pangs of vacancy--of that void in heart and +mind for want of its continuance of which we are conscious when some +noble strain of music ceases, when some great work of Raphael passes +from the view, when we lose sight of some spot connected with high +associations, or when some transcendent character upon the page of +history disappears, and the withdrawal of it is like the withdrawal of +the vital air. We have followed the Guinevere of Mr. Tennyson through +its detail, and have extracted largely from its pages, and yet have not +a hope of having conveyed an idea of what it really is; still we have +thought that in this way we should do it the least injustice, and we are +also convinced that even what we have shown will tend to rouse an +appetite, and that any of our readers, who may not yet have been also +Mr. Tennyson's, will become more eager to learn and admire it at first +hand. + +We have no doubt that Mr. Tennyson has carefully considered how far his +subject is capable of fulfilling the conditions of an epic structure. +The history of Arthur is not an epic as it stands, but neither was the +Cyclic song, of which the greatest of all epics, the "Iliad," handles a +part. The poem of Ariosto is scarcely an epic, nor is that of Bojardo; +but it is not this because each is too promiscuous and crowded in its +brilliant phantasmagoria to conform to the severe laws of that lofty and +inexorable class of poem? Though the Arthurian romance be no epic, it +does not follow that no epic can be made from out of it. It is grounded +in certain leading characters, men and women, conceived upon models of +extraordinary grandeur; and as the Laureate has evidently grasped the +genuine law which makes man and not the acts of man the base of epic +song, we should not be surprised were he hereafter to realize the great +achievement towards which he seems to be feeling his way. There is a +moral unity and a living relationship between the four poems before us, +and the first effort of 1842 as a fifth, which, though some considerable +part of their contents would necessarily rank as episode, establishes +the first and most essential condition of their cohesion. The +achievement of Vivien bears directly on the state of Arthur by +withdrawing his chief councillor--the brain, as Lancelot was the right +arm, of his court; the love of Elaine is directly associated with the +final catastrophe of the passion of Lancelot for Guinevere. Enid lies +somewhat further off the path, nor is it for profane feet to intrude +into the sanctuary, for reviewers to advise poets in these high matters; +but while we presume nothing, we do not despair of seeing Mr. Tennyson +achieve on the basis he has chosen the structure of a full-formed epic. + +In any case we have a cheerful hope that, if he continues to advance +upon himself as he has advanced heretofore, nay, if he can keep the +level he has gained, such a work will be the greatest, and by far the +greatest poetical creation, that, whether in our own or in foreign +poetry, the nineteenth century has produced. In the face of all critics, +the Laureate of England has now reached a position which at once imposes +and instils respect. They are self-constituted; but he has won his way +through the long dedication of his manful energies, accepted and crowned +by deliberate, and, we rejoice to think, by continually growing, public +favour. He has after all, and it is not the least nor lowest item in his +praise, been the severest of his own critics, and has not been too proud +either to learn or to unlearn in the work of maturing his genius and +building up his fame. + +From his very first appearance he has had the form and fashion of a true +poet: the insight into beauty, the perception of harmony, the faculty of +suggestion, the eye both in the physical and moral world for motion, +light, and colour, the sympathetic and close observation of nature, the +dominance of the constructive faculty, and that rare gift the thorough +mastery and loving use of his native tongue. Many of us, the common +crowd, made of the common clay, may be lovers of Nature, some as sincere +or even as ardent as Mr. Tennyson; but it does not follow that even +these favoured few possess the privilege that he enjoys. To them she +speaks through vague and indeterminate impressions: for him she has a +voice of the most delicate articulation; all her images to him are clear +and definite, and he translates them for us into that language of +suggestion, emphasis, and refined analogy which links the manifold to +the simple and the infinite to the finite. He accomplishes for us what +we should in vain attempt for ourselves, enables the puny hand to lay +hold on what is vast, and brings even coarseness of grasp into a real +contact with what is subtle and ethereal. His turn for metaphysical +analysis is closely associated with a deep ethical insight: and many of +his verses form sayings of so high a class that we trust they are +destined to form a permanent part of the household-words of England. + +Considering the quantity of power that Mr. Tennyson can make available, +it is a great proof of self-discipline that he is not given to a wanton +or tyrannous use of it. An extraordinary master of diction, he has +confined himself to its severe and simple forms. In establishing this +rule of practice his natural gift has evidently been aided by the fine +English of the old romances, and we might count upon the fingers the +cases in which he has lately deviated into the employment of any stilted +phrase, or given sanction to a word not of the best fabric. Profuse in +the power of graphic[1] representation, he has chastened some of his +earlier groups of imagery, which were occasionally overloaded with +particulars; and in his later works, as has been well remarked, he has +shown himself thoroughly aware that in poetry half is greater than the +whole. That the chastity of style he has attained is not from exhaustion +of power may easily be shown. No poet has evinced a more despotic +mastery over intractable materials, or has been more successful in +clothing what is common with the dignity of his art. The Downs are not +the best subjects in the world for verse; but they will be remembered +with and by his descriptive line in the "Idylls"-- + + Far o'er the long backs of the bushless downs. + +[1] We use the word in what we conceive to be its only legitimate + meaning; namely, after the manner and with the effect of painting. + It signifies the _quid_, not the _quale_. + +How becoming is the appearance of what we familiarly term the "clod" in +the "Princess"! (p. 37)-- + + Nor those horn-handled breakers of the glebe. + +Of all imaginable subjects, mathematics might seem the most hopeless to +make mention of in verse; but they are with him + + The hard-grained Muses of the cube and square. + +Thus at a single stroke he gives an image alike simple, true, and +poetical to boot, because suited to its place and object in his verse, +like the heavy Caryatides well placed in architecture. After this, we +may less esteem the feat by which in "Godiva" he describes the clock +striking mid-day:-- + + All at once, + With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon + Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers. + + +But even the contents of a pigeon-pie are not beneath his notice, nor +yet beyond his powers of embellishment, in "Audley Court":-- + + A pasty, costly made, + Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay + Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks + Imbedded and injellied. + +What excites more surprise is that he can, without any offence against +good taste, venture to deal with these contents even after they have +entered the mouth of the eater ("Enid," p. 79):-- + + The brawny spearman let his cheek + Bulge with the unswallowed piece, and turning, stared. + +The delicate insight of fine taste appears to show him with wonderful +precision up to what point his art can control and compel his materials, +and from what point the materials are in hopeless rebellion and must be +let alone. So in the "Princess" (p. 89) we are introduced to-- + + Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men, + Huge women _blowzed_ with health, and wind, and rain, + And labour. + +It was absolutely necessary for him to heighten, nay, to coarsen, the +description of these masses of animated beef, who formed the standing +army of the woman-commonwealth. Few would have obeyed this law without +violating another; but Mr. Tennyson saw that the verb was admissible, +while the adjective would have been intolerable. + +In 1842 his purging process made it evident that he did not mean to +allow his faults or weaknesses to stint the growth and mar the +exhibition of his genius. When he published "In Memoriam" in 1850, all +readers were conscious of the progressive widening and strengthening, +but, above all, deepening of his mind. We cannot hesitate to mark the +present volume as exhibiting another forward and upward stride, and that +by perhaps the greatest of all, in his career. If we are required to +show cause for this opinion under any special head, we would at once +point to that which is, after all, the first among the poet's gifts--the +gift of conceiving and representing human character. + +Mr. Tennyson's Arthurian essays continually suggest to us comparisons +not so much with any one poet as a whole, but rather with many or most +of the highest poets. The music and the just and pure modulation of his +verse carry us back not only to the fine ear of Shelley, but to Milton +and to Shakespeare: and his powers of fancy and of expression have +produced passages which, if they are excelled by that one transcendent +and ethereal poet of our nation whom we have last named, yet could have +been produced by no other English minstrel. Our author has a right to +regard his own blank verse as highly characteristic and original: but +yet Milton has contributed to its formation, and occasionally there is a +striking resemblance in turn and diction, while Mr. Tennyson is the more +idiomatic of the two. The chastity and moral elevation of this volume, +its essential and profound though not didactic Christianity, are such as +perhaps cannot be matched throughout the circle of English literature in +conjunction with an equal power: and such as to recall a pattern which +we know not whether Mr. Tennyson has studied, the celestial strain of +Dante.[1] This is the more remarkable, because he has had to tread upon +the ground which must have been slippery for any foot but his. We are +far from knowing that either Lancelot or Guinevere would have been safe +even for mature readers, were it not for the instinctive purity of his +mind and the high skill of his management. We do not know that in other +times they have had their noble victims, whose names have become +immortal as their own. + + Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto + Di Lancilotto, e come amor lo strinse. + * * * * * + Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse.[2] + +[1] It is no reproach to say that neither Dante nor Homer could have + been studied by Mr. Tennyson at the time--a very early period of his + life--when he wrote the lines which are allotted to them + respectively in "The Palace of Art." +[2] "Inferno," c. V, v. 127. + +How difficult it is to sustain the elevation of such a subject, may be +seen in the well-meant and long popular "Jane Shore" of Rowe. How easily +this very theme may be vulgarised, is shown in the _"Chevaliers de la +Table Ronde"_ of M. Creuzé de Lesser, who nevertheless has aimed at a +peculiar delicacy of treatment. + +But the grand poetical quality in which this volume gives to its author +a new rank and standing is the dramatic power: the power of drawing +character and of representing action. These faculties have not been +precocious in Mr. Tennyson: but what is more material, they have come +out in great force. He has always been fond of personal delineations, +from Claribel and Lilian down to his Ida, his Psyche, and his Maud; but +they have been of shadowy quality, doubtful as to flesh and blood, and +with eyes having little or no speculation in them. But he is far greater +and far better when he has, as he now has, a good raw material ready to +his hand, than when he draws only on the airy or chaotic regions of what +Carlyle calls unconditioned possibility. He is made not so much to +convert the moor into the field, as the field into the rich and gorgeous +garden. The imperfect _nisus_ which might be remarked in some former +works has at length reached the fulness of dramatic energy: in the +Idylls we have nothing vague or dreamy to complain of: everything lives +and moves, in the royal strength of nature: the fire of Prometheus has +fairly caught the clay: every figure stands clear, broad, and sharp +before us, as if it had sky for its background: and this of small as +well as great, for even the "little novice" is projected on the canvas +with the utmost truth and vigour, and with that admirable effect in +heightening the great figure of Guinevere, which Patroclus produces for +the character of Achilles, and (as some will have it) the modest +structure of Saint Margaret's for the giant proportions of Westminster +Abbey. And this, we repeat, is the crowning gift of the poet: the power +of conceiving and representing man. + +We do not believe that a Milton--or, in other words, the writer of a +"Paradise Lost"--could ever be so great as a Shakespeare or a Homer, +because (setting aside all other questions) his chief characters are +neither human, nor can they be legitimately founded upon humanity; and, +moreover, what he has to represent of man is, by the very law of its +being, limited in scale and development. Here at least the saying is a +true one: _Antiquitas saeculi, juventus mundi;_ rendered by our poet in +"The Day-dream," + + For we are ancients of the earth, + And in the morning of the times. + +The Adam and Eve of Paradise exhibit to us the first inception of our +race; and neither then, nor after their first sad lesson, could they +furnish those materials for representation, which their descendants have +accumulated in the school of their incessant and many-coloured, but on +the whole too gloomy, experience. To the long chapters of that +experience every generation of man makes its own addition. Again we ask +the aid of Mr. Tennyson in "Locksley Hall":-- + + Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, + And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. + +The substitution of law for force has indeed altered the relations of +the strong and the weak; the hardening or cooling down of political +institutions and social traditions, the fixed and legal track instead of +the open pathless field, have removed or neutralised many of those +occasions and passages of life, which were formerly the schools of +individual character. The genius of mechanism has vied, in the arts of +both peace and war, with the strong hand, and has well-nigh robbed it of +its place. But let us not be deceived by that smoothness of superficies, +which the social prospect offers to the distant eye. Nearness dispels +the illusion; life is still as full of deep, of ecstatic, of harrowing +interests as it ever was. The heart of man still beats and bounds, +exults and suffers, from causes which are only less salient and +conspicuous because they are more mixed and diversified. It still +undergoes every phase of emotion, and even, as seems probable, with a +susceptibility which has increased and is increasing, and which has its +index and outer form in the growing delicacy and complexities of the +nervous system. Does any one believe that ever at any time there was a +greater number of deaths referable to that comprehensive cause a broken +heart? Let none fear that this age, or any coming one, will extinguish +the material of poetry. The more reasonable apprehension might be lest +it should sap the vital force necessary to handle that material, and +mould it into appropriate forms. To those especially, who cherish any +such apprehension, we recommend the perusal of this volume. Of it we +will say without fear, what we would not dare to say of any other recent +work; that of itself it raises the character and the hopes of the age +and the country which have produced it, and that its author, by his own +single strength, has made a sensible addition to the permanent wealth of +mankind. + + + +CANON WILBERFORCE ON DARWIN + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1860] + +_On the Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection; or the +Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life._ By CHARLES +DARWIN, M.A., F.R.S. London, 1860. + +Any contribution to our Natural History literature from the pen of Mr. +C. Darwin is certain to command attention. His scientific attainments, +his insight and carefulness as an observer, blended with no scanty +measure of imaginative sagacity, and his clear and lively style, make +all his writings unusually attractive. His present volume on the _Origin +of Species_ is the result of many years of observation, thought, and +speculation; and is manifestly regarded by him as the "opus" upon which +his future fame is to rest. It is true that he announces it modestly +enough as the mere precursor of a mightier volume. But that volume is +only intended to supply the facts which are to support the completed +argument of the present essay. In this we have a specimen-collection of +the vast accumulation; and, working from these as the high analytical +mathematician may work from the admitted results of his conic sections, +he proceeds to deduce all the conclusions to which he wishes to conduct +his readers. + +The essay is full of Mr. Darwin's characteristic excellences. It is a +most readable book; full of facts in natural history, old and new, of +his collecting and of his observing; and all of these are told in his +own perspicuous language, and all thrown into picturesque combinations, +and all sparkle with the colours of fancy and the lights of imagination. +It assumes, too, the grave proportions of a sustained argument upon a +matter of the deepest interest, not to naturalists only, or even to men +of science exclusively, but to every one who is interested in the +history of man and of the relations of nature around him to the history +and plan of creation. + +With Mr. Darwin's "argument" we may say in the outset that we shall have +much and grave fault to find. But this does not make us the less +disposed to admire the singular excellences of his work; and we will +seek _in limine_ to give our readers a few examples of these. Here, for +instance, is a beautiful illustration of the wonderful interdependence +of nature--of the golden chain of unsuspected relations which bind +together all the mighty web which stretches from end to end of this full +and most diversified earth. Who, as he listened to the musical hum of +the great humble-bees, or marked their ponderous flight from flower to +flower, and watched the unpacking of their trunks for their work of +suction, would have supposed that the multiplication or diminution of +their race, or the fruitfulness and sterility of the red clover, depend +as directly on the vigilance of our cats as do those of our well-guarded +game-preserves on the watching of our keepers? Yet this Mr. Darwin has +discovered to be literally the case:-- + + From experiments which I have lately tried, I have found that the + visits of bees are necessary for the fertilisation of some kinds of + clover; but humble-bees alone visit the red clover (Trifolium + pratense), as other bees cannot reach the nectar. Hence I have very + little doubt, that if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or + very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very + rare or wholly disappear. The number of humble-bees in any district + depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice, which destroy + their combs and nests; and Mr. H. Newman, who has long attended to the + habits of humble-bees, believes that "more than two-thirds of them are + thus destroyed all over England." Now the number of mice is largely + dependent, as every one knows, on the number of cats; and Mr. Newman + says, "near villages and small towns I have found the nests of + humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the + number of cats that destroy the mice." Hence, it is quite credible + that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district + might determine, through the intervention, first of mice, and then of + bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district.--p. 74. + + * * * * * + +Now, all this is, we think, really charming writing. We feel as we walk +abroad with Mr. Darwin very much as the favoured object of the attention +of the dervise must have felt when he had rubbed the ointment around his +eye, and had it opened to see all the jewels, and diamonds, and +emeralds, and topazes, and rubies, which were sparkling unregarded +beneath the earth, hidden as yet from all eyes save those which the +dervise had enlightened. But here we are bound to say our pleasure +terminates; for, when we turn with Mr. Darwin to his "argument," we are +almost immediately at variance with him. It is as an "argument" that the +essay is put forward; as an argument we will test it. + +We can perhaps best convey to our readers a clear view of Mr. Darwin's +chain of reasoning, and of our objections to it, if we set before them, +first, the conclusion to which he seeks to bring them; next, the leading +propositions which he must establish in order to make good his final +inference; and then the mode by which he endeavours to support his +propositions. + +The conclusion, then, to which Mr. Darwin would bring us is, that all +the various forms of vegetable and animal life with which the globe is +now peopled, or of which we find the remains preserved in a fossil state +in the great Earth-Museum around us, which the science of geology +unlocks for our instruction, have come down by natural succession of +descent from father to son,--"animals from at most four or five +progenitors, and plants from an equal or less number" (p. 484), as Mr. +Darwin at first somewhat diffidently suggests; or rather, as, growing +bolder when he has once pronounced his theory, he goes on to suggest to +us, from one single head:-- + + Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that ALL + ANIMALS and PLANTS have descended from some one prototype. But analogy + may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless, all living things have much in + common in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their + cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction.... + + Therefore I shall infer from analogy that probably all the organic + beings which have ever lived on this earth (man therefore of course + included) have descended from some one primordial form into which life + was first breathed by the Creator.--p. 484. + +This is the theory which really pervades the whole volume. Man, beast, +creeping thing, and plant of the earth, are all the lineal and direct +descendants of some one individual _ens_, whose various progeny have +been simply modified by the action of natural and ascertainable +conditions into the multiform aspect of life which we see around us. +This is undoubtedly at first sight a somewhat startling conclusion to +arrive at. To find that mosses, grasses, turnips, oaks, worms, and +flies, mites and elephants, infusoria and whales, tadpoles of to-day and +venerable saurians, truffles and men, are all equally the lineal +descendants of the same aboriginal common ancestor, perhaps of the +nucleated cell of some primaeval fungus, which alone possessed the +distinguishing honour of being the "one primordial form into which life +was first breathed by the Creator "--this, to say the least of it, is no +common discovery--no very expected conclusion. But we are too loyal +pupils of inductive philosophy to start back from any conclusion by +reason of its strangeness. Newton's patient philosophy taught him to +find in the falling apple the law which governs the silent movements of +the stars in their courses; and if Mr. Darwin can with the same +correctness of reasoning demonstrate to us our fungular descent, we +shall dismiss our pride, and avow, with the characteristic humility of +philosophy, our unsuspected cousinship with the mushrooms,-- + + Claim kindred there, and have our claim allowed, + +--only we shall ask leave to scrutinise carefully every step of the +argument which has such an ending, and demur if at any point of it we +are invited to substitute unlimited hypothesis for patient observation, +or the spasmodic fluttering flight of fancy for the severe conclusions +to which logical accuracy of reasoning has led the way. + +Now, the main propositions by which Mr. Darwin's conclusion is attained +are these:-- + +1. That observed and admitted variations spring up in the course of +descents from a common progenitor. + +2. That many of these variations tend to an improvement upon the parent +stock. + +3. That, by a continued selection of these improved specimens as the +progenitors of future stock, its powers may be unlimitedly increased. + +4. And, lastly, that there is in nature a power continually and +universally working out this selection, and so fixing and augmenting +these improvements. + +Mr. Darwin's whole theory rests upon the truth of these propositions and +crumbles utterly away if only one of them fail him. These, therefore, we +must closely scrutinise. We will begin with the last in our series, both +because we think it the newest and the most ingenious part of Mr. +Darwin's whole argument, and also because, whilst we absolutely deny the +mode in which he seeks to apply the existence of the power to help him +in his argument, yet we think that he throws great and very interesting +light upon the fact that such self-acting power does actively and +continuously work in all creation around us. + +Mr. Darwin finds then the disseminating and improving power, which he +needs to account for the development of new forms in nature, in the +principle of "Natural Selection," which is evolved in the strife for +room to live and flourish which is evermore maintained between +themselves by all living things. One of the most interesting parts of +Mr. Darwin's volume is that in which he establishes this law of natural +selection; we say establishes, because--repeating that we differ from +him totally in the limits which he would assign to its action--we have +no doubt of the existence or of the importance of the law itself. + + * * * * * + +We come then to these conclusions. All the facts presented to us in the +natural world tend to show that none of the variations produced in the +fixed forms of animal life, when seen in its most plastic condition +under domestication, give any promise of a true transmutation of +species; first, from the difficulty of accumulating and fixing +variations within the same species; secondly, from the fact that these +variations, though most serviceable for man, have no tendency to improve +the individual beyond the standard of his own specific type, and so to +afford matter, even if they were infinitely produced, for the supposed +power of natural selection on which to work; whilst all variations from +the mixture of species are barred by the inexorable law of hybrid +sterility. Further, the embalmed records of 3,000 years show that there +has been no beginning of transmutation in the species of our most +familiar domesticated animals; and beyond this, that in the countless +tribes of animal life around us, down to its lowest and most variable +species, no one has ever discovered a single instance of such +transmutation being now in prospect; no new organ has ever been known to +be developed--no new natural instinct to be formed--whilst, finally, in +the vast museum of departed animal life which the strata of the earth +imbed for our examination, whilst they contain far too complete a +representation of the past to be set aside as a mere imperfect record, +yet afford no one instance of any such change as having ever been in +progress, or give us anywhere the missing links of the assumed chain, or +the remains which would enable now existing variations, by gradual +approximations, to shade off into unity. On what then is the new theory +based? We say it with unfeigned regret, in dealing with such a man as +Mr. Darwin, on the merest hypothesis, supported by the most unbounded +assumptions. These are strong words, but we will give a few instances to +prove their truth:-- + + All physiologists admit that the swim-bladder is homologous or + "ideally similar" in position and structure with the lungs of the + higher vertebrate animals; hence there _seems to me to be no great + difficulty in believing_ that natural selection has actually converted + a swim-bladder into a lung, or organ used exclusively for + respiration.--p. 191. + + _I can indeed hardly doubt_ that all vertebrate animals having true + lungs have descended by ordinary generation from the ancient + prototype, of which we know nothing, furnished with a floating + apparatus or swim-bladder--p. 191. + +We must be cautious + + In concluding that the most different habits of all _could not_ + graduate into each other; that a bat, for instance, _could not_ have + been formed by natural selection from an animal which at first could + only glide through the air.--p. 204. + +Again:-- + + _I see no difficulty in supposing_ that such links formerly existed, + and that each had been formed by the same steps as in the case of the + less perfectly gliding squirrels, and that each grade of structure was + useful to its possessor. Nor _can I see any insuperable difficulty in + further believing_ it possible that the membrane-connected fingers and + forearm of the galeopithecus might be greatly lengthened by natural + selection, and this, as far as the organs of flight are concerned, + would convert it into a bat.--p. 181. + + For instance, a swim-bladder has _apparently_ been converted into an + air-breathing lung.--p. 181. + +And again:-- + + The electric organs of fishes offer another case of special + difficulty: It is impossible to conceive by what steps these wondrous + organs have been produced; but, as Owen and others have remarked, + their intimate structure closely resembles that of common muscle; and + as it has lately been shown that rays have an organ closely analogous + to the electric apparatus, and yet do not, as Matteucci asserts, + discharge any electricity, we must own that we are far too ignorant to + argue that _no transition of any kind is possible._--pp. 192-3. + +Sometimes Mr. Darwin seems for a moment to recoil himself from this +extravagant liberty of speculation, as when he says, concerning the +eye,-- + + To suppose that the eye, with its inimitable contrivances for + adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different + amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic + aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I + freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.--p. 186. + +But he soon returns to his new wantonness of conjecture, and, without +the shadow of a fact, contents himself with saying that-- + + he _suspects_ that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to + light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which + produce sound.--p-187. + +And in the following passage he carries this extravagance to the highest +pitch, requiring a licence for advancing as true any theory which cannot +be demonstrated to be actually impossible:-- + + If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, _which + could not possibly_ have been formed by numerous, successive, slight + modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find + no such case.--p. 189. + +Another of these assumptions is not a little remarkable. It suits his +argument to deduce all our known varieties of pigeons from the +rock-pigeon (the Columba livia), and this parentage is traced out, +though not, we think, to demonstration, yet with great ingenuity and +patience. But another branch of the argument would be greatly +strengthened by establishing the descent of our various breeds of dogs +with their perfect power of fertile inter-breeding from different +natural species. And accordingly, though every fact as to the canine +race is parallel to the facts which have been used before to establish +the common parentage of the pigeons in Columba livia, all these are +thrown over in a moment, and Mr. Darwin, first assuming, without the +shadow of proof, that our domestic breeds are descended from different +species, proceeds calmly to argue from this, as though it were a +demonstrated certainty. + + It _seems to me unlikely_ in the case of the dog-genus, which is + distributed in a wild state throughout the world, that since man first + appeared one species alone should have been domesticated.--p. 18. + + In some cases _I do not doubt_ that the intercrossing of species + aboriginally distinct has played an important part in the origin of + our domestic productions.--p. 43. + +What new words are these for a loyal disciple of the true Baconian +philosophy?--"I can conceive"--"It is not incredible"--"I do not doubt" +--"It is conceivable." + + For myself, _I venture confidently_ to look back thousands on + thousands of generations, and I see an animal striped like a zebra, + but perhaps otherwise very differently constructed, the common parent + of our domestic horse, whether or not it be descended from one or more + wild stocks of the ass, hemionous, quagga, or zebra.--p. 167. + +In the name of all true philosophy we protest against such a mode of +dealing with nature, as utterly dishonourable to all natural science, as +reducing it from its present lofty level of being one of the noblest +trainers of man's intellect and instructors of his mind, to being a mere +idle play of the fancy, without the basis of fact or the discipline of +observation. In the "Arabian Nights" we are not offended as at an +impossibility when Amina sprinkles her husband with water and transforms +him into a dog, but we cannot open the august doors of the venerable +temple of scientific truth to the genii and magicians of romance. We +plead guilty to Mr. Darwin's imputation that + + the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one species + has given birth to other and distinct species is that we are always + slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the + intermediate steps.--p. 481. + +In this tardiness to admit great changes suggested by the imagination, +but the steps of which we cannot see, is the true spirit of philosophy. + + Analysis, says Professor Sedgwick, consists in making experiments and + observations, and in drawing general conclusions from them by + induction, and admitting of no objections against the conclusions but + such as are taken from experiments or other certain truths; for + _hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental philosophy._[1] + +[1] "A Discourse on the Studies of the University," by A. Sedgwick, p. + 102. + +The other solvent which Mr. Darwin most freely and, we think, +unphilosophically employs to get rid of difficulties, is his use of +time. This he shortens or prolongs at will by the mere wave of his +magician's rod. Thus the duration of whole epochs, during which certain +forms of animal life prevailed, is gathered up into a point, whilst an +unlimited expanse of years, "impressing his mind with a sense of +eternity," is suddenly interposed between that and the next series, +though geology proclaims the transition to have been one of gentle and, +it may be, swift accomplishment. All this too is made the more startling +because it is used to meet the objections drawn from facts. "We see none +of your works," says the observer of nature; "we see no beginnings of +the portentous change; we see plainly beings of another order in +creation, but we find amongst them no tendencies to these altered +organisms." "True," says the great magician, with a calmness no +difficulty derived from the obstinacy of facts can disturb; "true, but +remember the effect of time. Throw in a few hundreds of millions of +years more or less, and why should not all these changes be possible, +and, if possible, why may I not assume them to be real?" + +Together with this large licence of assumption we notice in this book +several instances of receiving as facts whatever seems to bear out the +theory upon the slightest evidence, and rejecting summarily others, +merely because they are fatal to it. We grieve to charge upon Mr. Darwin +this freedom in handling facts, but truth extorts it from us. That the +loose statements and unfounded speculations of this book should come +from the author of the monograms on Cirripedes, and the writer, in the +natural history of the Voyage of the "Beagle," of the paper on the Coral +Reefs, is indeed a sad warning how far the love of a theory may seduce +even a first-rate naturalist from the very articles of his creed. + +This treatment of facts is followed up by another favourite line of +argument, namely, that by this hypothesis difficulties otherwise +inextricable are solved. Such passages abound. Take a few, selected +almost at random, to illustrate what we mean:-- + + How inexplicable are these facts on the ordinary view of creation!--p. + 436. + + Such facts as the presence of peculiar species of bats and the absence + of other mammals on oceanic islands are utterly inexplicable on the + theory of independent acts of creation.--pp. 477-8. + + It must be admitted that these facts receive no explanation on the + theory of creation.--p. 478. + + The inhabitants of the Cape de Verde Islands are related to those of + Africa, like those of the Galapagos to America. I believe this grand + fact can receive no sort of explanation on the ordinary view of + independent creation.--pp. 398-9. + +Now what can be more simply reconcilable with that theory than Mr. +Darwin's own account of the mode in which the migration of animal life +from one distant region to another is continually accomplished? + +Take another of these suggestions:-- + + It is inexplicable, on the theory of creation, why a part developed in + a very unusual manner in any one species of a genus, and therefore, as + we may naturally infer, of great importance to the species, should be + eminently liable to variation.--p. 474. + +Why "inexplicable"? Such a liability to variation might most naturally +be expected in the part "unusually developed," because such unusual +development is of the nature of a monstrosity, and monsters are always +tending to relapse into likeness to the normal type. Yet this argument +is one on which he mainly relies to establish his theory, for he sums +all up in this triumphant inference:-- + + I cannot believe that a false theory would explain, as it seems to me + that the theory of natural selection does explain, the several large + classes of facts above specified.--p. 480. + +Now, as to all this, we deny, first, that many of these difficulties are +"inexplicable on any other supposition." Of the greatest of them (128, +194) we shall have to speak before we conclude. We will here touch only +on one of those which are continually reappearing in Mr. Darwin's pages, +in order to illustrate his mode of dealing with them. He finds, then, +one of these "inexplicable difficulties" in the fact, that the young of +the blackbird, instead of resembling the adult in the colour of its +plumage, is like the young of many other birds spotted, and triumphantly +declaring that-- + + No one will suppose that the stripes on the whelp of a lion, or the + spots on the young blackbird, are of any use to these animals, or are + related to the conditions to which they are exposed.--pp. 439-40-- + +he draws from them one of his strongest arguments for this alleged +community of descent. Yet what is more certain to every observant +field-naturalist than that this alleged uselessness of colouring is one +of the greatest protections to the young bird, imperfect in its flight, +perching on every spray, sitting unwarily on every bush through which +the rays of sunshine dapple every bough to the colour of its own +plumage, and so give it a facility of escape which it would utterly want +if it bore the marked and prominent colours, the beauty of which the +adult bird needs to recommend him to his mate, and can safely bear with +his increased habits of vigilance and power of wing? + +But, secondly, as to many of these difficulties, the alleged solving of +which is one great proof of the truth of Mr. Darwin's theory, we are +compelled to join issue with him on another ground, and deny that he +gives us any solution at all. Thus, for instance, Mr. Darwin builds a +most ingenious argument on the tendency of the young of the horse, ass, +zebra, and quagga, to bear on their shoulders and on their legs certain +barred stripes. Up these bars (bars sinister, as we think, as to any +true descent of existing animals from their fancied prototype) he mounts +through his "thousands and thousands of generations," to the existence +of his "common parent, otherwise perhaps very differently constructed, +but striped like a zebra."--(p. 67.) "How inexplicable," he exclaims, +"on the theory of creation, is the occasional appearance of stripes on +the shoulder and legs of several species of the horse genus and in their +hybrids!"--(p. 473.) He tells us that to suppose that each species was +created with a tendency "like this, is to make the works of God a mere +mockery and deception"; and he satisfies himself that all difficulty is +gone when he refers the stripes to his hypothetical thousands on +thousands of years removed progenitor. But how is his difficulty really +affected? for why is the striping of one species a less real difficulty +than the striping of many? + +Another instance of this mode of dealing with his subject, to which we +must call the attention of our readers, because it too often recurs, is +contained in the following question:-- + + Were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created + as eggs, or seed, or as full grown? and, in the case of mammals, were + they created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's + womb?--p. 483. + +The difficulty here glanced at is extreme, but it is one for the +solution of which the transmutation-theory gives no clue. It is inherent +in the idea of the creation of beings, which are to reproduce their like +by natural succession; for, in such a world, place the first beginning +where you will, that beginning _must_ contain the apparent history of a +_past_, which existed only in the mind of the Creator. If, with Mr. +Darwin, to escape the difficulty of supposing the first man at his +creation to possess in that framework of his body "false marks of +nourishment from his mother's womb," with Mr. Darwin you consider him to +have been an improved ape, you only carry the difficulty up from the +first man to the first ape; if, with Mr. Darwin, in violation of all +observation, you break the barrier between the classes of vegetable and +animal life, and suppose every animal to be an "improved" vegetable, you +do but carry your difficulty with you into the vegetable world; for, how +could there be seeds if there had been no plants to seed them? and if +you carry up your thoughts through the vista of the Darwinian eternity +up to the primaeval fungus, still the primaeval fungus must have had a +humus, from which to draw into its venerable vessels the nourishment of +its archetypal existence, and that humus must itself be a "false mark" +of a pre-existing vegetation. + +We have dwelt a little upon this, because it is by such seeming +solutions of difficulties as that which this passage supplies that the +transmutationist endeavours to prop up his utterly rotten fabric of +guess and speculation. + +There are no parts of Mr. Darwin's ingenious book in which he gives the +reins more completely to his fancy than where he deals with the +improvement of instinct by his principle of natural selection. We need +but instance his assumption, without a fact on which to build it, that +the marvellous skill of the honey-bee in constructing its cells is thus +obtained, and the slave-making habits of the Formica Polyerges thus +formed. There seems to be no limit here to the exuberance of his fancy, +and we cannot but think that we detect one of those hints by which Mr. +Darwin indicates the application of his system from the lower animals to +man himself, when he dwells so pointedly upon the fact that it is always +the _black_ ant which is enslaved by his other coloured and more +fortunate brethren. "The slaves are black!" We believe that, if we had +Mr. Darwin in the witness-box, and could subject him to a moderate +cross-examination, we should find that he believed that the tendency of +the lighter-coloured races of mankind to prosecute the negro slave-trade +was really a remains, in their more favoured condition, of the +"extraordinary and odious instinct" which had possessed them before they +had been "improved by natural selection" from Formica Polyerges into +Homo. This at least is very much the way in which (p. 479) he slips in +quite incidentally the true identity of man with the horse, the bat, and +the porpoise:-- + + The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a + bat, fin of a porpoise, and leg of the horse, the same number of + vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and of the elephant, and + innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory + of descent with slow and slight successive modifications.--p. 479. + +Such assumptions as these, we once more repeat, are most dishonourable +and injurious to science; and though, out of respect to Mr. Darwin's +high character and to the tone of his work, we have felt it right to +weigh the "argument" again set by him before us in the simple scales of +logical examination, yet we must remind him that the view is not a new +one, and that it has already been treated with admirable humour when +propounded by another of his name and of his lineage. We do not think +that, with all his matchless ingenuity, Mr. Darwin has found any +instance which so well illustrates his own theory of the improved +descendant under the elevating influences of natural selection +exterminating the progenitor whose specialities he has exaggerated as he +himself affords us in this work. For if we go back two generations we +find the ingenious grandsire of the author of the _Origin of Species_ +speculating on the same subject, and almost in the same manner with his +more daring descendant. + + * * * * * + +Our readers will not have failed to notice that we have objected to the +views with which we have been dealing solely on scientific grounds. We +have done so from our fixed conviction that it is thus that the truth or +falsehood of such arguments should be tried. We have no sympathy with +those who object to any facts or alleged facts in nature, or to any +inference logically deduced from them, because they believe them to +contradict what it appears to them is taught by Revelation. We think +that all such objections savour of a timidity which is really +inconsistent with a firm and well-instructed faith:-- + + "Let us for a moment," profoundly remarks Professor Sedgwick, "suppose + that there are some religious difficulties in the conclusions of + geology. How, then, are we to solve them? Not by making a world after + a pattern of our own--not by shifting and shuffling the solid strata + of the earth, and then dealing them out in such a way as to play the + game of an ignorant or dishonest hypothesis--not by shutting our eyes + to facts, or denying the evidence of our senses--but by patient + investigation, carried on in the sincere love of truth, and by + learning to reject every consequence not warranted by physical + evidence."[1] + +He who is as sure as he is of his own existence that the God of Truth is +at once the God of Nature and the God of Revelation, cannot believe it +to be possible that His voice in either, rightly understood, can differ, +or deceive His creatures. To oppose facts in the natural world because +they seem to oppose Revelation, or to humour them so as to compel them +to speak its voice, is, he knows, but another form of the ever-ready +feebleminded dishonesty of lying for God, and trying by fraud or +falsehood to do the work of the God of truth. It is with another and a +nobler spirit that the true believer walks amongst the works of nature. +The words graven on the everlasting rocks are the words of God, and they +are graven by His hand. No more can they contradict His Word written in +His book, than could the words of the old covenant graven by His hand on +the stony tables contradict the writings of His hand in the volume of +the new dispensation. There may be to man difficulty in reconciling all +the utterances of the two voices. But what of that? He has learned +already that here he knows only in part, and that the day of reconciling +all apparent contradictions between what must agree is nigh at hand. He +rests his mind in perfect quietness on this assurance, and rejoices in +the gift of light without a misgiving as to what it may discover:-- + + "A man of deep thought and great practical wisdom," says Sedgwick,[2] + "one whose piety and benevolence have for many years been shining + before the world, and of whose sincerity no scoffer (of whatever + school) will dare to start a doubt, recorded his opinion in the great + assembly of the men of science who during the past year were gathered + from every corner of the Empire within the walls of this University, + 'that Christianity had everything to hope and nothing to fear from the + advancement of philosophy.'"[3] + +[1] "A Discourse on the Studies of the University," p. 149. +[2] Ibid., p. 153. +[3] Speech of Dr. Chalmers at the Meeting of the British Association + for the Advancement of Science, June, 1833. + +This is as truly the spirit of Christianity as it is that of philosophy. +Few things have more deeply injured the cause of religion than the busy +fussy energy with which men, narrow and feeble alike in faith and in +science, have bustled forth to reconcile all new discoveries in physics +with the word of inspiration. For it continually happens that some +larger collection of facts, or some wider view of the phenomena of +nature, alter the whole philosophic scheme; whilst Revelation has been +committed to declare an absolute agreement with what turns out after all +to have been a misconception or an error. We cannot, therefore, consent +to test the truth of natural science by the Word of Revelation. But this +does not make it the less important to point out on scientific grounds +scientific errors, when those errors tend to limit God's glory in +creation, or to gainsay the revealed relations of that creation to +Himself. To both these classes of error, though, we doubt not, quite +unintentionally on his part, we think that Mr. Darwin's speculations +directly tend. + +Mr. Darwin writes as a Christian, and we doubt not that he is one. We do +not for a moment believe him to be one of those who retain in some +corner of their hearts a secret unbelief which they dare not vent; and +we therefore pray him to consider well the grounds on which we brand his +speculations with the charge of such a tendency. First, then, he not +obscurely declares that he applies his scheme of the action of the +principle of natural selection to MAN himself, as well as to the animals +around him. Now, we must say at once, and openly, that such a notion is +absolutely incompatible not only with single expressions in the word of +God on that subject of natural science with which it is not immediately +concerned, but, which in our judgment is of far more importance, with +the whole representation of that moral and spiritual condition of man +which is its proper subject-matter. Man's derived supremacy over the +earth; man's power of articulate speech; man's gift of reason; man's +free-will and responsibility; man's fall and man's redemption; the +incarnation of the Eternal Son; the indwelling of the Eternal Spirit,-- +all are equally and utterly irreconcilable with the degrading notion of +the brute origin of him who was created in the image of God, and +redeemed by the Eternal Son assuming to himself his nature. Equally +inconsistent, too, not with any passing expressions, but with the whole +scheme of God's dealings with man as recorded in His word, is Mr. +Darwin's daring notion of man's further development into some unknown +extent of powers, and shape, and size, through natural selection acting +through that long vista of ages which he casts mistily over the earth +upon the most favoured individuals of his species. We care not in these +pages to push the argument further. We have done enough for our purpose +in thus succinctly intimating its course. If any of our readers doubt +what must be the result of such speculations carried to their logical +and legitimate conclusion, let them turn to the pages of _Oken_, and see +for themselves the end of that path the opening of which is decked out +in these pages with the bright hues and seemingly innocent deductions of +the transmutation-theory. + +Nor can we doubt, secondly, that this view, which thus contradicts the +revealed relation of creation to its Creator, is equally inconsistent +with the fullness of His glory. It is, in truth, an ingenious theory for +diffusing throughout creation the working and so the personality of the +Creator. And thus, however unconsciously to him who holds them, such +views really tend inevitably to banish from the mind most of the +peculiar attributes of the Almighty. + +How, asks Mr. Darwin, can we possibly account for the manifest plan, +order, and arrangement which pervade creation, except we allow to it +this self-developing power through modified descent? + + As Milne-Edwards has well expressed it, Nature is prodigal in variety, + but niggard in innovation. Why, on the theory of creation, should this + be so? Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, + each supposed to have been separately created for its proper place in + nature, be so commonly linked together by graduated steps? Why should + not Nature have taken a leap from structure to structure?--p. 194. + +And again:-- + + It is a truly wonderful fact--the wonder of which we are apt to + overlook from familiarity--that all animals and plants throughout all + time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to + group, in the manner which we everywhere behold, namely, varieties of + the same species most closely related together, species of the same + genus less closely and unequally related together, forming sections + and sub-genera, species of distinct genera much less closely related, + and genera related in different degrees, forming sub-families, + families, orders, sub-classes, and classes.--pp. 128-9. + +How can we account for all this? By the simplest and yet the most +comprehensive answer. By declaring the stupendous fact that all creation +is the transcript in matter of ideas eternally existing in the mind of +the Most High--that order in the utmost perfectness of its relation +pervades His works, because it exists as in its centre and highest +fountain-head in Him the Lord of all. Here is the true account of the +fact which has so utterly misled shallow observers, that Man himself, +the Prince and Head of this creation, passes in the earlier stages of +his being through phases of existence closely analogous, so far as his +earthly tabernacle is concerned, to those in which the lower animals +ever remain. At that point of being the development of the protozoa is +arrested. Through it the embryo of their chief passes to the perfection +of his earthly frame. But the types of those lower forms of being must +be found in the animals which never advance beyond them--not in man for +whom they are but the foundation for an after-development; whilst he +too, Creation's crown and perfection, thus bears witness in his own +frame to the law of order which pervades the universe. + +In like manner could we answer every other question as to which Mr. +Darwin thinks all oracles are dumb unless they speak his speculation. He +is, for instance, more than once troubled by what he considers +imperfections in Nature's work. "If," he says, "our reason leads us to +admire with enthusiasm a multitude of inimitable contrivances in Nature, +this same reason tells us that some other contrivances are less +perfect." + + Nor ought we to marvel if all the contrivances in nature be not, as + far as we can judge, absolutely perfect; and if some of them be + abhorrent to our idea of fitness. We need not marvel at the sting of + the bee causing the bee's own death; at drones being produced in such + vast numbers for one single act, and with the great majority + slaughtered by their sterile sisters; at the astonishing waste of + pollen by our fir-trees; at the instinctive hatred of the queen-bee + for her own fertile daughters; at ichneumonidae feeding within the + live bodies of caterpillars; and at other such cases. The wonder + indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the + want of absolute perfection have not been observed.--p. 472. + +We think that the real temper of this whole speculation as to nature +itself may be read in these few lines. It is a dishonouring view of +nature. + +That reverence for the work of God's hands with which a true belief in +the All-wise Worker fills the believer's heart is at the root of all +great physical discovery; it is the basis of philosophy. He who would +see the venerable features of Nature must not seek with the rudeness of +a licensed roysterer violently to unmask her countenance; but must wait +as a learner for her willing unveiling. There was more of the true +temper of philosophy in the poetic fiction of the Pan-ic shriek, than in +the atheistic speculations of Lucretius. But this temper must beset +those who do in effect banish God from nature. And so Mr. Darwin not +only finds in it these bungling contrivances which his own greater skill +could amend, but he stands aghast before its mightier phenomena. The +presence of death and famine seems to him inconceivable on the ordinary +idea of creation; and he looks almost aghast at them until reconciled to +their presence by his own theory that "a ratio of increase so high as to +lead to a struggle for life, and as a consequence to natural selection +entailing divergence of character and the extinction of less improved +forms, is decidedly followed by the most exalted object which we are +capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals" (p. +490). But we can give him a simpler solution still for the presence of +these strange forms of imperfection and suffering amongst the works of +God. + +We can tell him of the strong shudder which ran through all this world +when its head and ruler fell. When he asks concerning the infinite +variety of these multiplied works which are set in such an orderly +unity, and run up into man as their reasonable head, we can tell him of +the exuberance of God's goodness and remind him of the deep philosophy +which lies in those simple words--"All thy works praise Thee, O God, and +thy saints give thanks unto Thee." For it is one office of redeemed man +to collect the inarticulate praises of the material creation, and pay +them with conscious homage into the treasury of the supreme Lord. + + * * * * * + +It is by putting restraint upon fancy that science is made the true +trainer of our intellect:-- + + "A study of the Newtonian philosophy," says Sedgwick, "as affecting + our moral powers and capacities, does not terminate in mere negations. + It teaches us to see the finger of God in all things animate and + inaminate [Transcriber's note: sic], and gives us an exalted + conception of His attributes, placing before us the clearest proof of + their reality; and so prepares, or ought to prepare, the mind for the + reception of that higher illumination which brings the rebellious + faculties into obedience to the Divine will."--_Studies of the + University_, p. 14. + +It is by our deep conviction of the truth and importance of this view +for the scientific mind of England that we have been led to treat at so +much length Mr. Darwin's speculation. The contrast between the sober, +patient, philosophical courage of our home philosophy, and the writings +of Lamarck and his followers and predecessors, of MM. Demaillet, Bory de +Saint Vincent, Virey, and Oken,[1] is indeed most wonderful; and it is +greatly owing to the noble tone which has been given by those great men +whose words we have quoted to the school of British science. That Mr. +Darwin should have wandered from this broad highway of nature's works +into the jungle of fanciful assumption is no small evil. We trust that +he is mistaken in believing that he may count Sir C. Lyell as one of his +converts. We know indeed the strength of the temptations which he can +bring to bear upon his geological brother. The Lyellian hypothesis, +itself not free from some of Mr. Darwin's faults, stands eminently in +need for its own support of some such new scheme of physical life as +that propounded here. Yet no man has been more distinct and more logical +in the denial of the transmutation of species than Sir C. Lyell, and +that not in the infancy of his scientific life, but in its full vigour +and maturity. + +[1] It may be worth while to exhibit to our readers a few of Dr. Oken's + postulates or arguments as specimens of his views:-- + I wrote the first edition of 1810 in a kind of inspiration. + 4. Spirit is the motion of mathematical ideas. + 10. Physio-philosphy [Transcriber's note: sic] has to ... pourtray + the first period of the world's development from nothing; how the + elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method by + self-evolution into higher and manifold forms they separated into + minerals, became finally organic, and in man attained + self-consciousness. + 42. The mathematical monad is eternal. + 43. The eternal is one and the same with the zero of mathematics. + + +Sir C. Lyell devotes the 33rd to the 36th chapter of his "Principles of +Geology" to an examination of this question. He gives a clear account of +the mode in which Lamarck supported his belief of the transmutation of +species; he interrupts the author's argument to observe that "no +positive fact is cited to exemplify the substitution of some _entirely +new_ sense, faculty, or organ--because no examples were to be found"; +and remarks that when Lamarck talks of "the effects of internal +sentiment," etc., as causes whereby animals and plants may acquire _new +organs_, he substitutes names for things, and with a disregard to the +strict rules of induction, resorts to fictions. + +He shows the fallacy of Lamarck's reasoning, and by anticipation +confutes the whole theory of Mr. Darwin, when gathering clearly up into +a few heads the recapitulation of the whole argument in favour of the +reality of species in nature. He urges:--[Transcriber's note: numbering +in original] + +1. That there is a capacity in all species to accommodate themselves to +a certain extent to a change of external circumstances. + +4. The entire variation from the original type ... may usually be +effected in a brief period of time, after which no further deviation can +be obtained. + +5. The intermixing distinct species is guarded against by the sterility +of the mule offspring. + +6. It appears that species have a real existence in nature, and that +each was endowed at the time of its creation with the attributes and +organization by which it is now distinguished.[1] + +[1] "Principles of Geology," edit. 1853. + +We trust that Sir C. Lyell abides still by these truly philosophical +principles; and that with his help and with that of his brethren this +flimsy speculation may be as completely put down as was what in spite of +all denials we must venture to call its twin though less-instructed +brother, the "Vestiges of Creation." In so doing they will assuredly +provide for the strength and continually growing progress of British +science. + +Indeed, not only do all laws for the study of nature vanish when the +great principle of order pervading and regulating all her processes is +given up, but all that imparts the deepest interest in the investigation +of her wonders will have departed too. Under such influences a man soon +goes back to the marvelling stare of childhood at the centaurs and +hippogriffs of fancy, or if he is of a philosophic turn, he comes like +Oken to write a scheme of creation under "a sort of inspiration"; but it +is the frenzied inspiration of the inhaler of mephitic gas. The whole +world of nature is laid for such a man under a fantastic law of glamour, +and he becomes capable of believing anything: to him it is just as +probable that Dr. Livingstone will find the next tribe of negroes with +their heads growing under their arms as fixed on the summit of the +cervical vertebrae; and he is able, with a continually growing neglect +of all the facts around him, with equal confidence and equal delusion, +to look back to any past and to look on to any future. + + + + +ON CARDINAL NEWMAN + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1864] + +_Apologia pro Vita suâ_. By JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D. + +Few books have been published of late years which combine more distinct +elements of interest than the "Apologia" of Dr. Newman. As an +autobiography, in the highest sense of that word, as the portraiture, +that is, and record of what the man was, irrespective of those common +accidents of humanity which too often load the biographer's pages, it is +eminently dramatic. To produce such a portrait was the end which the +writer proposed to himself, and which he has achieved with a rare +fidelity and completeness. Hardly do the "Confessions of St. Augustine" +more vividly reproduce the old African Bishop before successive +generations in all the greatness and struggles of his life than do these +pages the very inner being of this remarkable man--"the living +intelligence," as he describes it, "by which I write, and argue, and +act" (p. 47). No wonder that when he first fully recognised what he had +to do, he + + shrank from both the task and the exposure which it would entail. I + must, I said, give the true key to my whole life; I must show what I + am, that it may be seen what I am not, and that the phantom may be + extinguished which gibbers instead of me. I wish to be known as a + living man, and not as a scarecrow which is dressed up in my + clothes.... I will draw out, as far as may be, the history of my mind; + I will state the point at which I began, in what external suggestion + or accident each opinion had its rise, how far and how they were + developed from within, how they grew, were modified, were combined, + were in collision with each other, and were changed. Again, how I + conducted myself towards them; and how, and how far, and for how long + a time, I thought I could hold them consistently with the + ecclesiastical engagements which I had made, and with the position + which I filled.... It is not at all pleasant for me to be egotistical + nor to be criticised for being so. It is not pleasant to reveal to + high and low, young and old, what has gone on within me from my early + years. It is not pleasant to be giving to every shallow or flippant + disputant the advantage over me of knowing my most private thoughts, I + might even say the intercourse between myself and my Maker. + --pp. 47-51. + +Here is the task he set himself, and the task which he has performed. +There is in these pages an absolute revealing of the hidden life in its +acting, and its processes, which at times is almost startling, which is +everywhere of the deepest interest. For the life thus revealed is well +worthy of the pen by which it is portrayed. Of all those who, in these +later years, have quitted the Church of England for the Roman communion +--esteemed, honoured, and beloved, as were many of them--no one, save +Dr. Newman, appears to us to possess the rare gift of undoubted genius. + +That life, moreover, which anywhere and at any time must have marked its +own character on his fellows, was cast precisely at the time and place +most favourable for stamping upon others the impress of itself. The +plate was ready to receive and to retain every line of the image which +was thrown so vividly upon it. The history, therefore, of this life in +its shifting scenes of thought, feeling, and purpose, becomes in fact +the history of a school, a party, and a sect. From its effect on us, +who, from without, judge of it with critical calmness, we can form some +idea of what must be its power on those who were within the charmed +ring; who were actually under the wand of the enchanter, for whom there +was music in that voice, fascination in that eye, and habitual command +in that spare but lustrous countenance; and who can trace again in this +retrospect the colours and shadows which in those years which fixed +their destiny, passed, though in less distinct hues, into their own +lives, and made them what they are. + +Again, in another aspect, the "Apologia" will have a special interest +for most of our readers. Almost every page of it will throw some light +upon the great controversy which has been maintained for these three +hundred years, and which now spreads itself throughout the world, +between the Anglican Church and her oldest and greatest antagonist, the +Papal See.... + +The first names to which it introduces us indicate the widely-differing +influences under which was formed that party within our Church which has +acted so powerfully and in such various directions upon its life and +teaching. They are those of Mr.--afterwards Archbishop--Whately and Dr. +Hawkins, afterwards and still the Provost of Oriel College. To +intercourse with both of whom Dr. Newman attributes great results in the +formation of his own character: the first emphatically opening his mind +and teaching him to use his reason, whilst in religious opinion he +taught him the existence of a church, and fixed in him Anti-Erastian +views of Church polity; the second being a man of most exact mind, who +through a course of severe snubbing taught him to weigh his words and be +cautious in his statements. + +To an almost unknown degree, Oriel had at that time monopolised the +active speculative intellect of Oxford. Her fellowships being open, +whilst those of other Colleges were closed, drew to her the ablest men +of the University: whilst the nature of the examination for her +fellowships, which took no note of ordinary University honours, and +stretched boldly out beyond inquiries as to classical and mathematical +attainments in everything which could test the dormant powers of the +candidates, had already impressed upon the Society a distinctive +character of intellectual excellence. The late Lord Grenville used at +this time to term an Oriel Fellowship the Blue Ribbon of the University; +and, undoubtedly, the results of those examinations have been +marvellously confirmed by the event, if we think to what an extent the +mind, and opinions, and thoughts of England have been moulded by them +who form the list of those "Orielenses," of whom it was said in an +academic squib of the time, with some truth, flavoured perhaps with a +spice of envy, that they were wont to enter the academic circle "under a +flourish of trumpets." Such a "flourish" certainly has often preceded +the entry of far lesser men than E. Coplestone, E. Hawkins, J. Davison, +J. Keble, R. Whately, T. Arnold, E.B. Pusey, J. H. Newman, H. Froude, R. +J. Wilberforce, S. Wilberforce, G. A. Denison, &c., &c. + +Into a Society leavened with such intellectual influences as these, Dr. +Newman, soon after taking his degree, was ushered. It could at this time +have borne no distinctively devout character in its religious aspect. +Rather must it have been marked by the opposite of this. Whately, whose +powerful and somewhat rude intellect must almost have overawed the +common room when the might of Davison had been taken from it, was, with +all his varied excellences, never by any means an eminently devout, +scarcely perhaps an orthodox man. All his earlier writings bristle with +paradoxes, which affronted the instincts of simpler and more believing +minds. Whately, accordingly, appears in these pages as "generous and +warmhearted--particularly loyal to his friends" (p. 68); as teaching +his pupil "to see with my own eyes and to walk with my own feet"; yet as +exercising an influence over him (p. 69) which, "in a higher respect +than intellectual advance, had not been satisfactory," under which he +"was beginning to prefer intellectual excellence to moral, was drifting +in the direction of liberalism"; a "dream" out of which he was "rudely +awakened at the end of 1827, by two great blows--illness and +bereavement" (p. 72). + +Though this change in his views is traced by Dr. Newman to the action of +these strictly personal causes of illness and bereavement, yet other +influences, we suspect, were working strongly in the same direction. It +is plain that, so far as regards early permanent impression on the +character of his religious opinions, the influence of Whately was +calculated rather to stir up reaction than to win a convert. "Whately's +mind," he says himself (p. 68), "was too different from mine for us to +remain long on one line." The course of events round him impelled him in +the same direction, and furnished him with new comrades, on whom +henceforth he was to act, and who were to react most powerfully on him. +The torrent of reform was beginning its full rush through the land; and +its turbulent waters threatened not only to drown the old political +landmarks of the Constitution, but also to sweep away the Church of the +nation. Abhorrence of these so-called liberal opinions was the electric +current which bound together the several minds which speedily appeared +as instituting and directing the great Oxford Church movement. Not that +it was in any sense the offspring of the old cry of "the Church in +danger." The meaning of that alarm was the apprehension of danger to the +emoluments or position of the Church as the established religion in the +land. From the very first the Oxford movement pointed more to the +maintenance of the Church as a spiritual society, divinely incorporated +to teach certain doctrines, and do certain acts which none other could +do, than to the preservation of those temporal advantages which had been +conferred by the State. From the first there was a tendency to +undervalue these external aids, which made the movement an object of +suspicion to thorough Church-and-State men. This suspicion was repaid by +the members of the new school with a return of contempt. They believed +that in struggling for the temporal advantages of the Establishment, men +had forgotten the essential characteristics of the Church, and had been +led to barter their divine birthright for the mess of pottage which Acts +of Parliament secured them. Thus we find Dr. Newman remembering his +early Oxford dislike of "the bigoted two-bottle orthodox." He records +(p. 73) the characteristic mode in which on the appearance of the first +symptoms of his "leaving the clientela" of Dr. Whately he was punished +by that rough humorist. "Whately was considerably annoyed at me; and he +took a humorous revenge, of which he had given me due notice +beforehand.... He asked a set of the least intellectual men in Oxford to +dinner, and men most fond of port; he made me one of the party; placed +me between Provost this and Principal that, and then asked me if I was +proud of my friends" (p. 73). It is easy to conceive how he liked them. +He had, indeed, though formerly a supporter of Catholic Emancipation, +"acted with them in opposing Mr. Peel's re-election in 1829, on 'simple +academical grounds,' because he thought that a great University ought +not to be bullied even by a great Duke of Wellington" (p. 172); but he +soon parted with his friends of "two-bottle orthodoxy," and joined the +gathering knot of men of an utterly different temper, who "disliked the +Duke's change of policy as dictated by liberalism" (p. 72). + +This whole company shared the feelings which even yet, after so many +years and in such altered circumstances, break forth from Dr. Newman +like the rumblings and smoke of a long extinct volcano, in such +utterances as this: "The new Bill for the suppression of the Irish Sees +was in prospect, and had filled my mind. I had fierce thoughts against +the Liberals. It was the success of the Liberal cause which fretted me +inwardly. I became fierce against its instruments and its +manifestations. A French vessel was at Algiers; I would not even look at +the tricolor" (97). This was the temper of the whole band. Most of these +men appear in Dr. Newman's pages; and from their common earnestness and +various endowments a mighty band they were. + + * * * * * + +Here then was the band which have accomplished so much; which have +failed in so much; which have added a new party-name to our vocabulary; +which have furnished materials for every scribbling or declaiming +political Protestant, from the writer of the Durham Letter down to Mr. +Whalley and Mr. Harper; which aided so greatly in reawakening the +dormant energies of the English Church; which carried over to the ranks +of her most deadly opponent some of the ablest and most devoted of her +sons. The language of these pages has never varied concerning this +movement. We have always admitted its many excellences--we have always +lamented its evils. As long ago as in 1839, whilst we protested openly +and fully against what we termed at the time the "strange and +lamentable" publication of Mr. Froude's "Remains,"[1] we declared our +hope that "the publication of the Oxford Tracts was a very seasonable +and valuable contribution to the cause both of the Church and the +State." And in 1846, even after so many of our hopes had faded away, we +yet spoke in the same tone of "this religious movement in our Church," +as one "from which, however clouded be the present aspect, we doubt not +that great blessings have resulted and will result, unless we forfeit +them by neglect or wilful abuse."[2] + +[1] "Quarterly Review," vol. lxiii, p. 551. +[2] Ibid., vol. lxxviii, p. 24. + +The history of the progress of the movement lies scattered through these +pages. All that we can collect concerning its first intention confirms +absolutely Mr. Perceval's Statements, 1843, that it was begun for two +leading objects: "first, the firm and practical maintenance of the +doctrine of the apostolical succession.... secondly, the preservation in +its integrity of the Christian doctrine in our Prayerbooks."[1] Its +unity of action was shaken by the first entrance of doubts into its +leader's mind. His retirement from it tended directly to break it up as +an actual party. But it would be a monstrous error to suppose that the +influence of this movement was extinguished when its conductors were +dispersed as a party. So far from it, the system of the Church of +England took in all the more freely the elements of truth which it had +all along been diffusing, because they were no longer scattered abroad +by the direct action of an organised party under ostensible chiefs. +Where, we may ask, is not at this moment the effect of that movement +perfectly appreciable within our body? Look at the new-built and +restored churches of the land; look at the multiplication of schools; +the greater exactness of ritual observance; the higher standard of +clerical life, service, and devotion; the more frequent celebrations; +the cathedrals open; the loving sisterhoods labouring, under episcopal +sanction, with the meek, active saintliness of the Church's purest time; +look--above all, perhaps--at the raised tone of devotion and doctrine +amongst us, and see in all these that the movement did not die, but +rather flourished with a new vigour when the party of the movement was +so greatly broken up. It is surely one of the strangest objections which +can be urged against a living spiritual body, that the loss of many of +its foremost sons still left its vital strength unimpaired. Yet this was +Dr. Newman's objection, and his witness, fourteen years ago, when he +complained of the Church of England, that though it had given "a hundred +educated men to the Catholic Church, yet the huge creature from which +they went forth showed no consciousness of its loss, but shook itself, +and went about its work as of old time."[2] + +[1] "Collection of Papers connected with the Theological Movement of + 1833." By the Hon. and Rev. A.P. Perceval. 1843. Second Edition. +[2] "Lectures on Anglican Difficulties," p. 9. + +As the unity of the party was broken up, the fire which had burned +hitherto in but a single beacon was scattered upon a thousand hills. +Nevertheless, the first breaking up of the party was eminently +disheartening to its living members. But it was not by external violence +that it was broken, but by the development within itself of a +distinctive Romeward bias. Dr. Newman lays his hand upon a particular +epoch in its progress, at which, he says, it was crossed by a new set of +men, who imparted to it that leaning to Romanism which ever after +perceptibly beset it. "A new school of thought was rising, as is usual +in such movements, and was sweeping the original party of the movement +aside, and was taking its place" (p. 277). This is a curious instance of +self-delusion. He was, as we maintain, throughout, the Romanising +element in the whole movement. But for him it might have continued, as +its other great chiefs still continue, the ornament and strength of the +English Church. These younger men, to whom he attributes the change, +were, in fact, the minds whom he had consciously or unconsciously +fashioned and biassed. Some of them, as is ever the case, had outrun +their leader. Some of them were now, in their sensitive spiritual +organism, catching the varying outline of the great leader whom they +almost worshipped, and beginning at once to give back his own altering +image. Instead of seeing in their changing minds this reflection of +himself, he dwelt upon it as an original element, and read in its +presence an indication of its being the will of God that the stream +should turn its flow towards the gulf to which he himself had unawares, +it may be, directed its waters. Those who remember how at this time he +was followed will know how easily such a result might follow his own +incipient change. Those who can still remember how many often +involuntarily caught his peculiar intonation--so distinctively singular, +and therefore so attractive in himself and so repulsive in his copyists +--will understand how the altering fashion of the leader's thoughts was +appropriated with the same unconscious fidelity. + +One other cause acted powerfully on him and on them to give this bias to +the movement, and that was the bitterness and invectives of the Liberal +party. Dr. Newman repeatedly reminds us that it was the Liberals who +drove him from Oxford. The four tutors--the after course of one of whom, +at least, was destined to display so remarkable a Nemesis--and the pack +who followed them turned by their ceaseless baying the noble hart who +led the rest towards this evil covert. He and they heard incessantly +that they were Papists in disguise: men dishonoured by professing one +thing and holding another; until they began to doubt their own fidelity, +and in that doubt was death. Nor was this all. The Liberals ever (as is +their wont), most illiberal to those who differ from them, began to use +direct academic persecution; until, in self-distrust and very weariness, +the great soul began to abandon the warfare it had waged inwardly +against its own inclinations and the fascinations of its enemy, and to +yield the first defences to the foe. It will remain written, as Dr. +Newman's deliberate judgment, that it was the Liberals who forced him +from Oxford. How far, if he had not taken that step, he might have again +shaken off the errors which were growing on him--how far therefore in +driving him from Oxford they drove him finally to Rome--man can never +know. + +In the new light thrown upon it from the pages of the "Apologia," we see +with more distinctness than was ever shown before, how greatly this +tendency to Rome, which at last led astray so many of the masters of the +party, was infused into it by the single influence of Dr. Newman +himself. We do not believe that, in spite of his startling speeches, the +bias towards Rome was at all as strong even in H. Froude himself. Let +his last letter witness for him:--"If," he says, "I was to assign my +reasons for belonging to the Church of England in preference to any +other religious community, it would be simply this, that she has +retained an apostolical clergy, and enacts no sinful terms of communion; +whereas, on the other hand, the Romanists, though retaining an +apostolical clergy, do exact sinful terms of communion."[1] This was the +tone of the movement until it was changed in Dr. Newman. We believe that +in tracing this out we shall be using these pages entirely as their +author intended them to be used. They were meant to exhibit to his +countrymen the whole secret of his moral and spiritual anatomy; they +were intended to prove that he was altogether free from that foul and +disgraceful taint of innate dishonesty, the unspoken suspicion of which +in so many quarters had so long troubled him; the open utterance of +which, from the lips of a popular and respectable writer, was so +absolutely intolerable to him. From that imputation it is but bare +justice to say he does thoroughly clear himself. The post-mortem +examination of his life is complete; the hand which guided the +dissecting-knife has trembled nowhere, nor shrunk from any incision. All +lies perfectly open, and the foul taint is nowhere. And yet, looking +back with the writer on the changes which this strange narrative +records, from his subscribing, in 1828, towards the first start of the +"Record" newspaper to his receiving on the 9th of October, 1845, at +Littlemore, the "remarkable-looking man, evidently a foreigner, shabbily +dressed in black,"[2] who received him into the Papal Communion, we see +abundant reason, even without the action of that prevalent suspicion of +secret dishonesty somewhere, which in English minds inevitably connects +itself with the spread of Popery, for the widely-diffused impression of +that being true which it is so pleasant to find unfounded. + +[1] "Collection of Papers, &c." p. 16. +[2] "Historical Notes of the Tractarian Movement," by Canon Oakley. + Dublin Review, No. v, p. 190. + +From first to last these pages exhibit the habit of Dr. Newman's mind as +eminently subjective. It might almost be described as the exact opposite +of that of S. Athanasius: with a like all-engrossing love for truth; +with ecclesiastical habits often strangely similar; with cognate gifts +of the imperishable inheritance of genius, the contradiction here is +almost absolute. The abstract proposition, the rightly-balanced +proposition, is everything to the Eastern, it is well-nigh nothing to +the English Divine. When led by circumstances to embark in the close +examination of Dogma, as in his "History of the Arians," his Nazarite +locks of strength appear to have been shorn, and the giant, at whose +might we have been marvelling, becomes as any other man. The dogmatic +portion of this work is poor and tame; it is only when the writer +escapes from dogma into the dramatic representation of the actors in the +strife that his powers reappear. For abstract truth it is true to us +that he has no engrossing affection: his strength lay in his own +apprehension of it, in his power of defending it when once it had been +so apprehended and had become engrafted into him; and it is to this as +made one with himself, and to his own inward life as fed and nourished +by it, that he perpetually reverts. + +All this is the more remarkable because he conceives himself to have +been, even from early youth, peculiarly devoted to dogma in the +abstract; he returns continually to this idea, confounding, as we +venture to conceive, his estimate of the effect of truth when he +received it, on himself, with truth as it exists in the abstract. And as +this affected him in regard to dogma, so it reached to his relations to +every part of the Church around him. It led him to gather up in a +dangerous degree, into the person of his "own Bishop," the deference due +to the whole order. "I did not care much for the Bench of Bishops, nor +should I have cared much for a Provincial Council.... All these matters +seemed to me to be jure ecclesiastico; but what to me was jure divino +was the voice of my Bishop in his own person. My own Bishop was my +Pope."--(p. 123.) His intense individuality had substituted the personal +bond to the individual for the general bond to the collective holders of +the office: and so when the strain became violent it snapped at once. +This doubtless natural disposition seems to have been developed, and +perhaps permanently fixed, as the law of his intellectual and spiritual +being, by the peculiarities of his early religious training. Educated in +what is called the "Evangelical" school, early and consciously +converted, and deriving his first religious tone, in great measure, from +the vehement but misled Calvinism, of which Thomas Scott, of Aston +Sandford, was one of the ablest and most robust specimens, he was early +taught to appreciate, and even to judge of, all external truth mainly in +its ascertainable bearings on his own religious experience. In many a +man the effect of this teaching is to fix him for life in a hard, +narrow, and exclusive school of religious thought and feeling, in which +he lives and dies profoundly satisfied with himself and his +co-religionists, and quite hopeless of salvation for any beyond the +immediate pale in which his own Shibboleth is pronounced with the +exactest nicety of articulation. But Dr. Newman's mind was framed upon a +wholly different idea, and the results were proportionally dissimilar. +With the introvertive tendency which we have ascribed to him, was joined +a most subtle and speculative intellect, and an ambitious temper. The +"Apologia" is the history of the practical working out of those various +conditions. His hold upon any truth external to and separate from +himself, was so feeble when placed in comparison with his perception of +what was passing within himself, that the external truth was always +liable to corrections which would make its essential elements harmonize +with what was occurring within his own intellectual or spiritual being. +We think that we can distinctly trace in these pages a twofold +consequence from all this: first, an inexhaustible mutability in his +views on all subjects; and secondly, a continually recurring temptation +to entire scepticism as to everything external to himself. Every page +gives illustrations of the first of these. He votes for what was called +Catholic Emancipation, and is drifting into the ranks of liberalism. But +the external idea of liberty is very soon metamorphosed, in his view, +from the figure of an angel of light into that of a spirit of darkness; +first, by his academical feeling that a great University ought not to be +bullied even by a great Duke, and then by the altered temper of his own +feelings, as they are played upon by the alternate vibrations of the +gibes of "Hurrell Froude," and the deep tones of Mr. Keble's +ministrelsy. + +The history of his religious alternations is in exact keeping with all +this. At every separate stage of his course, he constructs for himself a +tabernacle in which for a while he rests. This process he repeats with +an incessant simplicity of renewed commencements, which is almost like +the blind acting of instinct leading the insect, which is conscious of +its coming change, to spin afresh and afresh its ever-broken cocoon. He +is at one time an Anglo-Catholic, and sees Antichrist in Rome; he falls +back upon the Via Media--that breaks down, and left him, he says (p. +211), "very nearly a pure Protestant"; and again he has a "new theory +made expressly for the occasion, and is pleased with his new view" (p. +269); he then rests in "Samaria" before he finds his way over to Rome. +For the time every one of these transient tabernacles seems to +accomplish its purpose. He finds certain repose for his spirit. Whilst +sheltered by it, all the great unutterable phenomena of the external +world are viewed by him in relation to himself and to his home of +present rest. The gourd has grown up in a night, and shelters him by its +short-lived shadow from the tyrannous rays of the sunshine. But some +sudden irresistible change in his own inward preceptions alters +everything. The idea shoots across his mind that the English Church is +in the position of the Monophysite heretics of the fifth century (p. +209). At once all his views of truth are changed. He moves on to a new +position; pitches anew his tent; builds himself up a new theory; and +finds the altitudes of the stars above him, and the very forms of the +heavenly constellations, change with the change of his earthly +habitation. + + * * * * * + +In October the final step is taken, and in the succeeding January the +mournful history is closed in the following most touching words:-- + + Jan. 20, 1846.--You may think how lonely I am. _Obliviscere populum + tuum et domum patris tui_, has been in my ears for the last twelve + hours. I realize more that we are leaving Littlemore, and it is like + going on the open sea. + + I left Oxford for good on Monday, February 23, 1846. On the Saturday + and Sunday before, I was in my house at Littlemore simply by myself, + as I had been for the first day or two when I had originally taken + possession of it. I slept on Sunday night at my dear friend's, Mr. + Johnson's, at the Observatory. Various friends came to see the last of + me--Mr. Copeland, Mr. Church, Mr. Buckle, Mr. Pattison, and Mr. Lewis. + Dr. Pusey, too, came up to take leave of me; and I called on Dr. Ogle, + one of my very oldest friends, for he was my private tutor when I was + an undergraduate. In him I took leave of my first College, Trinity, + which was so dear to me, and which held on its foundation so many who + have been kind to me, both when I was a boy and all through my Oxford + life. Trinity had never been unkind to me. There used to be much + snapdragon growing on the walls opposite my freshman's rooms there, + and I had for years taken it as the emblem of my own perpetual + residence, even unto death, in my University. + + On the morning of the 23rd I left the Observatory. I have never seen + Oxford since, excepting its spires, as they are seen from the railway. + +What an exceeding sadness is gathered up in these words! And yet the +impress of this time left upon some of Dr. Newman's writings seems, like +the ruin which records what was the violence of the throes of the +long-passed earthquake, even still more indicative of the terrible +character of the struggle through which at this time he passed. We have +seen how keenly he felt the suspicious intrusions upon his privacy which +haunted his last years in the Church of England. But in "Loss and Gain" +there is a yet more expressive exhibition of the extremity of that +suffering. He denies as "utterly untrue" the common belief that he +"introduced friends or partisans into the tale"; and of course he is to +be implicitly believed. And yet ONE there is whom no one who reads the +pages can for a moment doubt is there, and that is Dr. Newman himself. +The weary, unresting, hunted condition of the leading figure in the +tale, with all its accompaniment of keen, flashing wit, always seemed to +us the history of those days when a well-meant but impertinent series of +religious intrusions was well-nigh driving the wise man mad. + +We have followed out these steps thus in detail, not only because of +their intense interest as an autobiography, but also because the +narrative itself seems to throw the strongest possible light on the +mainly-important question how far this defection of one of her greatest +sons does really tend to weaken the argumentative position of the +English Church in her strife with Rome. What has been said already will +suffice to prove that in our opinion no such consequence can justly +follow from it. We acknowledge freely the greatness of the individual +loss. But the causes of that defection are, we think, clearly shown to +have been the peculiarities of the individual, not the weakness of the +side which he abandoned. His steps mark no path to any other. He sprang +clear over the guarding walls of the sheepfold, and opened no way +through them for other wanderers. Men may have left the Church of +England because their leader left it; but they could not leave it as he +left it, or because of his reasons for leaving it. In truth, he appears +never to have occupied a thoroughly real Church-of-England position. He +was at first, by education and private judgment, a Calvinistic Puritan; +he became dissatisfied with the coldness and barrenness of this theory, +and set about finding a new position for himself, and in so doing he +skipped over true, sound English Churchmanship into a course of feeling +and thought allied with and leading on to Rome. Even the hindrances +which so long held him back can scarcely be said to have been indeed the +logical force of the unanswerable credentials of the English Church. On +the contrary they were rather personal impressions, feelings, and +difficulties. His faithful, loving nature made him cling desperately to +early hopes, friendships, and affections. Even to the end Thomas Scott +never loses his hold upon him. His narrative is not the history of the +normal progress of a mind from England to Rome; it is so thoroughly +exceptional that it does not seem calculated to seduce to Rome men +governed in such high matters by argument and reason rather than by +impulse and feeling. We do not therefore think that the mere fact of +this secession tells with any force against that communion whose claims +satisfied to their dying day such men as Hooker and Andrewes, and Ussher +and Hammond, and Bramhall and Butler. + +But, beyond this, his present view of the English Church appears to be +incompatible with that fierce and internecine hostility to the claim +upon the loyalty of her children which is really essential to clear the +act of perverting others from her ranks from the plainest guilt of +schism. It is not merely that the nobleness and tenderness of his nature +make his tone so unlike that of many of those who have taken the same +step with himself. It is not that every provocation--and how many they +have been!--every misunderstanding--and they have been all but +universal; every unworthy charge or insinuation--down to those of +Professor Kingsley, failed to embitter his feelings against the +communion he has deserted and the friends whom he has left. It is not +this to which we refer, for this is personal to himself, and the fruit +of his own generosity and true greatness of soul. But we refer to his +calm, deliberate estimate of the forsaken Church. He says, indeed, that +since his change he has "had no changes to record, no anxiety of heart +whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment. I never had one +doubt" (p. 373). But, as we have seen already, this was always the +temporary condition in which every new phase of opinion landed him. He +was always able to build up these tabernacles of rest. The difference +between this and those former resting-places is clear. In those he was +still a searcher after truth: he needed and required conviction, and a +new conviction might shake the old comfort. But his present +resting-place is built upon the denial of all further enquiry. "I have," +he says (p. 374), "no further history of religious opinions to narrate": +and some following words show how entirely it is this abandonment of the +idea of the actual conviction of truth for the blind admission of the +dictates of a despotic external authority on which he rests. + + * * * * * + +There is another deeply interesting question raised by Dr. Newman's +work, on which, if our limits did not absolutely prevent, we should be +glad to enter. We mean the present position of the Church of Rome with +that great rationalistic movement with which we, too, are called to +contend. Everywhere in Europe this contest is proceeding, and the +relations of the Church of Rome towards it are becoming daily more and +more embarrassed. Mr. Ffoulkes tells us that "the 'Home and Foreign +Review' is the _only_ publication professing to emanate from Roman +Catholics in this country that can be named in the same breath with the +leading Protestant Reviews."[1] Since he wrote these words its course +has been closed by Pontifical authority. M. Montalembert has barely +escaped censure with the payment of the penalty--so heavy to his +co-religionists--of an enforced silence; and Dr. Newman "interprets recent +acts of authority as tying the hands of a controversialist such as I +should be,"[2] and so is prevented completing the great work which has +occupied so much of his thoughts, and which promised, more than any +other work this country is likely to see, to set some limiting boundary +line between the provinces of a humble faith in Revelation and an ardent +love of advancing science. This is an evil inflicted by Rome on this +whole generation. But in truth, whenever the mind of Christendom is +active, the attitude of the Papal communion before this new enemy is +that of a startled, trembling minaciousness, which invites the deadly +combat it can so ill maintain. + +[1] "Union Review," ix, 294. +[2] "Apol." 405. + +These facts are patent to every one who knows anything whatever of the +present state of religious thought throughout Roman Catholic Europe. +Almost every one knows further that the struggle between those who would +subject all science and all the actings of the human mind to the +authority of the Church, and those who would limit the exercise of that +authority more or less to the proper subject-matter of theology, is rife +and increasing. The words of, perhaps, the ablest living member of the +Roman Catholic communion have rung through Europe, and many a heart in +all religious communions has been saddened by the thought of Dr. +Döllinger's virtual censure. And yet it is at such a time as this that +Dr. Manning ventures to put forth his "Letters to a Friend," painting +all as peace, unanimity, and obedient faith within the Roman Church; all +dissension, unbelief, and letting slip of the ancient faith within our +own communion. Surely such are not the weapons by which the cause of +God's truth can be advanced! + +But we must bring our remarks on the "Apologia" to a close. + +Some lessons there are, and those great ones, which this book is +calculated to instil into members of our own communion. Pre-eminently it +shows the rottenness of that mere Act-of-Parliament foundation on which +some, now-a-days, would rest our Church. Dr. Newman suggests, more than +once, that such a course must rob us of all our present strength. Dr. +Manning sings his paean with wild and premature delight, as if the evil +was already accomplished. In his first letter he triumphed in the +silence of Convocation, but that silence has since been broken. A solemn +synodical judgment, couched in the most explicit language, has condemned +the false teaching which had been our Church's scandal. But because a +"very exalted person in the House of Lords"[1] (p. 4), with an ignorance +or an ignoring of law, as was shown in the debate, which was simply +astonishing, chose, in a manner which even Dr. Manning condemns, to +assert, without a particle of real evidence, that the Convocation had +exceeded its legitimate powers, Dr. Manning is in ecstasies. The "very +exalted person" becomes "a righteous judge, a learned judge, a Daniel +come to judgment--yea, a Daniel." These shouts of joy ought to be enough +to show men where the real danger lies. Our present position is +impregnable. But if we abandon it for the new one proposed to us by the +Rationalist party, how shall we be able to stand? How could a national +religious Establishment which should seek to rest its foundations--not +on God's Word; on the ancient Creeds; on a true Apostolic ministry; on +valid Sacraments; on a living, even though it be an obscured, unity with +the Universal Church, and so on the presence with her of her Lord, and +on the gifts of His Spirit--but upon the critical reason of individuals, +and the support of Acts of Parliament--ever stand in the coming +struggle? How could it meet Rationalism on the one hand? How could it +withstand Popery on the other? After such a fatal change its career +might be easily foreshadowed. Under the assaults of Rationalism, it +would year by year lose some parts of the great deposit of the Catholic +faith. Under the attacks of Rome, it would lose many of those whom it +can ill spare, because they believe most firmly in the verities for +which she is ready to witness. Thus it might continue until our ministry +were filled with the time-serving, the ignorant, and the unbelieving; +and, when this has come to pass, the day of final doom cannot be far +distant. How such evils are to be averted is the anxious question of the +present day. The great practical question seems to us to be that to +which we have before this alluded,[2]--How the Supreme Court of Appeal +can be made fitter for the due discharge of its momentous functions? We +cannot enter here upon that great question. But solved it must be, and +solved upon the principles of the great Reformation statutes of our +land, which maintain, in the supremacy of the Crown, our undoubted +nationality; which, besides maintaining this great principle of national +life, save us from all the terrible practical evils of appeals to Rome, +and yet which maintain the spirituality of the land, as the guardians +under God of the great deposit of the Faith, in the very terms in which +the Catholic Church of Christ has from the beginning received, and to +this day handed down in its completeness, the inestimable gift. + +[1] Hansard's "House of Lord's Debates," July 15, 1864 +[2] "Quarterly Review," vol. cxv. p. 560 + + + + +ANONYMOUS ON "WAVERLEY" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1814] + +_Waverley; or, 'tis Sixty Years since_. 3 vols. 12mo. Edinburgh, 1814. + +We have had so many occasions to invite our readers' attention to that +species of composition called Novels, and have so often stated our +general views of the principles of this very agreeable branch of +literature, that we shall venture on the consideration of our present +subject with but a few observations, and those applicable to a class of +novels, of which it is a favourable specimen. + +The earlier novelists wrote at periods when society was not perfectly +formed, and we find that their picture of life was an embodying of their +own conceptions of the "_beau idéal_."--Heroes all generosity and ladies +all chastity, exalted above the vulgarities of society and nature, +maintain, through eternal folios, their visionary virtues, without the +stain of any moral frailty, or the degradation of any human necessities. +But this high-flown style went out of fashion as the great mass of +mankind became more informed of each other's feelings and concerns, and +as a nearer intercourse taught them that the real course of human life +is a conflict of duty and desire, of virtue and passion, of right and +wrong; in the description of which it is difficult to say whether +uniform virtue or unredeemed vice would be in the greater degree tedious +and absurd. + +The novelists next endeavoured to exhibit a general view of society. The +characters in Gil Blas and Tom Jones are not individuals so much as +specimens of the human race; and these delightful works have been, are, +and ever will be popular, because they present lively and accurate +delineations of the workings of the human soul, and that every man who +reads them is obliged to confess to himself, that in similar +circumstances with the personages of Le Sage and Fielding, he would +probably have acted in the way in which they are described to have done. + +From this species the transition to a third was natural. The first class +was theory--it was improved into a _generic_ description, and that again +led the way to a more particular classification--a copying not of man in +general, but of men of a peculiar nation, profession, or temper, or, to +go a step further--of _individuals_. + +Thus Alcander and Cyrus could never have existed in human society--they +are neither French, nor English, nor Italian, because it is only +allegorically that they are _men_. Tom Jones might have been a +Frenchman, and Gil Blas an Englishman, because the essence of their +characters is human nature, and the personal situation of the individual +is almost indifferent to the success of the object which the author +proposed to himself: while, on the other hand, the characters of the +most popular novels of later times are Irish, or Scotch, or French, and +not in the abstract, _men_.--The general operations of nature are +circumscribed to her effects on an individual character, and the modern +novels of this class, compared with the broad and noble style of the +earlier writers, may be considered as Dutch pictures, delightful in +their vivid and minute details of common life, wonderfully entertaining +to the close observer of peculiarities, and highly creditable to the +accuracy, observation and humour of the painter, but exciting none of +those more exalted feelings, giving none of those higher views of the +human soul which delight and exalt the mind of the spectator of Raphael, +Correggio, or Murillo. + +But as in a gallery we are glad to see every style of excellence, and +are ready to amuse ourselves with Teniers and Gerard Dow, so we derive +great pleasure from the congenial delineations of Castle Rack-rent and +Waverley; and we are well assured that any reader who is qualified to +judge of the illustration we have borrowed from a sister art, will not +accuse us of undervaluing, by this comparison, either Miss Edgeworth or +the ingenious author of the work now under consideration. We mean only +to say, that the line of writing which they have adopted is less +comprehensive and less sublime, but not that it is less entertaining or +less useful than that of their predecessors. On the contrary, so far as +utility constitutes merit in a novel, we have no hesitation in +preferring the moderns to their predecessors. We do not believe that any +man or woman was ever improved in morals or manners by the reading of +Tom Jones or Peregrine Pickle, though we are confident that many have +profited by the Tales of Fashionable Life, and the Cottagers of +Glenburnie. + +We have heard Waverley called a Scotch Castle Rack-rent; and we have +ourselves alluded to a certain resemblance between these works; but we +must beg leave to explain that the resemblance consists only in this, +that the one is a description of the peculiarities of Scottish manners +as the other is of those of Ireland; and that we are far from placing on +the same level the merits and qualities of the works. Waverley is of a +much higher strain, and may be safely placed far above the amusing +vulgarity of Castle Rack-rent, and by the side of Ennui or the Absentee, +the best undoubtedly of Miss Edgeworth's compositions. + + * * * * * + +We shall conclude this article, which has grown to an immoderate length, +by observing what, indeed, our readers must have already discovered, +that Waverley, who gives his name to the story, is far from being its +hero, and that in truth the interest and merit of the work is derived, +not from any of the ordinary qualities of a novel, but from the truth of +its facts, and the accuracy of its delineations. + +We confess that we have, speaking generally, a great objection to what +may be called historical romance, in which real and fictitious +personages, and actual and fabulous events are mixed together to the +utter confusion of the reader, and the unsettling of all accurate +recollections of past transactions; and we cannot but wish that the +ingenious and intelligent author of Waverley had rather employed himself +in recording _historically_ the character and transactions of his +countrymen _Sixty Years since_, than in writing a work, which, though it +may be, in its facts, almost true, and in its delineations perfectly +accurate, will yet, in sixty years _hence_, be regarded, or rather, +probably, _disregarded_, as a _mere_ romance, and the gratuitous +invention of a facetious fancy. + + + + +ON SCOTT'S "TALES OF MY LANDLORD" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1817] + +_Tales of My Landlord_. 4 vols. 12mo. Third Edition. Blackwood, +Edinburgh. John Murray, London. 1817. + +These Tales belong obviously to a class of novels which we have already +had occasion repeatedly to notice, and which have attracted the +attention of the public in no common degree,--we mean Waverley, Guy +Mannering, and the Antiquary, and we have little hesitation to pronounce +them either entirely, or in a great measure, the work of the same +author. Why he should industriously endeavour to elude observation by +taking leave of us in one character, and then suddenly popping out upon +us in another, we cannot pretend to guess without knowing more of his +personal reasons for preserving so strict an incognito that has hitherto +reached us. We can, however, conceive many reasons for a writer +observing this sort of mystery; not to mention that it has certainly had +its effect in keeping up the interest which his works have excited. + +We do not know if the imagination of our author will sink in the opinion +of the public when deprived of that degree of invention which we have +been hitherto disposed to ascribe to him; but we are certain that it +ought to increase the value of his portraits, that human beings have +actually sate for them. These coincidences between fiction and reality +are perhaps the very circumstances to which the success of these novels +is in a great measure to be attributed: for, without depreciating the +merit of the artist, every spectator at once recognizes in those scenes +and faces which are copied from nature an air of distinct reality, which +is not attached to fancy-pieces however happily conceived and +elaborately executed. By what sort of freemasonry, if we may use the +term, the mind arrives at this conviction, we do not pretend to guess, +but every one must have felt that he instinctively and almost insensibly +recognizes in painting, poetry, or other works of imagination, that +which is copied from existing nature, and that he forthwith clings to it +with that kindred interest which thinks nothing which is human +indifferent to humanity. Before therefore we proceed to analyse the work +immediately before us, we beg leave briefly to notice a few +circumstances connected with its predecessors. + +Our author has told us it was his object to present a succession of +scenes and characters connected with Scotland in its past and present +state, and we must own that his stories are so slightly constructed as +to remind us of the showman's thread with which he draws up his pictures +and presents them successively to the eye of the spectator. He seems +seriously to have proceeded on Mr. Bays's maxim--"What the deuce is a +plot good for, but to bring in fine things?"--Probability and +perspicuity of narrative are sacrificed with the utmost indifference to +the desire of producing effect; and provided the author can but contrive +to "surprize and elevate," he appears to think that he has done his duty +to the public. Against this slovenly indifference we have already +remonstrated, and we again enter our protest. It is in justice to the +author himself that we do so, because, whatever merit individual scenes +and passages may possess, (and none have been more ready than ourselves +to offer our applause), it is clear that their effect would be greatly +enhanced by being disposed in a clear and continued narrative. We are +the more earnest in this matter, because it seems that the author errs +chiefly from carelessness. There may be something of system in it, +however: for we have remarked, that with an attention which amounts even +to affectation, he has avoided the common language of narrative, and +thrown his story, as much as possible, into a dramatic shape. In many +cases this has added greatly to the effect, by keeping both the actors +and action continually before the reader, and placing him, in some +measure, in the situation of the audience at a theatre, who are +compelled to gather the meaning of the scene from what the _dramatis +personae_ say to each other, and not from any explanation addressed +immediately to themselves. But though the author gain this advantage, +and thereby compel the reader to think of the personages of the novel +and not of the writer, yet the practice, especially pushed to the extent +we have noticed, is a principal cause of the flimsiness and incoherent +texture of which his greatest admirers are compelled to complain. Few +can wish his success more sincerely than we do, and yet without more +attention on his own part, we have great doubts of its continuance. + +In addition to the loose and incoherent style of the narration, another +leading fault in these novels is the total want of interest which the +reader attaches to the character of the hero. Waverley, Brown, or +Bertram in Guy Mannering, and Lovel in the Antiquary, are all brethren +of a family; very amiable and very insipid sort of young men. We think +we can perceive that this error is also in some degree occasioned by the +dramatic principle upon which the author frames his plots. His chief +characters are never actors, but always acted upon by the spur of +circumstances, and have their fates uniformly determined by the agency +of the subordinate persons. This arises from the author having usually +represented them as foreigners to whom every thing in Scotland is +strange,--a circumstance which serves as his apology for entering into +many minute details which are reflectively, as it were, addressed to the +reader through the medium of the hero. While he is going into +explanations and details which, addressed directly to the reader, might +appear tiresome and unnecessary, he gives interest to them by exhibiting +the effect which they produce upon the principal person of his drama, +and at the same time obtains a patient hearing for what might otherwise +be passed over without attention. But if he gains this advantage, it is +by sacrificing the character of the hero. No one can be interesting to +the reader who is not himself a prime agent in the scene. This is +understood even by the worthy citizen and his wife, who are introduced +as prolocutors in Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle. When they are +asked what the principal person of the drama shall do?--the answer is +prompt and ready--"Marry, let him come forth and kill a giant." There is +a good deal of tact in the request. Every hero in poetry, in fictitious +narrative, ought to come forth and do or say something or other which no +other person could have done or said; make some sacrifice, surmount some +difficulty, and become interesting to us otherwise than by his mere +appearance on the scene, the passive tool of the other characters. + +The insipidity of this author's heroes may be also in part referred to +the readiness with which the twists and turns his story to produce some +immediate and perhaps temporary effect. This could hardly be done +without representing the principal character either as inconsistent or +flexible in his principles. The ease with which Waverley adopts and +after forsakes the Jacobite party in 1745 is a good example of what we +mean. Had he been painted as a steady character, his conduct would have +been improbable. The author was aware of this; and yet, unwilling to +relinquish an opportunity of introducing the interior of the Chevalier's +military court, the circumstances of the battle of Preston-pans, and so +forth, he hesitates not to sacrifice poor Waverley, and to represent him +as a reed blown about at the pleasure of every breeze: a less careless +writer would probably have taken some pains to gain the end proposed in +a more artful and ingenious manner. But our author was hasty, and has +paid the penalty of his haste. + +We have hinted that we are disposed to question the originality of these +novels in point of invention, and that in doing so, we do not consider +ourselves as derogating from the merit of the author, to whom, on the +contrary, we give the praise due to one who has collected and brought +out with accuracy and effect, incidents and manners which might +otherwise have slept in oblivion. We proceed to our proofs.[1] + +[1] It will be readily conceived that the curious MSS. and other + information of which we have availed ourselves were not accessible + to us in this country; but we have been assiduous in our inquiries; + and are happy enough to possess a correspondent whose researches on + the spot have been indefatigable, and whose kind, and ready + communications have anticipated all our wishes. + + * * * * * + +The traditions and manners of the Scotch were so blended with +superstitious practices and fears, that the author of these novels seems +to have deemed it incumbent on him, to transfer many more such incidents +to his novels, than seem either probable or natural to an English +reader. It may be some apology that his story would have lost the +national cast, which it was chiefly his object to preserve, had this +been otherwise. There are few families of antiquity in Scotland, which +do not possess some strange legends, told only under promise of secrecy, +and with an air of mystery; in developing which, the influence of the +powers of darkness is referred to. The truth probably is, that the +agency of witches and demons was often made to account for the sudden +disappearance of individuals and similar incidents, too apt to arise out +of the evil dispositions of humanity, in a land where revenge was long +held honourable--where private feuds and civil broils disturbed the +inhabitants for ages--and where justice was but weakly and irregularly +executed. Mr. Law, a conscientious but credulous clergyman of the Kirk +of Scotland, who lived in the seventeenth century, has left behind him a +very curious manuscript, in which, with the political events of that +distracted period, he has intermingled the various portents and +marvellous occurrences which, in common with his age, he ascribed to +supernatural agency. The following extract will serve to illustrate the +taste of this period for the supernatural. When we read such things +recorded by men of sense and education, (and Mr. Law was deficient in +neither), we cannot help remembering the times of paganism, when every +scene, incident, and action, had its appropriate and presiding deity. It +is indeed curious to consider what must have been the sensations of a +person, who lived under this peculiar species of hallucination, +believing himself beset on all hands by invisible agents; one who was +unable to account for the restiveness of a nobleman's carriage horses +otherwise than by the immediate effect of witchcraft: and supposed that +the _sage femme_ of the highest reputation was most likely to devote the +infants to the infernal spirits, upon their very entrance into life. + + * * * * * + +To the superstitions of the North Britons must be added their peculiar +and characteristic amusements; and here we have some atonement to make +to the memory of the learned Paulus Pleydell, whose compotatory +relaxations, better information now inclines us to think, we mentioned +with somewhat too little reverence. Before the new town of Edinburgh (as +it is called) was built, its inhabitants lodged, as is the practice of +Paris at this day, in large buildings called _lands_, each family +occupying a story, and having access to it by a stair common to all the +inhabitants. These buildings, when they did not front the high street of +the city, composed the sides of little, narrow, unwholesome _closes_ or +lanes. The miserable and confined accommodation which such habitations +afforded, drove _men of business_, as they were called, that is, people +belonging to the law, to hold their professional rendezvouses in +taverns, and many lawyers of eminence spent the principal part of their +time in some tavern of note, transacted their business there, received +the visits of clients with their writers or attornies, and suffered no +imputation from so doing. This practice naturally led to habits of +conviviality, to which the Scottish lawyers, till of very late years, +were rather too much addicted. Few men drank so hard as the counsellors +of the old school, and there survived till of late some veterans who +supported in that respect the character of their predecessors. To vary +the humour of a joyous evening many frolics were resorted to, and the +game of _high jinks_ was one of the most common.[1] In fact, high jinks +was one of the _petits jeux_ with which certain circles were wont to +while away the time; and though it claims no alliance with modern +associations, yet, as it required some shrewdness and dexterity to +support the characters assumed for the occasion, it is not difficult to +conceive that it might have been as interesting and amusing to the +parties engaged in it, as counting the spots of a pack of cards, or +treasuring in memory the rotation in which they are thrown on the table. +The worst of the game was what that age considered as its principal +excellence, namely, that the forfeitures being all commuted for wine, it +proved an encouragement to hard drinking, the prevailing vice of the +age. + +[1] We have learned, with some dismay, that one of the ablest lawyers + Scotland ever produced, and who lives to witness (although in + retirement) the various changes which have taken place in her courts + of judicature, a man who has filled with marked distinction the + highest offices of his profession, _tush'd_ (pshaw'd) extremely at + the delicacy of our former criticism. And certainly he claims some + title to do so, having been in his youth not only a witness of such + orgies as are described as proceeding under the auspices of Mr. + Pleydell, but himself a distinguished performer. + +On the subject of Davie Gellatley, the fool of the Baron of +Bradwardine's family, we are assured there is ample testimony that a +custom, referred to Shakespeare's time in England, had, and in remote +provinces of Scotland, has still its counterpart, to this day. We do not +mean to say that the professed jester with his bauble and his +party-coloured vestment can be found in any family north of the Tweed. Yet +such a personage held this respectable office in the family of the Earls +of Strathemore within the last century, and his costly holiday dress, +garnished with bells of silver, is still preserved in the Castle of +Glamis. But we are assured, that to a much later period, and even to +this moment, the habits and manners of Scotland have had some tendency +to preserve the existence of this singular order of domestics. There are +(comparatively speaking) no poor's rates in the country parishes of +Scotland, and of course no work-houses to immure either their worn out +poor or the "moping idiot and the madman gay," whom Crabbe characterizes +as the happiest inhabitants of these mansions, because insensible of +their misfortunes. It therefore happens almost necessarily in Scotland, +that the house of the nearest proprietor of wealth and consequence +proves a place of refuge for these outcasts of society; and until the +pressure of the times, and the calculating habits which they have +necessarily generated had rendered the maintenance of a human being +about such a family an object of some consideration, they usually found +an asylum there, and enjoyed the degree of comfort of which their +limited intellect rendered them susceptible. Such idiots were usually +employed in some simple sort of occasional labour; and if we are not +misinformed, the situation of turn-spit was often assigned them, before +the modern improvement of the smoke-jack. But, however employed, they +usually displayed towards their benefactors a sort of instinctive +attachment which was very affecting. We knew one instance in which such +a being refused food for many days, pined away, literally broke his +heart, and died within the space of a very few weeks after his +benefactor's decease. We cannot now pause to deduce the moral inference +which might be derived from such instances. It is however evident, that +if there was a coarseness of mind in deriving amusement from the follies +of these unfortunate beings, a circumstance to the disgrace of which +they were totally insensible, their mode of life was, in other respects, +calculated to promote such a degree of happiness as their faculties +permitted them to enjoy. But besides the amusement which our forefathers +received from witnessing their imperfections and extravagancies, there +was a more legitimate source of pleasure in the wild wit which they +often flung around them with the freedom of Shakespeare's licensed +clowns. There are few houses in Scotland of any note or antiquity where +the witty sayings of some such character are not occasionally quoted at +this very day. The pleasure afforded to our forefathers by such +repartees was no doubt heightened by their wanting the habits of more +elegant amusement. But in Scotland the practice long continued, and in +the house of one of the very first noblemen of that country (a man whose +name is never mentioned without reverence) and that within the last +twenty years, a jester such as we have mentioned stood at the side-table +during dinner, and occasionally amused the guests by his extemporaneous +sallies. Imbecility of this kind was even considered as an apology for +intrusion upon the most solemn occasions. All know the peculiar +reverence with which the Scottish of every rank attend on funeral +ceremonies. Yet within the memory of most of the present generation, an +idiot of an appearance equally hideous and absurd, dressed, as if in +mockery, in a rusty and ragged black coat, decorated with a cravat and +weepers made of white paper in the form of those worn by the deepest +mourners, preceded almost every funeral procession in Edinburgh, as if +to turn into ridicule the last rites paid to mortality. + +It has been generally supposed that in the case of these as of other +successful novels, the most prominent and peculiar characters were +sketched from real life. It was only after the death of Smollet, that +two barbers and a shoemaker contended about the character of Strap, +which each asserted was modelled from his own: but even in the lifetime +of the present author, there is scarcely a dale in the pastoral +districts of the southern counties but arrogates to itself the +possession of the original Dandie Dinmont. As for Baillie Mac Wheeble, a +person of the highest eminence in the law perfectly well remembers +having received fees from him. + + * * * * * + +Although these strong resemblances occur so frequently, and with such +peculiar force, as almost to impress us with the conviction that the +author sketched from nature, and not from fancy alone; yet we hesitate +to draw any positive conclusion, sensible that a character dashed off as +the representative of a certain class of men will bear, if executed with +fidelity to the general outlines, not only that resemblance which he +ought to possess as "knight of the shire," but also a special affinity +to some particular individual. It is scarcely possible it should be +otherwise. When Emery appears on the stage as a Yorkshire peasant, with +the habit, manner, and dialect peculiar to the character, and which he +assumes with so much truth and fidelity, those unacquainted with the +province or its inhabitants see merely the abstract idea, the beau ideal +of a Yorkshireman. But to those who are intimate with both, the action +and manner of the comedian almost necessarily recall the idea of some +individual native (altogether unknown probably to the performer) to whom +his exterior and manners bear a casual resemblance. We are therefore on +the whole inclined to believe, that the incidents are frequently copied +from _actual_ occurrences, but that the characters are either entirely +fictitious, or if any traits have been borrowed from real life, as in +the anecdote which we have quoted respecting Invernahyle, they have been +carefully disguised and blended with such as are purely imaginary. We +now proceed to a more particular examination of the volumes before us. + +They are entitled "Tales of my Landlord": why so entitled, excepting to +introduce a quotation from Don Quixote, it is difficult to conceive: for +Tales of my Landlord they are _not_, nor is it indeed easy to say whose +tales they ought to be called. There is a proem, as it is termed, +supposed to be written by Jedediah Cleishbotham, the schoolmaster and +parish clerk of the village of Gandercleugh, in which we are given to +understand that these Tales were compiled by his deceased usher, Mr. +Peter Pattieson, from the narratives or conversations of such travellers +as frequented the Wallace Inn, in that village. Of this proem we shall +only say that it is written in the quaint style of that prefixed by Gay +to his Pastorals, being, as Johnson terms it, "such imitation as he +could obtain of obsolete language, and by consequence in a style that +was never written nor spoken in any age or place." + + * * * * * + +We have given these details partly in compliance with the established +rules which our office prescribes, and partly in the hope that the +authorities we have been enabled to bring together might give additional +light and interest to the story. From the unprecedented popularity of +the work, we cannot flatter ourselves that our summary has made any one +of our readers acquainted with events with which he was not previously +familiar. The causes of that popularity we may be permitted shortly to +allude to; we cannot even hope to exhaust them, and it is the less +necessary that we should attempt it, since we cannot suggest a +consideration which a perusal of the work has not anticipated in the +minds of all our readers. + +One great source of the universal admiration which this family of Novels +has attracted, is their peculiar plan, and the distinguished excellence +with which it has been executed. The objections that have frequently +been stated against what are called Historical Romances, have been +suggested, we think, rather from observing the universal failure of that +species of composition, than from any inherent and constitutional defect +in the species of composition itself. If the manners of different ages +are injudiciously blended together,--if unpowdered crops and slim and +fairy shapes are commingled in the dance with volumed wigs and +far-extending hoops,--if in the portraiture of real character the truth +of +history be violated, the eyes of the spectator are necessarily averted +from a picture which excites in every well regulated and intelligent +mind the hatred of incredulity. We have neither time nor inclination to +enforce our remark by giving illustrations of it. But if those +unpardonable sins against good taste can be avoided, and the features of +an age gone by can be recalled in a spirit of delineation at once +faithful and striking, the very opposite is the legitimate conclusion: +the composition itself is in every point of view dignified and improved; +and the author, leaving the light and frivolous associates with whom a +careless observer would be disposed to ally him, takes his seat on the +bench of the historians of his time and country. In this proud assembly, +and in no mean place of it, we are disposed to rank the author of these +works; for we again express our conviction--and we desire to be +understood to use the term as distinguished from _knowledge_--that they +are all the offspring of the same parent. At once a master of the great +events and minuter incidents of history, and of the manners of the times +he celebrates, as distinguished from those which now prevail,--the +intimate thus of the living and of the dead, his judgment enables him to +separate those traits which are characteristic from those that are +generic; and his imagination, not less accurate and discriminating than +vigorous and vivid, presents to the mind of the reader the manners of +the times, and introduces to his familiar acquaintance the individuals +of his drama as they thought and spoke and acted. We are not quite sure +that any thing is to be found in the manner and character of the Black +Dwarf which would enable us, without the aid of the author's +information, and the facts he relates, to give it to the beginning of +the last century; and, as we have already remarked, his free-booting +robber lives, perhaps, too late in time. But his delineation is perfect. +With palpable and inexcusable defects in the _dénouement_, there are +scenes of deep and overwhelming interest; and every one, we think, must +be delighted with the portrait of the Grandmother of Hobbie Elliott, a +representation soothing and consoling in itself, and heightened in its +effect by the contrast produced from the lighter manners of the younger +members of the family, and the honest but somewhat blunt and boisterous +bearing of the shepherd himself. + +The second tale, however, as we have remarked, is more adapted to the +talents of the author, and his success has been proportionably +triumphant. We have trespassed too unmercifully on the time of our +gentle readers to indulge our inclination in endeavouring to form an +estimate of that melancholy but, nevertheless, most attractive period in +our history, when by the united efforts of a corrupt and unprincipled +government, of extravagant fanaticism, want of education, perversion of +religion, and the influence of ill-instructed teachers, whose hearts and +understandings were estranged and debased by the illapses of the wildest +enthusiasm, the liberty of the people was all but extinguished, and the +bonds of society nearly dissolved. Revolting as all this is to the +Patriot, it affords fertile materials to the Poet. As to the _beauty_ of +the delineation presented to the reader in this tale, there is, we +believe, but one opinion: and we are persuaded that the more carefully +and dispassionately it is contemplated, the more perfect will it appear +in the still more valuable qualities of fidelity and truth. We have +given part of the evidence on which we say this, and we will again recur +to the subject. The opinions and language of the _honest party_ are +detailed with the accuracy of a witness; and he who could open to our +view the state of the Scottish peasantry, perishing in the field or on +the scaffold, and driven to utter and just desperation, in attempting to +defend their first and most sacred rights; who could place before our +eyes the leaders of these enormities, from the notorious Duke of +Lauderdale downwards to the fellow mind that executed his behest, +precisely as they lived and looked,--such a chronicler cannot justly be +charged with attempting to extenuate or throw into the shade the +corruptions of a government that soon afterwards fell a victim to its +own follies and crimes. + +Independently of the delineation of the manners and characters of the +times to which the story refers, it is impossible to avoid noticing, as +a separate excellence, the faithful representation of general nature. +Looking not merely to the litter of novels that peep out for a single +day from the mud where they were spawned, but to many of more ambitious +pretensions--it is quite evident that in framing them, the authors have +first addressed themselves to the involutions and developement of the +story, as the principal object of their attention; and that in +entangling and unravelling the plot, in combining the incidents which +compose it, and even in depicting the characters, they sought for +assistance chiefly in the writings of their predecessors. Baldness, and +uniformity, and inanity are the inevitable results of this slovenly and +unintellectual proceeding. The volume which this author has studied is +the great book of Nature. He has gone abroad into the world in quest of +what the world will certainly and abundantly supply, but what a man of +great discrimination alone will find, and a man of the very highest +genius will alone depict after he has discovered it. The characters of +Shakespeare are not more exclusively human, not more perfectly men and +women as they live and move, than those of this mysterious author. It is +from this circumstance that, as we have already observed, many of his +personages are supposed to be sketched from real life. He must have +mixed much and variously in the society of his native country; his +studies must have familiarized him to systems of manners now forgotten; +and thus the persons of his drama, though in truth the creatures of his +own imagination, convey the impression of individuals who we are +persuaded must exist, or are evoked from their graves in all their +original freshness, entire in their lineaments, and perfect in all the +minute peculiarities of dress and demeanour. + + * * * * * + +Admitting, however, that these portraits are sketched with spirit and +effect, two questions arise of much more importance than any thing +affecting the merits of the novels--namely, whether it is safe or +prudent to imitate, in a fictitious narrative, and often with a view to +a ludicrous effect, the scriptural style of the zealots of the +seventeenth century; and secondly, whether the recusant presbyterians, +collectively considered, do not carry too reverential and sacred a +character to be treated by an unknown author with such insolent +familiarity. + +On the first subject, we frankly own we have great hesitation. It is +scarcely possible to ascribe scriptural expressions to hypocritical or +extravagant characters without some risk of mischief, because it will be +apt to create an habitual association between the expression and the +ludicrous manner in which it is used, unfavourable to the reverence due +to the sacred text. And it is no defence to state that this is an error +inherent in the plan of the novel. Bourdaloue, a great authority, +extends this restriction still farther, and denounces all attempts to +unmask hypocrisy by raillery, because in doing so the satirist is +necessarily compelled to expose to ridicule the religious vizard of +which he has divested him. Yet even against such authority it may be +stated, that ridicule is the friend both of religion and virtue, when +directed against those who assume their garb, whether from hypocrisy or +fanaticism. The satire of Butler, not always decorous in these +particulars, was yet eminently useful in stripping off their borrowed +gravity and exposing to public ridicule the affected fanaticism of the +times in which he lived. It may also be remembered, that in the days of +Queen Anne a number of the Camisars or Huguenots of Dauphiné arrived as +refugees in England, and became distinguished by the name of the French +prophets. The fate of these enthusiasts in their own country had been +somewhat similar to that of the Covenanters. Like them, they used to +assemble in the mountains and desolate places, to the amount of many +hundreds, in arms, and like them they were hunted and persecuted by the +military. Like them, they were enthusiasts, though their enthusiasm +assumed a character more decidedly absurd. The fugitive Camisars who +came to London had convulsion-fits, prophesied, made converts, and +attracted the public attention by an offer to raise the dead. The +English minister, instead of fine and imprisonment and other inflictions +which might have placed them in the rank and estimation of martyrs, and +confirmed in their faith their numerous disciples, encouraged a dramatic +author to bring out a farce on the subject which, though neither very +witty nor very delicate, had the good effect of laughing the French +prophets out of their audience and putting a stop to an inundation of +nonsense which could not have failed to disgrace the age in which it +appeared. The Camisars subsided into their ordinary vocation of +psalmodic whiners, and no more was heard of their sect or their +miracles. It would be well if all folly of the kind could be so easily +quelled: for enthusiastic nonsense, whether of this day or of those +which have passed away, has no more title to shelter itself under the +veil of religion than a common pirate to be protected by the reverence +due to an honoured and friendly flag. + +Still, however, we must allow that there is great delicacy and +hesitation to be used in employing the weapon of ridicule on any point +connected with religion. Some passages occur in the work before us for +which the writer's sole apology must be the uncontroulable disposition +to indulge the peculiarity of his vein of humour--a temptation which +even the saturnine John Knox was unable to resist either in narrating +the martyrdom of his friend Wisheart or the assassination of his enemy +Beatson, and in the impossibility of resisting which his learned and +accurate biographer has rested his apology for this mixture of jest and +earnest. + + "There are writers," he says (rebutting the charge of Hume against + Knox), "who can treat the most sacred subjects with a levity bordering + on profanity. Must we at once pronounce them profane, and is nothing + to be set down to the score of natural temper inclining them to wit + and humour? The pleasantry which Knox has mingled with his narrative + of his (Cardinal Beatson's) death and burial is unseasonable and + unbecoming. But it is to be imputed not to any pleasure which he took + in describing a bloody scene, but to the strong propensity which he + had to indulge his vein of humour. Those who have read his history + with attention must have perceived that he is not able to check this + even on the very serious occasions."--_Macrie's Life of Knox_, p. 147. + +Indeed Dr. Macrie himself has given us a striking instance of the +indulgence which the Presbyterian clergy, even of the strictest +persuasion, permit to the _vis comica_. After describing a polemical +work as "ingeniously constructed and occasionally enlivened with strokes +of humour," he transfers, to embellish his own pages, (for we can +discover no purpose of edification which the tale serves), a ludicrous +parody made by an ignorant parish-priest on certain words of a Psalm, +too sacred to be here quoted. Our own innocent pleasantry cannot, in +this instance, be quite reconciled with that of the learned biographer +of John Knox, but we can easily conceive that his authority may be +regarded in Scotland as decisive of the extent to which a humourist may +venture in exercising his wit upon scriptural expressions without +incurring censure even from her most rigid divines. + +It may however be a very different point how far the author is entitled +to be acquitted upon the second point of indictment. To use too much +freedom with things sacred is a course much more easily glossed over +than that of exposing to ridicule the persons of any particular sect. +Every one knows the reply of the great Prince of Condé to Louis XIV when +this monarch expressed his surprize at the clamour excited by Molière's +Tartuffe, while a blasphemous farce called _Scaramouche Hermite_ was +performed without giving any scandal: "C'est parceque Scaramouche ne +jouoit que le ciel et la religion, dont les dévots se soucioient +beaucoup moins que d'eux-mêmes." We believe, therefore, the best service +we can do our author in the present case is to shew that the odious part +of his satire applies only to that fierce and unreasonable set of +extra-presbyterians, whose zeal, equally absurd and cruel, afforded +pretexts for the severities inflicted on non-conformists without +exception, and gave the greatest scandal and offence to the wise, sober, +enlightened, and truly pious among the Presbyterians. + +The principal difference betwixt the Cameronians and the rational +presbyterians has been already touched upon. It may be summed in a very +few words. + +After the restoration of Charles II episcopacy was restored in Scotland, +upon the unanimous petition of the Scottish parliament. Had this been +accompanied with a free toleration of the presbyterians, whose +consciences preferred a different mode of church-government, we do not +conceive there would have been any wrong done to that ancient kingdom. +But instead of this, the most violent means of enforcing conformity were +resorted to without scruple, and the ejected presbyterian clergy were +persecuted by penal statutes and prohibited from the exercise of their +ministry. These rigours only made the people more anxiously seek out and +adhere to the silenced preachers. Driven from the churches, they held +conventicles in houses. Expelled from cities and the mansions of men, +they met on the hills and deserts like the French Huguenots. Assailed +with arms, they repelled force by force. The severity of the rulers, +instigated by the episcopal clergy, increased with the obstinacy of the +recusants, until the latter, in 1666, assumed arms for the purpose of +asserting their right to worship God in their own way. They were +defeated at Pentland; and in 1669 a gleam of common sense and justice +seems to have beamed upon the Scottish councils of Charles. They granted +what was called an _indulgence_ (afterwards repeatedly renewed) to the +presbyterian clergy, assigned them small stipends, and permitted them to +preach in such deserted churches as should be assigned to them by the +Scottish Privy Council. This "indulgence," though clogged with harsh +conditions and frequently renewed or capriciously recalled, was still an +acceptable boon to the wiser and better part of the presbyterian clergy, +who considered it as an opening to the exercise of their ministry under +the lawful authority, which they continued to acknowledge. But fiercer +and more intractable principles were evinced by the younger ministers of +that persuasion. They considered the submitting to exercise their +ministry under the controul of any visible authority as absolute +erastianism, a desertion of the great invisible and divine Head of the +church, and a line of conduct which could only be defended, says one of +their tracts, by nullifidians, time-servers, infidels, or the Archbishop +of Canterbury. They held up to ridicule and abhorrence such of their +brethren as considered mere toleration as a boon worth accepting. Every +thing, according to these fervent divines, which fell short of +re-establishing presbytery as the sole and predominating religion, all +that did not imply a full restoration of the Solemn League and Covenant, +was an imperfect and unsound composition between God and mammon, +episcopacy and prelacy. The following extracts from a printed sermon by +one of them, on the subject of "soul-confirmation," will at once exemplify +the contempt and scorn with which these high-flyers regarded their more +sober-minded brethren, and serve as a specimen of the homely eloquence +with which they excited their followers. The reader will probably be of +opinion that it is worthy of Kettledrummle himself, and will serve to +clear Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham of the charge of exaggeration. + + There is many folk that has a face to the religion that is in fashion, + and there is many folk, they have ay a face to the old company, they + have a face for godly folk, and they have a face for persecutors of + godly folk, and they will be daddies bairns and minnies bairns both; + they will be _prelates_ bairns and they will be _malignants_ bairns + and they will be the people of God's bairns. And what think ye of that + bastard temper? Poor Peter had a trial of this soupleness, but God + made Paul an instrument to take him by the neck and shake it from him: + And O that God would take us by the neck and shake our soupleness from + us. + + Therefore you that keeps only your old job-trot, and does not mend + your pace, you will not wone at _soul-confirmation,_ there is a whine + (i.e., _a few_) old job-trot, and does not mend your pace, you will + not wone at _soul-confirmation,_ there is a whine old job-trot + ministers among us, a whine old job-trot professors, they have their + own pace, and faster they will not go; O therefore they could never + wine to _soul-confirmation_ in the mettere of God. And our old + job-trot ministers is turned _curates_, and our old job-trot + professors is joined with them, and now this way God has turned them + inside out, and has made it manifest and when their heart is hanging + upon this braw, I will not give a gray groat for them and their + profession both. + + The devil has the ministers and professors of Scotland, now in a sive, + and O as he sifts, and O as he riddles, and O as he rattles, and O the + chaff he gets; And I fear there be more chaff nor there be good corn, + and that will be found among us or all be done: but the + _soul-confirmed_ man leaves ever the devil at two more, and he has ay + the matter gadged, and leaves ay the devil in the lee side,--Sirs O + work in the day of the cross. + +The more moderate presbyterian ministers saw with pain and resentment +the lower part of their congregation, who had least to lose by taking +desperate courses, withdrawn from their flocks, by their more zealous +pretenders to purity of doctrine, while they themselves were held up to +ridicule, old jog trot professors and chaff-winnowed out and flung away +by Satan. They charged the Cameronian preachers with leading the deluded +multitude to slaughter at Bothwell, by prophesying a certainty of +victory, and dissuading them from accepting the amnesty offered by +Monmouth. "All could not avail," says Mr. Law, himself a presbyterian +minister, "with McCargill, Kidd, Douglas, and other witless men amongst +them, to hearken to any proposals of peace. Among others that Douglas, +sitting on his horse, and preaching to the confused multitude, told them +that they would come to terms with them, and like a drone was always +droning on these terms with them: 'they would give us a half Christ, but +we will have a whole Christ,' and such like impertinent speeches as +these, good enough to feed those that are served with wind and not with +the sincere milk of the word of God." Law also censures these irritated +and extravagant enthusiasts, not only for intending to overthrow the +government, but as binding themselves to kill all that would not accede +to their opinion, and he gives several instances of such cruelty being +exercised by them, not only upon straggling soldiers whom they shot by +the way or surprized in their quarters, but upon those who, having once +joined them, had fallen away from their principles. Being asked why they +committed these cruelties in cold blood, they answered, 'they were +obliged to do it by their sacred bond.' Upon these occasions they +practised great cruelties, mangling the bodies of their victims that +each man might have his share of the guilt. In these cases the +Cameronians imagined themselves the direct and inspired executioners of +the vengeance of heaven. Nor did they lack the usual incentives of +enthusiasm. Peden and others among them set up a claim to the gift of +prophecy, though they seldom foretold any thing to the purpose. They +detected witches, had bodily encounters with the enemy of mankind in his +own shape, or could discover him as, lurking in the disguise of a raven, +he inspired the rhetoric of a Quaker's meeting. In some cases, celestial +guardians kept guard over their field-meetings. At a conventicle held on +the Lomond-hills, the Rev. Mr. Blacader was credibly assured, under the +hands of four honest men, that at the time the meeting was disturbed by +the soldiers, some women who had remained at home, "clearly perceived as +the form of a tall man, majestic-like, stand in the air in stately +posture with the one leg, as it were, advanced before the other, +standing above the people all the time of the soldiers shooting." +Unluckily this great vision of the Guarded Mount did not conclude as +might have been expected. The divine sentinel left his post too soon, +and the troopers fell upon the rear of the audience, plundered and +stripped many, and made eighteen prisoners. + +But we have no delight to dwell either upon the atrocities or +absurdities of a people whose ignorance and fanaticism were rendered +frantic by persecution. It is enough for our present purpose to observe +that the present Church of Scotland, which comprizes so much sound +doctrine and learning, and has produced so many distinguished +characters, is the legitimate representative of the indulged clergy of +the days of Charles II, settled however upon a comprehensive basis. That +after the revolution, it should have succeeded episcopacy as the +national religion, was natural and regular, because it possessed all the +sense, learning, and moderation fit for such a change, and because among +its followers were to be found the only men of property and influence +who acknowledged presbytery. But the Cameronians continued long as a +separate sect, though their preachers were bigoted and ignorant, and +their hearers were gleaned out of the lower ranks of the peasantry. +Their principle, so far as it was intelligible, asserted that paramount +species of presbyterian church-government which was established in the +year 1648, and they continued to regard the established church as +erastian and time-serving, because they prudently remained silent upon +certain abstract and delicate topics, where there might be some +collision between the absolute liberty asserted by the church and the +civil government of the state. The Cameronians, on the contrary, +disowned all kings and government whatsoever, which should not take the +Solemn League and Covenant; and long retained hopes of re-establishing +that great national engagement, a bait which was held out to them by all +those who wished to disturb the government during the reign of William +and Anne, as is evident from the Memoirs of Ker of Kersland, and the +Negotiations of Colonel Hooke with the Jacobites and disaffected of the +year. + +A party so wild in their principles, so vague and inconsistent in their +views, could not subsist long under a free and unlimited toleration. +They continued to hold their preachings on the hills, but they lost much +of their zeal when they were no longer liable to be disturbed by +dragoons, sheriffs, and lieutenants of Militia.--The old fable of the +Traveller's Cloak was in time verified, and the fierce sanguinary +zealots of the days of Claverhouse sunk into such quiet and peaceable +enthusiasts as Howie of Lochgoin, or Old Mortality himself. It is, +therefore, upon a race of sectaries who have long ceased to exist, that +Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham has charged all that is odious, and almost all +that is ridiculous, in his fictitious narrative; and we can no more +suppose any moderate presbyterian involved in the satire, than we should +imagine that the character of Hampden stood committed by a little +raillery on the person of Ludovic Claxton, the Muggletonian. If, +however, there remain any of those sectaries who, confining the beams of +the Gospel to the Goshen of their own obscure synagogue, and with James +Mitchell, the intended assassin, giving their sweeping testimony against +prelacy and popery, The Whole Duty of Man and bordles, promiscuous +dancing and the Common Prayer-book, and all the other enormities and +backslidings of the time, may perhaps be offended at this idle tale, we +are afraid they will receive their answer in the tone of the revellers +to Malvolio, who, it will be remembered, was something a kind of +Puritan: "Doest thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no +more cakes and ale?--Aye, by Saint Anne, and ginger will be hot in the +mouth too." + + + + +ON LEIGH HUNT + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1816] + +_The Story of Rimini, a Poem_. By LEIGH HUNT. fc. 8vo. pp. 111. London, +1816. + +A considerable part of this poem was written in Newgate, where the +author was some time confined, we believe for a libel which appeared in +a newspaper, of which he is said to be the conductor. Such an +introduction is not calculated to make a very favourable impression. +Fortunately, however, we are as little prejudiced as possible on this +subject: we have never seen Mr. Hunt's newspaper; we have never heard +any particulars of his offence; nor should we have known that he had +been imprisoned but for his own confession. We have not, indeed, ever +read one line that he has written, and are alike remote from the +knowledge of his errors or the influence of his private character. We +are to judge him solely from the work now before us; and our criticism +would be worse than uncandid if it were swayed by any other +consideration. + +The poem is not destitute of merit; but--and this, we confess, was our +main inducement to notice it--it is written on certain pretended +_principles_, and put forth as a pattern for imitation, with a degree of +arrogance which imposes on us the duty of making some observations on +this new theory, which Mr. Leigh Hunt, with the weight and authority of +his venerable name, has issued, ex cathedra, as the canons of poetry and +criticism. + +These canons Mr. Hunt endeavours to explain and establish in a long +preface, written in a style which, though Mr. Hunt implies that it is +meant to be perfectly natural and unaffected, appears to us the most +strange, laboured, uncouth, and unintelligible species of prose that we +ever read, only indeed to be exceeded in these qualities by some of the +subsequent verses; and both the prose and the verse are the first +eruptions of this disease with which Mr. Leigh Hunt insists upon +inoculating mankind. + +Mr. Hunt's _first_ canon is that there should be a _great freedom_ _of +versification_--this is a proposition to which we should have readily +assented; but when Mr. Hunt goes on to say that by _freedom of +versification_ he means something which neither Pope nor Johnson +possessed, and of which even "they knew less than any poets perhaps who +ever wrote," we check our confidence; and, after a little consideration, +find that by freedom Mr. Hunt means only an inaccurate, negligent, and +harsh style of versification, which our early poets fell into from want +of polish, and such poets as Mr. Hunt still practise from want of ease, +of expression, and of taste. + + "_License_ he means, when he cries _liberty_." + +Mr. Hunt tells us that Dryden, Spenser and Ariosto, Shakespeare and +Chaucer (so he arranges them), are the greatest masters of _modern_ +versification; but he, in the next few sentences, leads us to suspect +that he really does not think much more reverently of these great names +than of Pope and of Johnson; and that, if the whole truth were told, he +is decidedly of opinion that the only good master of versification, in +modern times, is--Mr. Leigh Hunt. + +Dryden, Mr. Hunt thinks, is apt to be _artificial_ in his style; or, in +other words, he has improved the harmony of our language from the +rudeness of Chaucer, whom Mr. Hunt (in a sentence which is not grammar, +p. xv) says that Dryden (though he spoke of and borrowed from him) +neither relished nor understood. Spenser, he admits, was musical from +pure taste, but Milton was only, as he elegantly expresses it, +"_learnedly_ so." Being _learned in music_, is intelligible, and, of +Milton, true; but what can Mr. Hunt mean by saying that Milton had +"_learnedly_ a _musical ear_"? "Ariosto's fine ear and _animal spirits_ +gave a _frank_ and exquisite tone to all he said"--what does this mean?-- +a fine ear may, perhaps, be said to _give_, as it contributes to, an +exquisite tone; but what have _animal spirits_ to do here? and what, in +the matter of _tones_ and _sounds_, is the effect of _frankness_? We +shrewdly suspect that Mr. Hunt, with all his affectation of Italian +literature, knows very little of Ariosto; it is clear that he knows +nothing of Tasso. Of Shakespeare he tells us, "that his versification +escapes us because he _over-informed_ it with knowledge and sentiment," +by which it appears (as well, indeed, as by his own verses), that this +new Stagyrite thinks that good versification runs a risk of being +spoiled by having _too much meaning_ included in its lines. + +To wind up the whole of this admirable, precise, and useful criticism by +a recapitulation as useful and precise, he says, "all these are about as +different from Pope as the church organ is from the bell in the steeple, +or, to give him a more decorous comparison, the song of the nightingale +from that of the cuckoo."--p. xv. + +Now we own that what there is so _indecorous_ in the first comparison, +or so especially _decorous_ in the second, we cannot discover; neither +can we make out whether Pope is the organ or the bell--the nightingale +or the cuckoo; we suppose that Mr. Hunt knows that Pope was called by +his contemporaries the _nightingale_, but we never heard Milton and +Dryden called _cuckoos_; or, if the comparison is to be taken the other +way, we apprehend that, though Chaucer may be to Mr. Hunt's ears a +_church organ_, Pope cannot, to any ear, sound like the _church bell_. + +But all this theory, absurd and ignorant as it is, is really nothing to +the practice of which it effects to be the defence. + +Hear the warblings of Mr. Hunt's nightingales. + +A horseman is described-- + + The patting hand, that best persuades the check, + _And makes the quarrel up with a proud neck_, + The thigh broad pressed, the spanning palm _upon it_, + And the jerked feather _swaling_ in the _bonnet_.--p. 15. + +Knights wear ladies' favours-- + + Some tied about their arm, some at the breast, + _Some, with a drag, dangling from the cap's crest_.--p. 14. + +Paulo pays his compliments to the destined bride of his brother-- + + And paid them with an air so frank and bright, + As to a friend _appreciated at sight_; + That air, in short, which sets you at your ease, + Without _implying_ your perplexities, + That _what with the surprize in every way_, + The hurry of the time, the appointed day,-- + She knew _not how to object_ in her confusion.--p. 29. + +The meeting of the brothers, on which the catastrophe turns, is +excellent: the politeness with which the challenge is given would have +delighted the heart of old Caranza. + + May I request, Sir, said the prince, and frowned, + Your ear a moment in the tilting ground? + _There_, brother? answered Paulo with an _air_ + Surprized and _shocked_. Yes, _brother_, cried he, _there_. + The word smote _crushingly_.--p. 92. + +Before the duel, the following spirited explanation takes place: + + The prince spoke low, + And said: Before _you answer what you can_, + I wish to tell you, _as a gentleman_, + That what you may confess-- + Will implicate no person known to you, + More than disquiet in _its_ sleep may do.--p. 93. + +Paulo falls--and the event is announced in these exquisite lines: + + Her _aged_ nurse-- + Who, shaking her _old_ head, and pressing close + Her withered _lips_ to _keep the tears_ that rose--p. 101. + +"By the way," does Mr. Leigh Hunt suppose that the aged nurses of Rimini +weep with their mouths? or does he mistake crying for drivelling?--In +fact, the young lady herself seems to have adopted the same mode of +weeping: + + With that, a _keen_ and _quivering glance of_ tears + Scarce moves her _patient mouth_, and disappears. + +But to the nurse.--She introduces the messenger of death to the +princess, who communicates his story, in pursuance of her command-- + + Something, I'm sure, has happened--tell me what-- + I can bear all, though _you may fancy not_. + Madam, replied the squire, you are, I know, + All sweetness--_pardon me for saying so_. + My Master bade _me_ say then, resumed _he_, + That _he_ spoke firmly, when he told it _me_,-- + That I was also, madam, to your ear + Firmly to speak, and you firmly to hear,-- + That he was forced this day, _whether or no_, + To combat with the prince;--'--p. 103. + +The _second_ of Mr. Hunt's new principles he thus announces: + + With the endeavour to recur to a freer spirit of versification, I have + joined one of still greater importance--that of having a _free and + idiomatic_ cast of language. There is a cant of art as well as of + nature, though the former is not so unpleasant as the latter, which + affects non-affectation.--(What does all this mean?)--But the proper + _language of poetry_ is in fact nothing different from that of real + life, and depends for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of + what it speaks. It is only adding _musical modulation_ to what a _fine + understanding_ might actually utter in the midst of its griefs or + enjoyments. The poet therefore should do as Chaucer or Shakespeare + did,--not copy what is obsolete or peculiar in either, any more than + they copied from their predecessors,--but use as much as possible an + _actual, existing language,_--omitting of course _mere vulgarisms_ and + _fugitive phrases_, which are the cant of ordinary discourse, just as + tragedy phrases, _dead idioms,_ and exaggerations of dignity, are of + the artificial style, and yeas, verilys, and exaggerations of + simplicity, are of the natural.--p. xvi. + +This passage, compared with the verses to which it preludes, affords a +more extraordinary instance of self-delusion than even Mr. Hunt's notion +of the merit of his versification; for if there be one fault more +eminently conspicuous and ridiculous in Mr. Hunt's work than another, it +is,--that it is full of _mere vulgarisms_ and _fugitive phrases_, and +that in every page the language is--not only not _the actual, existing +language_, but an ungrammatical, unauthorised, chaotic jargon, such as +we believe was never before spoken, much less written. + +In what vernacular tongue, for instance, does Mr. Hunt find a lady's +waist called _clipsome_ (p. 10)--or the shout of a mob "enormous" (p. +9)--or a fit, _lightsome_;--or that a hero's nose is "_lightsomely_ +brought down from a forehead of clear-spirited thought" (p. 46)--or that +his back "drops" _lightsomely in_ (p. 20). Where has he heard of a +_quoit-like drop_--of _swaling_ a jerked feather--of _unbedinned_ music +(p. 11)--of the death of _leaping_ accents (p. 32)--of the _thick +reckoning_ of a hoof (p. 33)--of a _pin-drop_ silence (p. 17)--a +_readable_ look (p. 20)--a _half indifferent wonderment_ (p. 37)--or of + + _Boy-storied_ trees and _passion-plighted_ spots,--p. 38. + +of + + Ships coming up with _scattery_ light,--p. 4. + +or of self-knowledge being + + _Cored_, after all, in our complacencies?--p. 38. + +We shall now produce a few instances of what "_a fine understanding +might utter_," with "the addition of _musical modulation_," and of the +_dignity_ and _strength_ of Mr. Hunt's sentiments and expressions. + +A crowd, which divided itself into groups, is-- + + --the multitude, + Who _got_ in clumps----p. 26. + +The impression made on these "clumps" by the sight of the Princess, is +thus "musically" described: + + There's not in all that croud one _gallant_ being, + Whom, if his heart were whole, and _rank agreeing_, + It would not _fire to twice of what he is_,--p. 10. + +"Dignity and strength"-- + + First came the trumpeters-- + And as they _sit along_ their easy way, + Stately and _heaving_ to the croud below.--p. 12. + +This word is deservedly a great favourite with the poet; he _heaves_ it +in upon all occasions. + + The deep talk _heaves_.--p. 5. + With _heav'd_ out tapestry the windows glow.--p. 6. + Then _heave_ the croud.--_id_. + And after a rude _heave_ from side to side.--p. 7. + The marble bridge comes _heaving_ forth below.--p. 28. + +"Fine understanding"-- + + The youth smiles _up_, and with a _lowly_ grace, + _Bending_ his _lifted_ eyes--p. 22. + +This is very neat: + + No peevishness there was-- + But a _mute_ gush of _hiding_ tears from one, + Clasped to the _core_ of him who yet shed none.--p. 83. + +The heroine is suspected of wishing to have some share in the choice of +her own husband, which is thus elegantly expressed: + + She had stout notions on the marrying _score_.--p. 27. + +This noble use of the word _score_ is afterwards carefully repeated in +speaking of the Prince, her husband-- + + --no suspicion could have touched him more, + Than that of _wanting_ on the generous _score_.--p. 48. + +But though thus punctilious on the _generous score_, his Highness had +but a bad temper, + + And kept no reckoning with his _sweets and sours_.--p. 47. + +This, indeed, is somewhat qualified by a previous observation, that-- + + _The worst of Prince Giovanni_, as his bride + Too quickly found, was an ill-tempered pride. + +How nobly does Mr. Hunt celebrate the combined charms of the fair sex, +and the country! + + _The two divinest things this world_ HAS GOT, + A lovely woman in a rural spot!--p. 58. + +A rural spot, indeed, seems to inspire Mr. Hunt with peculiar elegance +and sweetness: for he says, soon after, of Prince Paulo-- + + For welcome grace, there rode not such another, + Nor yet for strength, except his lordly brother. + Was there a court day, or a sparkling feast, + Or better still--_to my ideas, at least!_-- + A summer party in the green wood shade.--p. 50. + +So much for this new invented _strength_ and _dignity_: we shall add a +specimen of his syntax: + + But fears like these he never entertain'd, + And had they crossed him, would have been disdain'd.--p. 50. + + * * * * * + +After these extracts, we have but one word more to say of Mr. Hunt's +poetry; which is, that amidst all his vanity, vulgarity, ignorance, and +coarseness, there are here and there some well-executed descriptions, +and occasionally a line of which the sense and the expression are good-- +The interest of the story itself is so great that we do not think it +wholly lost even in Mr. Hunt's hands. He has, at least, the merit of +telling it with decency; and, bating the qualities of versification, +expression, and dignity, on which he peculiarly piques himself, and in +which he has utterly failed, the poem is one which, in our opinion at +least, may be read with satisfaction after GALT'S Tragedies. + +Mr. Hunt prefixes to his work a dedication to Lord Byron, in which he +assumes a high tone, and talks big of his "_fellow-dignity_" and +independence: what fellow-dignity may mean, we know not; perhaps the +_dignity_ of a _fellow_; but this we will say, that Mr. Hunt is not more +unlucky in his pompous pretension to versification and good language, +than he is in that which he makes, in this dedication, to _proper +spirit_, as he calls it, and _fellow-dignity_; for we never, in so few +lines, saw so many clear marks of the vulgar impatience of a low man, +conscious and ashamed of his wretched vanity, and labouring, with coarse +flippancy, to scramble over the bounds of birth and education, and +fidget himself into the _stout-heartedness_ of being familiar with a +LORD. + + + + +OF SHAKESPEARE + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1816] + +_Shakespeare's Himself Again! or the Language of the Poet asserted; +being a full and dispassionate Examen of the Readings and +Interpretations of the several Editors. Comprised in a Series of Notes, +Sixteen Hundred in Number, illustrative of the most difficult Passages +in his Plays_--_to the various editions of which the present Volumes +form a complete and necessary Supplement_. By ANDREW BECKET. 2 vols. +8vo. pp. 730. 1816. + +If the dead could be supposed to take any interest in the integrity of +their literary reputation, with what complacency might we not imagine +our great poet to contemplate the labours of the present writer! Two +centuries have passed away since his death--the mind almost sinks under +the reflection that he has been all that while exhibited to us so +"transmographied" by the joint ignorance and malice of printers, +critics, etc., as to be wholly unlike himself. But--_post nubila, +Phoebus!_ Mr. Andrew Becket has at length risen upon the world, and +Shakespeare is about to shine forth in genuine and unclouded glory! + +What we have at present is a mere scantling of the great work _in +procinctu_--[Greek: _pidakos ex ieraes oligaelizas_]--sixteen hundred +"restorations," and no more! But if these shall be favourably received, +a complete edition of the poet will speedily follow. Mr. Becket has +taken him to develop; and it is truly surprizing to behold how beautiful +he comes forth as the editor proceeds in unrolling those unseemly and +unnatural rags in which he has hitherto been so disgracefully wrapped: + + Tandem aperit vultum, et tectoria prima reponit,-- + Incipit agnosci!-- + +Mr. Becket has favoured us, in the Preface, with a comparative estimate +of the merits of his predecessors. He does not, as may easily be +conjectured, rate any of them very highly; but he places Warburton at +the top of the scale, and Steevens at the bottom: this, indeed, was to +be expected. "Warburton," he says, "is the _best_, and Steevens the +_worst_ of Shakespeare's commentators"; (p. xvii) and he ascribes it +solely to his forbearance that the latter is not absolutely crushed: it +not being in his nature, as he magnanimously insinuates, "to break a +butterfly upon a wheel!" Dr. Johnson is shoved aside with very little +ceremony; Mr. Malone fares somewhat better; and the rest are dismissed +with the gentle valediction of Pandarus to the Trojans--"asses, fools, +dolts! chaff and bran! porridge after meat!" With respect to our author +himself, it is but simple justice to declare, that he comes to the great +work of "restoring Shakespeare"--not only with more negative advantages +than the unfortunate tribe of critics so cavalierly dismissed, but than +all who have aspired to illumine the page of a defunct writer since the +days of Aristarchus. As far as we are enabled to judge, Mr. Becket never +examined an old play in his life:--he does not seem to have the +slightest knowledge of any writer, or any subject, or any language that +ever occupied the attention of his contemporaries; and he possesses a +mind as innocent of all requisite information as if he had dropped, with +the last thunderstone, from the moon. + +"Addison has well observed, that 'in works of criticism it is absolutely +necessary to have a _clear and logical head_.'" (p.v.) In this position, +Mr. Becket cheerfully agrees with him; and, indeed, it is sufficiently +manifest, that without the internal conviction of enjoying that +indispensable advantage, he would not have favoured the public with +those matchless "restorations"; a few specimens of which we now proceed +to lay before them. Where all are alike admirable, there is no call for +selection; we shall therefore open the volumes at random, and trust to +fortune. + + "_Hamlet_. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?" + +This reading, Mr. Becket says, he cannot admit; and he says well: since +it appears that Shakespeare wrote-- + + "For who would bear the _scores_ of _weapon'd_ time?" + +using _scores_ in the sense of stripes. Formerly, _i.e.,_ when Becket +was _in his sallad days_, he augured, he says, that the true reading +was-- + + --"the scores of _whip-hand_ time." + +Time having always the _whip-hand,_ the advantage; but he now reverts to +the other emendation; though, as he modestly hints, the epithet +_whip-hand_ (which he still regards with parental fondness) will perhaps +be thought to have much of the manner of Shakespeare.--Vol. i, p. 43. + + "_Horatio_.--While they, distill'd + Almost to jelly with the act of fear, + Stand dumb, and speak not to him!" + +We had been accustomed to find no great difficulty here: the words +seemed, to us, at least, to express the usual effect of inordinate +terror--but we gladly acknowledge our mistake. "The passage is not to be +understood." How should it, when both the pointing and the language are +corrupt? Read, as Shakespeare gave it-- + + --"While they _bestill'd_ + Almost to _gelèe_ with the act. Of fear + Stand dumb," &c.--that is, petrified (or rather icefied) p. 13. + + + "_Lear_. And my poor fool is hang'd!" + +With these homely words, which burst from the poor old king on reverting +to the fate of his loved Cordelia, whom he then holds in his arms, we +have been always deeply affected, and therefore set them down as one of +the thousand proofs of the poet's intimate knowledge of the human heart. +But Mr. Becket has made us ashamed of our simplicity and our tears. +Shakespeare had no such "lenten" language in his thoughts; he wrote, as +Mr. Becket tells us, + + "And my _pure soot_ is hang'd!" + +Poor, he adds, might be easily mistaken for _pure_; while the _s_ in +_soot_ (sweet) was scarcely discernible from the _f_, or the _t_ from +the _l_.--p. 176. + +We are happy to find that so much can be offered in favour of the old +printers. And yet--were it not that the genuine text is always to be +preferred--we could almost wish that the critic had left their blunder +as it stood. + + "_Wolsey_.--that his bones + May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on them." + + A tomb of tears is ridiculous. I read--a _coomb_ of tears--a _coomb_ + is a liquid measure containing forty gallons. Thus the expression, + which was before absurd, becomes forcible and just.--vol. ii, p. 134. + +It does indeed! + + "_Sir Andrew_. I sent thee six-pence for thy leman (mistress): had'st + it?" Read as Shakespeare wrote: "I sent thee sixpence for thy + _lemma_"--_lemma_ is properly an _argument_, or _proposition assumed_, + and is used by Sir Andrew Aguecheek for a story.--p. 335. + + + "_Viola_. She pined in thought, + And with a green and yellow melancholy."--Correct it thus: + + "She pined in thought + And with _agrein_ and _hollow_ melancholy."--p. 339. + + "_Iago_. I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense, + And he grows angry"-- + +that is, or rather _was_, according to our homely apprehension, I have +rubb'd this pimple (Roderigo) almost to bleeding:--but, no; Mr. Becket +has furnished us not only with the genuine words, but the meaning of +Shakespeare-- + + I have _fubb'd_ this young _quat_--_Quat_, or cat, appears to be a + contraction of cater-cousin--and this reading will be greatly + strengthened when it is remembered that Roderigo was really the + intimate of Iago.--p. 204. + +In a subsequent passage, "I am as melancholy as a gibb'd cat"--we are +told that _cat_ is not the domestic animal of that name, but a +contraction of _catin_, a woman of the town. But, indeed, Mr. Becket +possesses a most wonderful faculty for detecting these latent +contractions and filling them up. Thus, + + "_Parolles_. Sir, he will steal an egg out of a cloister." Read (as + Shakespeare wrote), "Sir, he will steal an _Ag_ (i.e., an _Agnes_) out + of a cloister." _Agnes_ is the name of a woman, and may easily stand + for chastity.--p. 325. + +No doubt. + + "_Carter_. Prithee, Tom, put a few flocks in Cut's saddle; the poor + beast is wrung in the withers out of all cess." + +Out of all cess, we used to think meant, in vulgar phraseology, out of +all measure, very much, &c.--but see how foolishly! + + _Cess_ is a mere contraction of _cessibility_, which signifies the + _quality of receding_, and may very well stand for _yielding_, as + spoken of a tumour.--p. 5. + + + "_Hamlet_. A cry of players." + + +This we once thought merely a sportive expression for a _company of_ +players, but Mr. Becket has undeceived us--"_Cry_ (he tells us) is +contracted from _cryptic_, and cryptic is precisely of the same import +as mystery."--p. 53. How delightful it is when learning and judgment +walk thus hand in hand! But enough-- + + --"the sweetest honey + Is loathsome in its own deliciousness"-- + +and we would not willingly cloy our readers. Sufficient has been +produced to encourage them--not perhaps to contend for the possession of +the present volumes, though Mr. Becket conscientiously affirms, in his +title-page, that "they form a complete and _necessary_ supplement to +every former edition"--but, with us, to look anxiously forward to the +great work in preparation. + +Meanwhile we have gathered some little consolation from what is already +in our hands. Very often, on comparing the dramas of the present day +(not even excepting Mr. Tobin's) with those of Elizabeth's age, we have +been tempted to think that we were born too late, and to exclaim with +the poet-- + + "Infelix ego, non illo qui tempore natus, + Quo facilis natura fuit; sors O mea laeva + Nascendi, miserumque genus!" &c. + +but we now see that unless Mr. Andrew Becket had also been produced at +that early period, we should have derived no extraordinary degree of +satisfaction from witnessing the first appearance of Shakespeare's +plays, since it is quite clear that we could not have understood them. + +One difficulty yet remains. We scarcely think that the managers will +have the confidence, in future, to play Shakespeare as they have been +accustomed to do; and yet, to present him, as now so happily "restored," +would, for some time at least, render him _caviare to the general_. We +know that Livius Andronicus, when grown hoarse with repeated +declamation, was allowed a second rate actor, who stood at his back and +spoke while he gesticulated, or gesticulated while he spoke. A hint may +be borrowed from this fact. We therefore propose that Mr. Andrew Becket +be forthwith taken into the pay of the two theatres, and divided between +them. He may then be instructed to follow the _dramatis personae_ of our +great poet's plays on the stage, and after each of them has made his +speech in the present corrupt reading, to pronounce aloud the words as +"restored" by himself. This may have an awkward effect at first; but a +season or two will reconcile the town to it; Shakespeare may then be +presented in his genuine language, or, as our author better expresses +it, be HIMSELF AGAIN. + + + + +ON MOXON'S SONNETS + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1837] + +_Sonnets by_ EDWARD MOXON. Second Edition. London, 1837. + +This is quite a _dandy_ of a book. Some seventy pages of drawing-paper-- +fifty-five of which are impressed each with a single sonnet in all the +luxury of type, while the rest are decked out with vignettes of nymphs +in clouds and bowers, and Cupids in rose-bushes and cockle-shells. And +all these coxcombries are the appendages of, as it seems to us, as +little intellect as the rings and brooches of the Exquisite in a modern +novel. We shall see presently, by what good fortune so moderate a poet +has found so liberal a publisher. + +We are no great admirers of the sonnet at its best--concurring in Dr. +Johnson's opinion that it does not suit the genius of our language, and +that the great examples of Shakespeare and Milton have failed to +domesticate it with us. It seems to be, even in master hands, that +species of composition which is at once the most artificial and the +least effective, which bears the appearance of the greatest labour and +produces the least pleasure. Its peculiar and unvaried construction must +inevitably inflict upon it something of pedantry and monotony, and +although some powerful minds have used it as a form for condensing and +elaborating a particular train of thought--_an Iliad in a nutshell_--yet +the vast majority of sonneteers employ it as an economical expedient, by +which one idea can be expanded into fourteen lines--fourteen lines into +one page--and, as we see, fifty-four pages into a costly volume. + +The complex construction, which at first sight seems a difficulty, is, +in fact, like all mechanism, a great saving of labour to the operator. A +sonnet almost makes itself, as a musical snuff-box plays a tune, or +rather as a cotton _Jenny_ spins twist. When a would-be poet has +collected in his memory a few of what may have struck him as poetical +ideas, he puts them into his machine, and after fourteen turns, out +comes a sonnet, or--if it be his pleasure to spin out his reminiscences +very fine--a dozen sonnets. + +Mr. Moxon inscribes as a motto on his title-page four lines of Mr. +Wordsworth's vindication of his own use of the sonnet-form-- + + In truth, the prison, into which we doom + Ourselves, no prison is: and hence to _me_, + In sundry moods 'twas pastime to be bound + Within the _sonnet's_ scanty plot of ground. + +Yes, Mr. Moxon, to _him_ perhaps, but not to every one--the "plot of +ground" which is "_scanty_" to an elephant is a wilderness to a mouse; +and the garment in which Wordsworth might feel straitened hangs flabby +about a puny imitator. There seems no great modesty in the estimate +which Mr. Moxon thus exhibits of his own superior powers, but we fear +there is, at least, as much modesty as truth--for really, so far from +being "_bound_" within the narrow limit of the sonnet, it seems to us to +be + + --a world too wide + For his shrunk shank. + +Ordinary sonneteers, as we have said, will spin a single thought through +the fourteen lines. Mr., Moxon will draw you out a single thought into +fourteen sonnets:--and these are his best--for most of the others appear +to us mere soap bubbles, very gay and gaudy, but which burst at the +fourteenth line and leave not the trace of an idea behind. Of two or +three Mr. Moxon has kindly told us the meaning, which, without that +notice, we confess we should never have guessed. + + * * * * * + +Another of the same genus--though, he had just told us + + My love I can _compare_ with _nought_ on earth-- + +is like _nought on earth_ we ever read but Dean Swift's song of similes. +I _will prove_, he says, that + + A swan-- + A fawn-- + An artless lamb-- + A hawthorn tree-- + A willow-- + A laburnum-- + A dream-- + A rainbow-- + Diana-- + Aurora-- + A dove that _singeth_-- + A lily,--and finally, + Venus herself! + --I in truth will prove + These are not _half_ so _fair_ as she I love. + +_Sonnet_ iii, p. 43. + + +Such heterogeneous compliments remind us of Shacabac's gallantry to +_Beda_ in _Blue Beard:_ "Ah, you little rogue, you have a prettier mouth +_than an elephant_, and you know it!"--A _fawn-coloured_ countenance +rivalling in _fairness a laburnum_ blossom, seems to us a more dubious +type of female beauty than even an elephant's mouth. + +_Love_, it may be said, has carried away better poets and graver men +than Mr. Moxon seems to be, into such namby-pamby nonsense; but Mr. +Moxon is just as absurd in his _grief_ or his _musings_, as in his +_love_. + +When he hears a nightingale--"sad Philomel!"--he concludes that the bird +was originally created for no other purpose than to prophesy in Paradise +_the fall of man_, or, as he chooses to collocate the words, + + _Prophetic_ to have mourned of _man_ the _fall_,--p. 9. + +but he does not tell us what she has been doing ever since. + +When he sees two Cumberland streams--the Brathay and Rothay--flowing +down, first to a confluence, and afterwards to the sea, he fancies "a +_soul-knit_ pair," man and wife, mingling their waters and gliding to +their final haven-- + + in kindred love, + The haven Contemplation sees _above_! + +_Below_, he would--following his allegory--have said; but rhyme forbade-- +and _allegories_ are not _so headstrong_ on the banks of the Brathay as +on those of the _Nile_. + +A sonnet on Thomson's grave is a fine specimen of empty sounds and solid +nonsense:-- + + Whene'er I linger, Thomson, near thy tomb, + Where _Thamis_-- + +"_Classic Cam_" will be somewhat amazed to hear his learned brother +called _Thamis_-- + + Where Thamis urges his majestic way, + And the Muse loves at twilight hour to stray, + I think how in thy theme ALL _seasons_ BLOOM;-- + +What, all four?--_autumn_, nay, _winter_--blooming? + + What _heart_ so cold that of thy fame has _heard_, + And _pauses_ not to _gaze_ upon each scene. + +We are inclined to be very indulgent to what is called a confusion of +metaphors, when it arises from a rush of ideas--but when it is produced +by an author's having no idea at all, we can hardly forgive him for +equipping the _Heart_ with eyes, ears, and legs:--he might just as well +have said that on entering Twickenham church to visit the tomb, every +_Heart_ would take off _its hat_, and on going out again would put _its +hand_ in _its pockets_ to fee the sexton. + + And pauses not to gaze upon each scene + That was familiar to thy raptured view, + Those walks beloved by thee while I pursue, + Musing upon the years that intervene-- + +Why this line _intervenes_ or what it means we do not see--it seems +inserted just to make up the number-- + + Methinks, as eve descends, a hymn of praise + To thee, their bard, the _sister Seasons_ raise! + +That is, as we understand it, ALL the _Seasons meet together_ on one or +more evenings of the year, to sing a hymn to the memory of Thompson. +This _simultaneous entree_ of the Four Seasons would be a much more +appropriate fancy for the opera stage than for Twickenham meadows. + +Such are the tame extravagances--the vapid affectations--the unmeaning +mosaic which Mr. Moxon has laboriously tesselated into fifty and four +sonnets. If he had been--as all this childishness at first led us to +believe--a very young man--we should have discussed the matter with him +in a more conciliatory and persuasive tone; but we find that he is, what +we must call, an old offender. We have before us two little volumes of +what he entitles poetry--one dated 1826, and the other 1829--which, +though more laughable, are not in substance more absurd than his new +production. From the first of these we shall extract two or three +stanzas of the introductory poem, not only on account of their intrinsic +merit, but because they state, pretty roundly, Mr. Moxon's principles of +poetry. He modestly disclaims all rivalry with Pope, Byron, Moore, +Campbell, Scott, Rogers, Goldsmith, Dryden, Gray, Spenser, Milton, and +Shakespeare; but he, at the same time, intimates that he follows, what +he thinks, a truer line of poetry than the before-named illustrious, +but, in this point, _mistaken_ individuals. + + 'Tis not a poem with learning fraught, + To that I ne'er pretended; + Nor yet with Pope's fine touches wrought, + _From that my time prevented_. + +We skip four intermediate stanzas; then comes + + Milton divine and great Shakespeare + With reverence I mention; + My name with theirs shall ne'er appear, + _'Tis far from my intention!_ + If poetry, as one _pretends, + Be all imagination!_ + Why then, at once, _my bardship ends-- + 'Mong prose I take my station._ + + _Moxon's Poems, p. 81, Ed. 1826._ + +But as _"common sense"_ must see, says Mr. Moxon, that _imagination_ can +have nothing to do with _poetry_, he engages to pursue his tuneful +vocation, subject to _one_ condition-- + + You'll hear no more from me, + If _critics prove unkind;_ + My next _in simple prose_ must be, + _Unless I favour find!_ + +We regret that some _kind_--or, as Mr. Moxon would have thought it, +_unkind_--critic, did not, on the appearance of this first volume, +confirm his own misgivings that he had been all this time, like the man +in the farce, talking not only _prose_, but _nonsense_ into the bargain: +this disagreeable information the pretension of his recent publication +obliges us to convey to him. The fact is, that the volume at first +struck us with serious alarm. Its typographical splendour led us to fear +that this style of writing was getting into fashion; and the hints about +_"classic Cam"_ seemed to impute the production to one of our +Universities: on turning, with some curiosity, to the title-page, for +the name of the too indulgent bookseller who had bestowed such unmerited +embellishment on a work which we think of so little value--_we found +none_; and on further inquiry learned that _Dover Street, Piccadilly_, +and not the banks of _"classic Cam"_ is the seat of this sonneteering +muse--in short, that Mr. Moxon, the bookseller, is his own poet, and +that Mr. Moxon, the poet, is his own bookseller. This discovery at once +calmed both our anxieties--it relieved the university of Cambridge from +an awful responsibility, which might have called down upon it the +vengeance of Lord Radnor; and it accounted--without any imputation on +the public taste--for the extraordinary care and cost with which the +paternal solicitude of the poet-publisher had adorned his own volume. +Mr. Moxon seems to be--like most sonneteers--a man of amiable +disposition, and to have an ear--as he certainly has a _memory_--for +poetry; and--if he had not been an old hand--we should not have presumed +to say that he is incapable of anything better than this tumid +commonplace. But, however that may be, we do earnestly exhort him to +abandon the self-deluding practice of being his own publisher. Whatever +may have been said in disparagement of the literary taste of the +booksellers, it will at least be admitted that their experience of +public opinion and a due attention to their own pecuniary interest, +enable them to operate as a salutary check upon the blind and +presumptive vanity of small authors. The necessity of obtaining the +_"imprimatur"_ of a publisher is a very wholesome restraint, from which +Mr. Moxon--unluckily for himself and for us--found himself relieved. If +he could have looked at his own work with the impartiality, and perhaps +the good taste, that he would have exercised on that of a stranger, _he_ +would have saved himself a good deal of expense and vexation--and _we_ +should have been spared the painful necessity of contrasting the +ambitious pretensions of his volume with its very moderate literary +merit. + + + + +ON "VANITY FAIR" AND "JANE EYRE" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, December, 1848] + +1. _Vanity Fair; a Novel without a Hero._ By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE +THACKERAY. London, 1848. + +2. _Jane Eyre; an Autobiography._ Edited by CURRER BELL. In 3 vols. +London. 1847. + +A remarkable novel is a great event for English society. It is a kind of +common friend, about whom people can speak the truth without fear of +being compromised, and confess their emotions without being ashamed. We +are a particularly shy and reserved people, and set about nothing so +awkwardly as the simple art of getting really acquainted with each +other. We meet over and over again in what is conventionally called +"easy society," with the tacit understanding to go so far and no +farther; to be as polite as we ought to be, and as intellectual as we +can; but mutually and honourably to forbear lifting those veils which +each spreads over his inner sentiments and sympathies. For this purpose +a host of devices have been contrived by which all the forms of +friendship may be gone through, without committing ourselves to one +spark of the spirit. We fly with eagerness to some common ground in +which each can take the liveliest interest, without taking the slightest +in the world in his companion. Our various fashionable manias, for +charity one season, for science the next, are only so many clever +contrivances for keeping our neighbour at arm's length. We can attend +committees, and canvass for subscribers, and archaeologise, and +geologise, and take ether with our fellow Christians for a twelvemonth, +as we might sit cross-legged and smoke the pipe of fraternity with a +Turk for the same period--and know at the end of the time as little of +the real feelings of the one as we should about the domestic relations +of the other. But there are ways and means for lifting the veil which +equally favour our national idiosyncrasy; and a new and remarkable novel +is one of them--especially the nearer it comes to real life. We invite +our neighbour to a walk with the deliberate and malicious object of +getting thoroughly acquainted with him. We ask no impertinent questions-- +we proffer no indiscreet confidences--we do not even sound him, ever so +delicately, as to his opinion of a common friend, for he would be sure +not to say, lest we should go and tell; but we simply discuss Becky +Sharp, or Jane Eyre, and our object is answered at once. + +There is something about these two new and noticeable characters which +especially compels everybody to speak out. They are not to be dismissed +with a few commonplace moralities and sentimentalities. They do not fit +any ready-made criticism. They give the most stupid something to think +of, and the most reserved something to say; the most charitable too are +betrayed into home comparisons which they usually condemn, and the most +ingenious stumble into paradoxes which they can hardly defend. Becky and +Jane also stand well side by side both in their analogies and their +contrasts. Both the ladies are governesses, and both make the same move +in society; the one, in Jane Eyre phraseology, marrying her "master," +and the other her master's son. Neither starts in life with more than a +moderate capital of good looks--Jane Eyre with hardly that--for it is +the fashion now-a-days with novelists to give no encouragement to the +insolence of mere beauty, but rather to prove to all whom it may concern +how little a sensible woman requires to get on with in the world. Both +have also an elfish kind of nature, with which they divine the secrets +of other hearts, and conceal those of their own; and both rejoice in +that peculiarity of feature which Mademoiselle de Luzy has not +contributed to render popular, viz., green eyes. Beyond this, however, +there is no similarity either in the minds, manners, or fortunes of the +two heroines. They think and act upon diametrically opposite principles-- +at least so the author of "Jane Eyre" intends us to believe--and each, +were they to meet, which we should of all things enjoy to see them do, +would cordially despise and abominate the other. Which of the two, +however, would most successfully _dupe_ the other is a different +question, and one not so easy to decide; though we have our own ideas +upon the subject. + +We must discuss "Vanity Fair" first, which, much as we were entitled to +expect from its author's pen, has fairly taken us by surprise. We were +perfectly aware that Mr. Thackeray had of old assumed the jester's +habit, in order the more unrestrainedly to indulge the privilege of +speaking the truth;--we had traced his clever progress through "Fraser's +Magazine" and the ever-improving pages of "Punch"--which wonder of the +time has been infinitely obliged to him--but still we were little +prepared for the keen observation, the deep wisdom, and the consummate +art which he has interwoven in the slight texture and whimsical pattern +of "Vanity Fair." Everybody, it is to be supposed, has read the volume +by this time; and even for those who have not, it is not necessary to +describe the order of the story. It is not a novel, in the common +acceptation of the word, with a plot purposely contrived to bring about +certain scenes, and develop certain characters, but simply a history of +those average sufferings, pleasures, penalties, and rewards to which +various classes of mankind gravitate as naturally and certainly in this +world as the sparks fly upward. It is only the same game of life which +every player sooner or later makes for himself--were he to have a +hundred chances, and shuffle the cards of circumstance every time. It is +only the same busy, involved drama which may be seen at any time by any +one, who is not engrossed with the magnified minutiae of his own petty +part, but with composed curiosity looks on to the stage where his +fellow-men and women are the actors; and that not even heightened by the +conventional colouring which Madame de Staël philosophically declares +that fiction always wants in order to make up for its not being truth. +Indeed, so far from taking any advantage of this novelist's licence, Mr. +Thackeray has hardly availed himself of the natural average of +remarkable events that really do occur in this life. The battle of +Waterloo, it is true, is introduced; but, as far as regards the story, +it brings about only one death and one bankruptcy, which might either of +them have happened in a hundred other ways. Otherwise the tale runs on, +with little exception, in that humdrum course of daily monotony, out of +which some people coin materials to act, and others excuses to doze, +just as their dispositions may be. + +It is this reality which is at once the charm and the misery here. With +all these unpretending materials it is one of the most amusing, but also +one of the most distressing books we have read for many a long year. We +almost long for a little exaggeration and improbability to relieve us of +that sense of dead truthfulness which weighs down our hearts, not for +the Amelias and Georges of the story, but for poor kindred human nature. +In one light this truthfulness is even an objection. With few exceptions +the personages are too like our every-day selves and neighbours to draw +any distinct moral from. We cannot see our way clearly. Palliations of +the bad and disappointments in the good are perpetually obstructing our +judgment, by bringing what should decide it too close to that common +standard of experience in which our only rule of opinion is charity. For +it is only in fictitious characters which are highly coloured for one +definite object, or in notorious personages viewed from a distance, that +the course of the true moral can be seen to run straight--once bring the +individual with his life and circumstances closely before you, and it is +lost to the mental eye in the thousand pleas and witnesses, unseen and +unheard before, which rise up to overshadow it. And what are all these +personages in "Vanity Fair" but feigned names for our own beloved +friends and acquaintances, seen under such a puzzling cross-light of +good in evil, and evil in good, of sins and sinnings against, of little +to be praised virtues, and much to be excused vices, that we cannot +presume to moralise upon them--not even to judge them,--content to +exclaim sorrowfully with the old prophet, "Alas! my brother!" Every +actor on the crowded stage of "Vanity Fair" represents some type of that +perverse mixture of humanity in which there is ever something not wholly +to approve or to condemn. There is the desperate devotion of a fond +heart to a false object, which we cannot respect; there is the vain, +weak man, half good and half bad, who is more despicable in our eyes +than the decided villain. There are the irretrievably wretched +education, and the unquenchably manly instincts, both contending in the +confirmed _roué_, which melt us to the tenderest pity. There is the +selfishness and self-will which the possessor of great wealth and +fawning relations can hardly avoid. There is the vanity and fear of the +world, which assist mysteriously with pious principles in keeping a man +respectable; there are combinations of this kind of every imaginable +human form and colour, redeemed but feebly by the steady excellence of +an awkward man, and the genuine heart of a vulgar woman, till we feel +inclined to tax Mr. Thackeray with an under estimate of our nature, +forgetting that Madame de Staël is right after all, and that without a +little conventional rouge no human conplexion can stand the stage-lights +of fiction. + +But if these performers give us pain, we are not ashamed to own, as we +are speaking openly, that the chief actress herself gives us none at +all. For there is of course a principal pilgrim in Vanity Fair, as much +as in its emblematical original, Bunyan's "Progress"; only unfortunately +this one is travelling the wrong way. And we say "unfortunately" merely +by way of courtesy, for in reality we care little about the matter. No, +Becky--our hearts neither bleed for you, nor cry out against you. You +are wonderfully clever, and amusing, and accomplished, and intelligent, +and the Soho _ateliers_ were not the best nurseries for a moral +training; and you were married early in life to a regular blackleg, and +you have had to live upon your wits ever since, which is not an +improving sort of maintenance; and there is much to be said for and +against; but still you are not one of us, and there is an end to our +sympathies and censures. People who allow their feelings to be lacerated +by such a character and career as yours, are doing both you and +themselves great injustice. No author could have openly introduced a +near connexion of Satan's into the best London society, nor would the +moral end intended have been answered by it; but really and honestly, +considering Becky in her human character, we know of none which so +thoroughly satisfies our highest _beau idéal_ of feminine wickedness, +with so slight a shock to our feelings and properties. It is very +dreadful, doubtless, that Becky neither loved the husband who loved her, +nor the child of her own flesh and blood, nor indeed any body but +herself; but, as far as she is concerned, we cannot pretend to be +scandalized--for how could she without a heart? It is very shocking of +course that she committed all sorts of dirty tricks, and jockeyed her +neighbours, and never cared what she trampled under foot if it happened +to obstruct her step; but how could she be expected to do otherwise +without a conscience? The poor little woman was most tryingly placed; +she came into the world without the customary letters of credit upon +those two great bankers of humanity, "Heart and Conscience," and it was +no fault of hers if they dishonoured all her bills. All she could do in +this dilemma was to establish the firmest connexion with the inferior +commercial branches of "Sense and Tact," who secretly do much business +in the name of the head concern, and with whom her "fine frontal +development" gave her unlimited credit. She saw that selfishness was the +metal which the stamp of heart was suborned to pass; that hypocrisy was +the homage that vice rendered to virtue; that honesty was, at all +events, acted, because it was the best policy; and so she practised the +arts of selfishness and hypocrisy like anybody else in Vanity Fair, only +with this difference, that she brought them to their highest possible +pitch of perfection. For why is it that, looking round in this world, we +find plenty of characters to compare with her up to a certain pitch, but +none which reach her actual standard? Why is it that, speaking of this +friend or that, we say in the tender mercies of our hearts, "No, she is +not _quite_ so bad as Becky?" We fear not only because she has more +heart and conscience, but also because she has less cleverness. + +No; let us give Becky her due. There is enough in this world of ours, as +we all know, to provoke a saint, far more a poor little devil like her. +She had none of those fellow-feelings which make us wondrous kind. She +saw people around her cowards in vice, and simpletons in virtue, and she +had no patience with either, for she was as little the one as the other +herself. She saw women who loved their husbands and yet teazed them, and +ruining their children although they doated upon them, and she sneered +at their utter inconsistency. Wickedness or goodness, unless coupled +with strength, were alike worthless to her. That weakness which is the +blessed pledge of our humanity, was to her only the despicable badge of +our imperfection. She thought, it might be, of her master's words, +"Fallen Cherub! to be weak is to be miserable!" and wondered how we +could be such fools as first to sin and then to be sorry. Becky's light +was defective, but she acted up to it. Her goodness goes as far as good +temper, and her principles as far as shrewd sense, and we may thank her +consistency for showing us what they are both worth. + +It is another thing to pretend to settle whether such a character be +_primâ facie_ impossible, though devotion to the better sex might well +demand the assertion. There are mysteries of iniquity, under the +semblance of man and woman, read of in history, or met with in the +unchronicled sufferings of private life, which would almost make us +believe that the powers of Darkness occasionally made use of this earth +for a Foundling Hospital, and sent their imps to us, already provided +with a return-ticket. We shall not decide on the lawfulness or otherwise +of any attempt to depict such importations; we can only rest perfectly +satisfied that, granting the author's premises, it is impossible to +imagine them carried out with more felicitous skill and more exquisite +consistency than in the heroine of "Vanity Fair." At all events, the +infernal regions have no reason to be ashamed of little Becky, nor the +ladies either: she has, at least, all the cleverness of the sex. + +The great charm, therefore, and comfort of Becky is, that we may study +her without any compunctions. The misery of this life is not the evil +that we see, but the good and the evil which are so inextricably twisted +together. It is that perpetual memento ever meeting one-- + + How in this vile world below + Noblest things find vilest using, + +that is so very distressing to those who have hearts as well as eyes. +But Becky relieves them of all this pain--at least in her own person. +Pity would be thrown away upon one who has not heart enough for it to +ache even for herself. Becky is perfectly happy, as all must be who +excel in what they love best. Her life is one exertion of successful +power. Shame never visits her, for "'Tis conscience that makes cowards +of us all"--and she has none. She realizes that _ne plus ultra_ of +sublunary comfort which it was reserved for a Frenchman to define--the +blessed combination of _"le bon estomac et le mauvais coeur"_: for Becky +adds to her other good qualities that of an excellent digestion. + +Upon the whole, we are not afraid to own that we rather enjoy her _ignis +fatuus_ course, dragging the weak and the vain and the selffish +[Transcriber's note: sic], through mud and mire, after her, and acting +all parts, from the modest rushlight to the gracious star, just as it +suits her. Clever little imp that she is! What exquisite tact she +shows!--what unflagging good humour!--what ready self-possession! Becky +never disappoints us; she never even makes us tremble. We know that her +answer will come exactly suiting her one particular object, and +frequently three or four more in prospect. What respect, too, she has +for those decencies which more virtuous, but more stupid humanity, often +disdains! What detection of all that is false and mean! What instinct +for all that is true and great! She is her master's true pupil in that: +she knows what is really divine as well as he, and bows before it. She +honours Dobbin in spite of his big feet; she respects her husband more +than ever she did before, perhaps for the first time, at the very moment +when he is stripping not only her jewels, but name, honour, and comfort +off her. + +We are not so sure either whether we are justified in calling hers _"le +mauvais coeur."_ Becky does not pursue any one vindictively; she never +does gratuitous mischief. The fountain is more dry than poisoned. She is +even generous--when she can afford it. Witness that burst of plain +speaking in Dobbin's favour to the little dolt Amelia, for which we +forgive her many a sin. 'Tis true she wanted to get rid of her; but let +that pass. Becky was a thrifty dame, and liked to despatch two birds +with one stone. And she was honest, too, after a fashion. The part of +wife she acts at first as well, and better than most; but as for that of +mother, there she fails from the beginning. She knew that maternal love +was no business of hers--that a fine frontal development could give her +no help there--and puts so little spirit into her imitation that no one +could be taken in for a moment. She felt that that bill, of all others, +would be sure to be dishonoured, and it went against her conscience--we +mean her sense--to send it in. + +In short, the only respect in which Becky's course gives us pain is when +it locks itself into that of another, and more genuine child of this +earth. No one can regret those being entangled in her nets whose vanity +and meanness of spirit alone led them into its meshes--such are rightly +served; but we do grudge her that real sacred thing called _love_, even +of a Rawdon Crawley, who has more of that self-forgetting, all-purifying +feeling for his little evil spirit than many a better man has for a good +woman. We do grudge Becky _a heart_, though it belong only to a +swindler. Poor, sinned against, vile, degraded, but still true-hearted +Rawdon!--you stand next in our affections and sympathies to honest +Dobbin himself. It was the instinct of a good nature which made the +Major feel that the stamp of the Evil One was upon Becky; and it was the +stupidity of a good nature which made the Colonel never suspect it. He +was a cheat, a black-leg, an unprincipled dog; but still "Rawdon _is_ a +man, and be hanged to him," as the Rector says. We follow him through +the illustrations, which are, in many instances, a delightful +enhancement to the text--as he stands there, with his gentle eyelid, +coarse moustache, and foolish chin, bringing up Becky's coffee-cup with +a kind of dumb fidelity; or looking down at little Rawdon with a more +than paternal tenderness. All Amelia's philoprogenitive idolatries do +not touch us like one fond instinct of "stupid Rawdon." + +Dobbin sheds a halo over all the long-necked, loose-jointed, +Scotch-looking gentlemen of our acquaintance. Flat feet and flap ears +seem henceforth incompatible with evil. He reminds us of one of the +sweetest creations that have appeared from any modern pen--that plain, +awkward, loveable "Long Walter," in Lady Georgina Fullerton's beautiful +novel of "Grantley Manor." Like him, too, in his proper self-respect; for +Dobbin--lumbering, heavy, shy, and absurdly over modest as the ugly fellow +is--is yet true to himself. At one time he seems to be sinking into the +mere abject dangler after Amelia; but he breaks his chains like a man, and +resumes them again like a man, too, although half disenchanted of his +amiable delusion. + +But to return for a moment to Becky. The only criticism we would offer +is one which the author has almost disarmed by making her mother a +Frenchwoman. The construction of this little clever monster is +diabolically French. Such a _lusus naturae_ as a woman without a heart +and conscience would, in England, be a mere brutal savage, and poison +half a village. France is the land for the real Syren, with the woman's +face and the dragon's claws. The genus of Pigeon and Laffarge claims it +for its own--only that our heroine takes a far higher class by not +requiring the vulgar matter of fact of crime to develop her full powers. +It is an affront to Becky's tactics to believe that she could ever be +reduced to so low a resource, or, that if she were, anybody would find +it out. We, therefore, cannot sufficiently applaud the extreme +discretion with which Mr. Thackeray has hinted at the possibly assistant +circumstances of Joseph Sedley's dissolution. A less delicacy of +handling would have marred the harmony of the whole design. Such a +casualty as that suggested to our imagination was not intended for the +light net of Vanity Fair to draw on shore; it would have torn it to +pieces. Besides it is not wanted. Poor little Becky is bad enough to +satisfy the most ardent student of "good books." Wickedness, beyond a +certain pitch, gives no increase of gratification even to the sternest +moralist; and one of Mr. Thackeray's excellences is the sparing quantity +he consumes. The whole _use_, too, of the work--that of generously +measuring one another by this standard--is lost, the moment you convict +Becky of a capital crime. Who can, with any face, liken a dear friend to +a murderess? Whereas now there are no little symptoms of fascinating +ruthlessness, graceful ingratitude, or ladylike selfishness, observable +among our charming acquaintance, that we may not immediately detect to +an inch, and more effectually intimidate by the simple application of +the Becky gauge than by the most vehement use of all ten commandments. +Thanks to Mr. Thackeray, the world is now provided with an _idea_, +which, if we mistake not, will be the skeleton in the corner of every +ball-room and boudoir for a long time to come. Let us leave it intact in +its unique fount and freshness--a Becky, and nothing more. We should, +therefore, advise our readers to cut out that picture of our heroine's +"Second Appearance as Clytemnestra," which casts so uncomfortable a +glare over the latter part of the volume, and, disregarding all hints +and inuendoes, simply to let the changes and chances of this moral life +have due weight in their minds. Jos had been much in India. His was a +bad life; he ate and drank most imprudently, and his digestion was not +to be compared with Becky's. No respectable office would have ensured +"Waterloo Sedley." + +"Vanity Fair" is pre-eminently a novel of the day--not in the vulgar +sense, of which there are too many, but as a literal photograph of the +manners and habits of the nineteenth century, thrown on to paper by the +light of a powerful mind; and one also of the most artistic effect. Mr. +Thackeray has a peculiar adroitness in leading on the fancy, or rather +memory of his readers from one set of circumstances to another by the +seeming chances and coincidences of common life, as an artist leads the +spectator's eye through the subject of his picture by a skilful +repetition of colour. This is why it is impossible to quote from his +book with any justice to it. The whole growth of the narrative is so +matted and interwoven together with tendril-like links and bindings, +that there is no detaching a flower with sufficient length of stalk to +exhibit it to advantage. There is that mutual dependence in his +characters which is the first requisite in painting every-day life: no +one is stuck on a separate pedestal--no one is sitting for his portrait. +There may be one exception--we mean Sir Pitt Crawley, senior; it is +possible, nay, we hardly doubt, that this baronet was closer drawn from +individual life than anybody else in the book; but granting that fact, +the animal was so unique an exception, that we wonder so shrewd an +artist could stick him into a gallery so full of our familiars. The +scenes in Germany, we can believe, will seem to many readers of an +English book hardly less extravagantly absurd--grossly and gratuitously +overdrawn; but the initiated will value them as containing some of the +keenest strokes of truth and humour that "Vanity Fair" exhibits, and not +enjoy them the less for being at our neighbour's expense. For the +thorough appreciation of the chief character they are quite +indispensable too. The whole course of the work may be viewed as the +_Wander-Jahre_ of a far cleverer female, _Wilhelm Meister_. We have +watched her in the ups-and-downs of life--among the humble, the +fashionable, the great, and the pious--and found her ever new, yet ever +the same; but still Becky among the students was requisite to complete +the full measure of our admiration. + +"Jane Eyre," as a work, and one of equal popularity, is, in almost every +respect, a total contrast to "Vanity Fair." The characters and events, +though some of them masterly in conception, are coined expressly for the +purpose of bringing out great effects. The hero and heroine are beings +both so singularly unattractive that the reader feels they can have no +vocation in the novel but to be brought together; and they do things +which, though not impossible, lie utterly beyond the bounds of +probability. On this account a short sketch of the plan seems requisite; +not but what it is a plan familiar enough to all readers of novels-- +especially those of the old school and those of the lowest school of our +own day. For Jane Eyre is merely another Pamela, who, by the force of +her character and the strength of her principles, is carried +victoriously through great trials and temptations from the man she +loves. Nor is she even a Pamela adapted and refined to modern notions; +for though the story is conducted without those derelictions of decorum +which we are to believe had their excuse in the manners of Richardson's +time, yet it stamped with a coarseness of language and laxity of tone +which have certainly no excuse in ours. It is a very remarkable book: we +have no remembrance of another combining such genuine power with such +horrid taste. Both together have equally assisted to gain the great +popularity it has enjoyed; for in these days of extravagant adoration of +all that bears the stamp of novelty and originality, sheer rudeness and +vulgarity have come in for a most mistaken worship. + +The story is written in the first person. Jane begins with her earliest +recollections, and at once takes possession of the readers' intensest +interest by the masterly picture of a strange and oppressed child she +raises up in a few strokes before him. She is an orphan, and a dependant +in the house of a selfish, hard-hearted aunt, against whom the +disposition of the little Jane chafes itself in natural antipathy, till +she contrives to make the unequal struggle as intolerable to her +oppressor as it is to herself. She is, therefore, at eight years of age, +got rid of to a sort of Dothegirls Hall, where she continues to enlist +our sympathies for a time with her little pinched fingers, cropped hair, +and empty stomach. But things improve: the abuses of the institution are +looked into. The Puritan patron, who holds that young orphan girls are +only safely brought up upon the rules of La Trappe, is superseded by an +enlightened committee--the school assumes a sound English character-- +Jane progresses duly from scholar to teacher, and passes ten profitable +and not unhappy years at Lowood. Then she advertises for a situation as +governess, and obtains one immediately in one of the midland counties. +We see her, therefore, as she leaves Lowood, to enter upon a new life--a +small, plain, odd creature, who has been brought up dry upon school +learning, and somewhat stunted accordingly in mind and body, and who is +now thrown upon the world as ignorant of its ways, and as destitute of +its friendships, as a shipwrecked mariner upon a strange coast. + +Thornfield Hall is the property of Mr. Rochester--a bachelor addicted to +travelling. She finds it at first in all the peaceful prestige of an +English gentleman's seat when "nobody is at the hall." The companions +are an old decayed gentlewoman housekeeper--a far away cousin of the +squire's--and a young French child, Jane's pupil, Mr. Rochester's ward +and reputed daughter. There is a pleasing monotony in the summer +solitude of the old country house, with its comfort, respectability, and +dulness, which Jane paints to the life; but there is one circumstance +which varies the sameness and casts a mysterious feeling over the scene. +A strange laugh is heard from time to time in a distant part of the +house--a laugh which grates discordantly upon Jane's ear. She listens, +watches, and inquires, but can discover nothing but a plain matter of +fact woman, who sits sewing somewhere in the attics, and goes up and +down stairs peaceably to and from her dinner with the servants. But a +mystery there is, though nothing betrays it, and it comes in with +marvellous effect from the monotonous reality of all around. After +awhile Mr. Rochester comes to Thornfield, and sends for the child and +her governess occasionally to bear him company. He is a dark, +strange-looking man--strong and large--of the brigand stamp, with fine +eyes and lowering brows--blunt and sarcastic in his manners, with a kind +of misanthropical frankness, which seems based upon utter contempt for +his fellow-creatures and a surly truthfulness which is more rudeness than +honesty. With his arrival disappears all the prestige of country +innocence that had invested Thornfield Hall. He brings the taint of the +world upon him, and none of its illusions. The queer little governess is +something new to him. He talks to her at one time imperiously as to a +servant, and at another recklessly as to a man. He pours into her ears +disgraceful tales of his past life, connected with the birth of little +Adele, which any man with common respect for a woman, and that a mere +girl of eighteen, would have spared her; but which eighteen in this case +listens to as if it were nothing new, and certainly nothing distasteful. +He is captious and Turk-like--she is one day his confidant, and another +his unnoticed dependant. In short, by her account, Mr. Rochester is a +strange brute, somewhat in the Squire Western style of absolute and +capricious eccentricity, though redeemed in him by signs of a cultivated +intellect, and gleams of a certain fierce justice of heart. He has a +_mind_, and when he opens it at all, he opens it freely to her. Jane +becomes attached to her "master," as Pamela-like she calls him, and it +is not difficult to see that solitude and propinquity are taking effect +upon him also. An odd circumstance heightens the dawning romance. Jane +is awoke one night by that strange discordant laugh close to her ear-- +then a noise as if hands feeling along the wall. She rises--opens her +door, finds the passage full of smoke, is guided by it to her master's +room, whose bed she discovers enveloped in flames, and by her timely aid +saves his life. After this they meet no more for ten days, when Mr. +Rochester returns from a visit to a neighbouring family, bringing with +him a housefull of distinguished guests; at the head of whom is Miss +Blanche Ingram, a haughty beauty of high birth, and evidently the +especial object of the Squire's attentions--upon which tumultuous +irruption Miss Eyre slips back into her naturally humble position. + +Our little governess is now summoned away to attend her aunt's death-bed, +who is visited by some compunctions towards her, and she is absent +a month. When she returns Thornfield Hall is quit of all its guests, and +Mr. Rochester and she resume their former life of captious cordiality on +the one side, and diplomatic humility on the other. At the same time the +bugbear of Miss Ingram and of Mr. Rochester's engagement with her is +kept up, though it is easy to see that this and all concerning that lady +is only a stratagem to try Jane's character and affection upon the most +approved Griselda precedent. Accordingly an opportunity for explanation +ere long offers itself, where Mr. Rochester has only to take it. Miss +Eyre is desired to walk with him in shady alleys, and to sit with him on +the roots of an old chestnut-tree towards the close of evening, and of +course she cannot disobey her "master"--whereupon there ensues a scene +which, as far as we remember, is new equally in art or nature; in which +Miss Eyre confesses her love--whereupon Mr. Rochester drops not only his +cigar (which she seems to be in the habit of lighting for him) but his +mask, and finally offers not only heart, but hand. The wedding day is +soon fixed, but strange misgivings and presentiments haunt the young +lady's mind. The night but one before her bed-room is entered by a +horrid phantom, who tries on the wedding veil, sends Jane into a swoon +of terror, and defeats all the favourite refuge of a bad dream by +leaving the veil in two pieces. But all is ready. The bride has no +friends to assist--the couple walk to church--only the clergyman and the +clerk are there--but Jane's quick eye has seen two figures lingering +among the tombstones, and these two follow them into church. The +ceremony commences, when at the due charge which summons any man to come +forward and show just cause why they should not be joined together, a +voice interposes to forbid the marriage. There is an impediment, and a +serious one. The bridegroom has a wife not only living, but living under +the very roof of Thornfield Hall. Hers was that discordant laugh which +had so often caught Jane's ear; she it was who in her malice had tried +to burn Mr. Rochester in his bed--who had visited Jane by night and torn +her veil, and whose attendant was that same pretended sew-woman who had +so strongly excited Jane's curiosity. For Mr. Rochester's wife is a +creature, half fiend, half maniac, whom he had married in a distant part +of the world, and whom now, in self-constituted code of morality, he had +thought it his right, and even his duty, to supersede by a more +agreeable companion. Now follow scenes of a truly tragic power. This is +the grand crisis in Jane's life. Her whole soul is wrapt up in Mr. +Rochester. He has broken her trust, but not diminished her love. He +entreats her to accept all that he still can give, his heart and his +home; he pleads with the agony not only of a man who has never known +what it was to conquer a passion, but of one who, by that same +self-constituted code, now burns to atone for a disappointed crime. There +is no one to help her against him or against herself. Jane had no friends +to stand by her at the altar, and she has none to support her now she is +plucked away from it. There is no one to be offended or disgraced at her +following him to the sunny land of Italy, as he proposes, till the +maniac should die. There is no duty to any one but to herself, and this +feeble reed quivers and trembles beneath the overwhelming weight of love +and sophistry opposed to it. But Jane triumphs; in the middle of the +night she rises--glides out of her room--takes off her shoes as she +passes Mr. Rochester's chamber;--leaves the house, and casts herself +upon a world more desert than ever to her-- + + Without a shilling and without a friend. + +Thus the great deed of self-conquest is accomplished; Jane has passed +through the fire of temptation from without and from within; her +character is stamped from that day; we need therefore follow her no +further into wanderings and sufferings which, though not unmixed with +plunder from Minerva-lane, occupy some of, on the whole, the most +striking chapters in the book. Virtue of course finds her reward. The +maniac wife sets fire to Thornfield Hall, and perishes herself in the +flames. Mr. Rochester, in endeavouring to save her, loses the sight of +his eyes. Jane rejoins her blind master; they are married, after which +of course the happy man recovers his sight. + +Such is the outline of a tale in which, combined with great materials +for power and feeling, the reader may trace gross inconsistencies and +improbabilities, and chief and foremost that highest moral offence a +novel writer can commit, that of making an unworthy character +interesting in the eyes of the reader. Mr. Rochester is a man who +deliberately and secretly seeks to violate the laws both of God and man, +and yet we will be bound half our lady readers are enchanted with him +for a model of generosity and honour. We would have thought that such a +hero had had no chance, in the purer taste of the present day; but the +popularity of Jane Eyre is a proof how deeply the love for illegitimate +romance is implanted in our nature. Not that the author is strictly +responsible for this. Mr. Rochester's character is tolerably consistent. +He is made as coarse and as brutal as can in all conscience be required +to keep our sympathies at a distance. In point of literary consistency +the hero is at all events impugnable, though we cannot say as much for +the heroine. + +As to Jane's character--there is none of that harmonious unity about it +which made little Becky so grateful a subject of analysis--nor are the +discrepancies of that kind which have their excuse and their response in +our nature. The inconsistencies of Jane's character lie mainly not in +her own imperfections, though of course she has her share, but in the +author's. There is that confusion in the relations between cause and +effect, which is not so much untrue to human nature as to human art. The +error in Jane Eyre is, not that her character is this or that, but that +she is made one thing in the eyes of her imaginary companions, and +another in that of the actual reader. There is a perpetual disparity +between the account she herself gives of the effect she produces, and +the means shown us by which she brings that effect about. We hear +nothing but self-eulogiums on the perfect tact and wondrous penetration +with which she is gifted, and yet almost every word she utters offends +us, not only with the absence of these qualities, but with the positive +contrasts of them, in either her pedantry, stupidity, or gross +vulgarity. She is one of those ladies who puts us in the unpleasant +predicament of undervaluing their very virtues for dislike of the person +in whom they are represented. One feels provoked as Jane Eyre stands +before us--for in the wonderful reality of her thoughts and +descriptions, she seems accountable for all done in her name--with +principles you must approve in the main, and yet with language and +manners that offend you in every particular. Even in that _chef-d'oeuvre_ +of brilliant retrospective sketching, the description of her +early life, it is the childhood and not the child that interests you. +The little Jane, with her sharp eyes and dogmatic speeches, is a being +you neither could fondle nor love. There is a hardness in her infantine +earnestness, and a spiteful precocity in her reasoning, which repulses +all our sympathy. One sees that she is of a nature to dwell upon and +treasure up every slight and unkindness, real or fancied, and such +natures we know are surer than any others to meet with plenty of this +sort of thing. As the child, so also the woman--an uninteresting, +sententious, pedantic thing; with no experience of the world, and yet +with no simplicity or freshness in its stead. What are her first answers +to Mr. Rochester but such as would have quenched all interest, even for +a prettier woman, in any man of common knowledge of what was nature--and +especially in a _blasé_ monster like him? + + * * * * * + +But the crowning scene is the offer--governesses are said to be sly on +such occasions, but Jane out-governesses them all--little Becky would +have blushed for her. They are sitting together at the foot of the old +chestnut tree, as we have already mentioned, towards the close of +evening, and Mr. Rochester is informing her, with his usual delicacy of +language, that he is engaged to Miss Ingram--"a strapper! Jane, a real +strapper!"--and that as soon as he brings home his bride to Thornfield, +she, the governess, must "trot forthwith"--but that he shall make it his +duty to look out for employment and an asylum for her--indeed, that he +has already heard of a charming situation in the depths of Ireland--all +with a brutal jocoseness which most women of spirit, unless grievously +despairing of any other lover, would have resented, and any woman of +sense would have seen through. But Jane, that profound reader of the +human heart, and especially of Mr. Rochester's, does neither. She meekly +hopes she may be allowed to stay where she is till she has found another +shelter to betake herself to--she does not fancy going to Ireland--Why? + + "It is a long way off, Sir." "No matter--a girl of your sense will not + object to the voyage or the distance." "Not the voyage, but the + distance, Sir; and then the sea is a barrier--" "From what, Jane?" + "From England, and from Thornfield; and--" "Well?" "From _you_, Sir." + --vol. ii, p. 205. + +and then the lady bursts into tears in the most approved fashion. + +Although so clever in giving hints, how wonderfully slow she is in +taking them! Even when, tired of his cat's play, Mr. Rochester proceeds +to rather indubitable demonstrations of affection--"enclosing me in his +arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips"--Jane +has no idea what he can mean. Some ladies would have thought it high +time to leave the Squire alone with his chestnut tree; or, at all +events, unnecessary to keep up that tone of high-souled feminine +obtusity which they are quite justified in adopting if gentlemen will +not speak out--but Jane again does neither. Not that we say she was +wrong, but quite the reverse, considering the circumstances of the case-- +Mr. Rochester was her master, and "Duchess or nothing" was her first +duty--only she was not quite so artless as the author would have us +suppose. + +But if the manner in which she secures the prize be not inadmissible +according to the rules of the art, that in which she manages it when +caught, is quite without authority or precedent, except perhaps in the +servants' hall. Most lover's play is wearisome and nonsensical to the +lookers on--but the part Jane assumes is one which could only be +efficiently sustained by the substitution of Sam for her master. Coarse +as Mr. Rochester is, one winces for him under the infliction of this +housemaid _beau idéal_ of the arts of coquetry. A little more, and we +should have flung the book aside to lie for ever among the trumpery with +which such scenes ally it; but it were a pity to have halted here, for +wonderful things lie beyond--scenes of suppressed feeling, more fearful +to witness than the most violent tornados of passion--struggles with +such intense sorrow and suffering as it is sufficient misery to know +that any one should have conceived, far less passed through; and yet +with that stamp of truth which takes precedence in the human heart +before actual experience. The flippant, fifth-rate, plebeian actress has +vanished, and only a noble, high-souled woman, bound to us by the +reality of her sorrow, and yet raised above us by the strength of her +will, stands in actual life before us. If this be Jane Eyre, the author +has done her injustice hitherto, not we. + + * * * * * + +We have said that this was the picture of a natural heart. This, to our +view, is the great and crying mischief of the book. Jane Eyre is +throughout the personification of an unregenerate and undisciplined +spirit, and more dangerous to exhibit from that prestige of principle +and self-control which is liable to dazzle the eye too much for it to +observe the inefficient and unsound foundation on which it rests. It is +true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength, but it is the +strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself. No Christian +grace is perceptible upon her. She has inherited in fullest measure the +worst sin of our fallen nature--the sin of pride. Jane Eyre is proud, +and therefore she is ungrateful too. It pleased God to make her an +orphan, friendless, and penniless--yet she thanks nobody, and least of +all Him, for the food and raiment, the friends, companions, and +instructors of her helpless youth--for the care and education vouchsafed +to her till she was capable in mind as fitted in years to provide for +herself. On the contrary, she looks upon all that has been done for her +not only as her undoubted right, but as falling far short of it. The +doctrine of humility is not more foreign to her mind than it is +repudiated by her heart. It is by her own talents, virtues, and courage +that she is made to attain the summit of human happiness, and, as far as +Jane Eyre's own statement is concerned, no one would think that she owed +anything either to God above or to man below. She flees from Mr. +Rochester, and has not a being to turn to. Why was this? The excellence +of the present institution at Casterton, which succeeded that of Cowan +Bridge near Kirkby Lonsdale--these being distinctly, as we hear, the +original and the reformed Lowoods of the book--is pretty generally +known. Jane had lived there for eight years with 110 girls and fifteen +teachers. Why had she formed no friendships among them? Other orphans +have left the same and similar institutions, furnished with friends for +life, and puzzled with homes to choose from. How comes it that Jane had +acquired neither? Among that number of associates there were surely some +exceptions to what she so presumptuously stigmatises as "the society of +inferior minds." Of course it suited the author's end to represent the +heroine as utterly destitute of the common means of assistance, in order +to exhibit both her trials and her powers of self-support--the whole +book rests on this assumption--but it is one which, under the +circumstances, is very unnatural and very unjust. + +Altogether the auto-biography of Jane Eyre is pre-eminently an +anti-Christian composition. There is throughout it a murmuring against the +comforts of the rich and against the privations of the poor, which, as +far as each individual is concerned, is a murmuring against God's +appointment--there is a proud and perpetual assertion of the rights of +man, for which we find no authority either in God's word or in God's +providence--there is that pervading tone of ungodly discontent which is +at once the most prominent and the most subtle evil which the law and +the pulpit, which all civilized society in fact has at the present day +to contend with. We do not hesitate to say that the tone of mind and +thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code human and +divine abroad, and fostered Chartism and rebellion at home, is the same +which has also written Jane Eyre. + +Still we say again this is a very remarkable book. We are painfully +alive to the moral, religious, and literary deficiencies of the picture, +and such passages of beauty and power as we have quoted cannot redeem +it, but it is impossible not to be spell-bound with the freedom of the +touch. It would be mere hackneyed courtesy to call it "fine writing." It +bears no impress of being written at all, but is poured out rather in +the heat and hurry of an instinct, which flows ungovernably on to its +object, indifferent by what means it reaches it, and unconscious too. As +regards the author's chief object, however, it is a failure--that, +namely, of making a plain, odd woman, destitute of all the conventional +features of feminine attraction, interesting in our sight. We deny that +he has succeeded in this. Jane Eyre, in spite of some grand things about +her, is a being totally uncongenial to our feelings from beginning to +end. We acknowledge her firmness--we respect her determination--we feel +for her struggles; but, for all that, and setting aside higher +considerations, the impression she leaves on our mind is that of a +decidedly vulgar-minded woman--one whom we should not care for as an +acquaintance, whom we should not seek as a friend, whom we should not +desire for a relation, and whom we should scrupulously avoid for a +governess. + +There seems to have arisen in the novel-reading world some doubts as to +who really wrote this book; and various rumours, more or less romantic, +have been current in Mayfair, the metropolis of gossip, as to the +authorship. For example, Jane Eyre is sentimentally assumed to have +proceeded from the pen of Mr. Thackeray's governess, whom he had himself +chosen as his model of Becky, and who, in mingled love and revenge, +personified him in return as Mr. Rochester. In this case, it is evident +that the author of "Vanity Fair," whose own pencil makes him grey-haired, +has had the best of it, though his children may have had the +worst, having, at all events, succeeded in hitting the vulnerable point +in the Becky bosom, which it is our firm belief no man born of woman, +from her Soho to her Ostend days, had ever so much as grazed. To this +ingenious rumour the coincidence of the second edition of Jane Eyre +being dedicated to Mr. Thackeray has probably given rise. For our parts, +we see no great interest in the question at all. The first edition of +Jane Eyre purports to be edited by Currer Bell, one of a trio of +brothers, or sisters, or cousins, by names Currer, Acton, and Ellis +Bell, already known as the joint-authors of a volume of poems. The +second edition the same--dedicated, however, "by the author," to Mr. +Thackeray; and the dedication (itself an indubitable _chip_ of Jane +Eyre) signed Currer Bell. Author and editor therefore are one, and we +are as much satisfied to accept this double individual under the name of +"Currer Bell," as under any other, more or less euphonious. Whoever it +be, it is a person who, with great mental powers, combines a total +ignorance of the habits of society, a great coarseness of taste, and a +heathenish doctrine of religion. And as these characteristics appear +more or less in the writings of all three, Currer, Acton, and Ellis +alike, for their poems differ less in degree of power than in kind, we +are ready to accept the fact of their identity or of their relationship +with equal satisfaction. At all events there can be no interest attached +to the writer of "Wuthering Heights "--a novel succeeding "Jane Eyre," +and purporting to be written by Ellis Bell--unless it were for the sake +of more individual reprobation. For though there is a decided family +likeness between the two, yet the aspect of the Jane and Rochester +animals in their native state, as Catherine and Heathfield +[Transcriber's note: sic], is too odiously and abominably pagan to be +palatable even to the most vitiated class of English readers. With all +the unscrupulousness of the French school of novels it combines that +repulsive vulgarity in the choice of its vice which supplies its own +antidote. The question of authorship, therefore, can deserve a moment's +curiosity only as far as "Jane Eyre" is concerned, and though we cannot +pronounce that it appertains to a real Mr. Currer Bell and to no other, +yet that it appertains to a man, and not, as many assert, to a woman, we +are strongly inclined to affirm. Without entering into the question +whether the power of the writing be above her, or the vulgarity below +her, there are, we believe, minutiae of circumstantial evidence which at +once acquit the feminine hand. No woman--a lady friend, whom we are +always happy to consult, assures us--makes mistakes in her own _métier_-- +no woman _trusses game_ and garnishes dessert-dishes with the same +hands, or talks of so doing in the same breath. Above all, no woman +attires another in such fancy dresses as Jane's ladies assume--Miss +Ingram coming down, irresistible, "in a _morning_ robe of sky-blue +crape, a gauze azure scarf twisted in her hair!!" No lady, we +understand, when suddenly roused in the night, would think of hurrying +on "_a frock_." They have garments more convenient for such occasions, +and more becoming too. This evidence seems incontrovertible. Even +granting that these incongruities were purposely assumed, for the sake +of disguising the female pen, there is nothing gained; for if we ascribe +the book to a woman at all, we have no alternative but to ascribe it to +one who has, for some sufficient reason, long forfeited the society of +her own sex. + + + + +ON GEORGE ELIOT + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1860] + +1. _Scenes of Clerical Life_ [containing _The Sad Fortunes of the +Reverend Amos Barton; Mr. Gilfil's Love Story_; and _Janet's +Repentance_]. By GEORGE ELIOT. Second Edition. 2 vols. Edinburgh and +London, 1859. + +2. _Adam Bede_. By GEORGE ELIOT. Sixth Edition, 2 vols. 1859. + +3. _The Mill on the Floss_. By GEORGE ELIOT. 3 vols. 1860. + + +We frequently hear the remark, that in the present day everything is +tending to uniformity--that all minds are taught to think alike, that +the days of novelty have departed. To us, however, it appears that the +age abounds in new and abnormal modes of thought--we had almost said, +forms of being. What could be so new and so unlikely as that the young +and irreproachable maiden daughter of a clergyman should have produced +so extraordinary a work as "Jane Eyre,"--a work of which we were +compelled to express the opinion that the unknown and mysterious "Currer +Bell" held "a heathenish doctrine of religion"; that the ignorance which +the book displayed as to the proprieties of female dress was hardly +compatible with the idea of its having been written by a woman; but +that, if a woman at all, the writer must be "one who had, for some +sufficient reason, long forfeited the society of her own sex." + +In attempting to guess at the character and circumstances of the writer, +a reviewer could only choose among such types of men and women as he had +known, or heard, or read of. An early European settler in Australia, in +conjecturing whether his garden had been ravaged by a bird or by a +quadruped, would not light readily on the conception of an +ornithorhynchus; and assuredly no one accustomed only to ordinary men +and women could have divined the character, the training, and the +position of Charlotte Brontë, as they have been made known to us by her +biographer's unsparing revelations. It was not to be expected that any +one should have imagined the life of Howorth [Trasncriber's note: sic] +parsonage; the gifted, wayward, and unhappy sisterhood in their +cheerless home; the rudeness of the only society which was within their +reach; while their views of anything beyond their own immediate circle, +and certain unpleasing forms of school-life which they had known, were +drawn from the representations of a brother whose abilities they +regarded with awe, but who in other respects appears to have been an +utterly worthless debauchee; lying and slandering, bragging not only of +the sins which he had committed, but of many which he had not committed; +thoroughly depraved himself, and tainting the thoughts of all within his +sphere. There was, therefore, in "Jane Eyre," as the reviewer supposed, +the influence of a corrupt male mind, although this influence had been +exerted through an unsuspected medium. We now know how it was that a +clergyman's daughter, herself innocent, and honourably devoted to the +discharge of many a painful duty, could have written such a book as +"Jane Eyre" but without such explanations as Mrs. Gaskell has placed +(perhaps somewhat too unreservedly) before the world, the thing would +have been inconceivable. Indeed there is very sufficient evidence that +the Quarterly reviewer was by no means alone in entertaining the +opinions we have referred to: for the book was most vehemently cried up-- +the society of the authoress, when she became known, was most eagerly +courted--assiduous attempts were made (greatly to her annoyance) to +enlist her, to exhibit her, to trade on her fame--by the very persons +who would have been most ready to welcome her if she had been such as +the reviewer supposed her to be. And it is clear that the gentleman who +introduced himself to her acquaintance on the ground that each of them +had "written a naughty book" must have drawn pretty much the same +conclusions from the tone of Miss Brontë's first novel as the writer in +this Review. + +In like manner a great and remarkable departure from ordinary forms and +conditions has caused extreme uncertainty and many mistaken guesses as +to the new novelist who writes under the name of George Eliot. One +critic of considerable pretensions, for instance, declared his belief +that "George Eliot" was "a gentleman of high-church tendencies"; next +came the strange mystification which ascribed the "Eliot" tales to one +Mr. Joseph Liggins; and finally, the public learnt on authority that the +"gentleman of high church tendencies" was a lady; and that this lady was +the same who had given a remarkable proof of mastery over both the +German language and her own, but had certainly not established a +reputation for orthodoxy, by a translation of Strauss's "Life of Jesus." + +It is now too late to claim credit for having discovered the female +authorship before this disclosure of the fact. But it seems to us +impossible, when once the idea has been suggested, to read through these +books without finding confirmation of it in almost every page. There is, +indeed, power such as is rarely given to woman (or to man either); there +are traces of knowledge which is not usual among women (although some of +the classical quotations might at least have been more correctly +printed); there is a good deal of coarseness, which it is unpleasant to +think of as the work of a woman; and, as we shall have occasion to +observe more fully hereafter, the influence which these novels are +likely to exercise over the public taste is not altogether such as a +woman should aim at. But, with all this, the tone and atmosphere of the +books are unquestionably feminine. The men are a woman's men--the women +are a woman's women; the points on which the descriptions dwell in +persons of each sex are those which a woman would choose. In matters of +dress we are assured that "George Eliot" avoids the errors of "Jane +Eyre"; for no doubt she has had better opportunities of study than those +which were afforded by the Sunday finery of Howorth church. The sketches +of nature, of character, of life and manners, show female observation; +penetrating where it alone could penetrate, and usually stopping at the +boundaries beyond which it does not advance.... + +On looking at these very slight sketches we cannot but be struck by the +uniformly melancholy ending of the tales. The first culminates in the +death of the heroine (a word which in relation to these stories must be +very loosely interpreted), Mrs. Barton; the second, in the death of the +heroine, Mrs. Gilfil; the third, in the death of the hero, Mr. Tryan; +the fourth, in the death of one of the heroines, Hetty Sorrel; the +fifth, in the simultaneous death of the heroine and her brother, who is, +we suppose, to be regarded as the chief hero. Surely this is an +exaggerated representation of the proportion which sorrow bears to +happiness in human life; and the fact that a popular writer has (whether +consciously or not) brought every one of the five stories which she has +published to a tragical end gives a very uncomfortable idea of the tone +of our present literature. And other such symptoms are only too +plentiful--the announcement of a novel with the title of "Why Paul +Freeoll Killed his Wife" being one of the latest. With all respect for +the talents of the lady who offers us the solution of this question, we +must honestly profess that we would rather not know, and that we regret +such an employment of her pen. + +And in "George Eliot's" writings there is very much of this kind to +regret. She delights in unpleasant subjects--in the representation of +things which are repulsive, coarse, and degrading. Thus, in "Mr. +Gilfil's Story," Tina is only prevented from committing murder by the +opportune death of her intended victim. In "Janet's Repentance," a +drunken husband beats his beautiful but drunken wife, turns her out of +doors at midnight in her night-dress, and dies of "_delirium tremens_ +and _meningitis_." ... + +So, in "Adam Bede" we have all the circumstances of Hetty's seduction +and the birth and murder of her illegitimate child; and in the "Mill on +the Floss" there are the almost indecent details of mere animal passion +in the loves of Stephen and Maggie. If these are, as the writer's more +thorough-going admirers would tell us, the depths of human nature, we do +not see what good can be expected from raking them up,--not for the +benefit of those whom the warnings may concern (for these are not likely +to heed any warnings which may be presented in such a form), but for the +amusement of ordinary readers in hours of idleness and relaxation. +Compare "Adam Bede" with that one of Scott's novels which has something +in common with it as to story--the "Heart of Midlothian." In each a +beautiful young woman of the peasant class is tried and condemned for +child-murder; but, although condemned on circumstancial evidence under a +law of peculiar severity, Effie Deans is really innocent, whereas Hetty +Sorrel is guilty. In the novel of the last generation we see little of +Effie, and our attention is chiefly drawn to the simple heroism of her +sister Jeanie. In the novel of the present day, everything about Hetty +is most elaborately described: her thoughts throughout the whole course +of the seduction, her misery on discovering that there is evidence of +her frailty, her sufferings on the journey to Windsor and back (for it +is the Edie and not the Jeanie of this tale that makes a long solitary +journey to the south), her despairing hardness in the prison, her +confession, her behaviour on the way to the gallows. That all this is +represented with extraordinary force we need not say; and doubtless the +partisans of "George Eliot" would tell us that Scott could not have +written the chapters in question. We do not think it necessary to +discuss that point, but we are sure that in any case he _would_ not have +written them, because his healthy judgment would have rejected such +matters as unfit for the novelist's art. + +The boldness with which George Eliot chooses her subjects is very +remarkable. It is not that, like other writers, she fails in the attempt +to represent people as agreeable and interesting, but she knowingly +forces _dis_agreeable people on us, and insists that we shall be +interested in their story by the skill with which it is told. Mr. Amos +Barton, for instance, is as uninteresting a person as can well be +imagined: a dull, obtuse curate, whose poverty gives him no fair claim +to pity; for he has entered the ministry of the English Church without +any particular conviction of its superiority to other religious bodies; +without any special fitness for its ministry; without anything of the +ability which might reasonably entitle him to expect to rise; and +without the private means which are necessary for the support of most +married men in a profession which, if it is not (as it is sometimes +called) a lottery, has very great inequalities of income, and to the +vast majority of those who follow it gives very little indeed. Mr. +Barton is not a gentleman--a defect which the farmers and tradespeople +of his parish are not slow to discover, and for which they despise him. +He is without any misgivings as to himself or suspicion of his +deficiencies in any way, and his conduct is correctly described in a +lisping speech of the "secondary squire" of his parish, "What an ath +Barton makth of himthelf!" Yet for this stupid man our sympathy is +bespoken, merely because he has a wife so much too good for him that we +are almost inclined to be angry with her for her devotion to him. + +Tina is an undisciplined, abnormal little creature, without good looks +or any attractive quality except a talent for music, and with a temper +capable of the most furious excesses. Although Janet is described as +handsome, amiable, and cultivated, all these good properties are +overwhelmed in our thoughts of her by the degrading vice of which she is +to be cured; while her prophet, Mr. Tryan, although very zealous in his +work, is avowedly a narrow Calvinist, wanting in intellectual culture, +very irritable, not a little bitter and uncharitable, excessively fond +of applause without being very critical as to the quarter from which it +comes, and strongly possessed with the love of domination. Tom Tulliver +is hard, close, unimaginative, self-confident, repelling, with a stern +rectitude of a certain kind, but with no understanding of or toleration +for any character different from his own. Philip Wakem is a personage as +little pleasant as picturesque. Maggie, as a child--although in her +father's opinion "too clever for a gell"--is foolish, vain, self-willed, +and always in some silly scrape or other; and when grown up, her +behaviour is such, even before the climax of the affair with Stephen +Guest, that the dislike of the St. Ogg's ladies for her might have been +very sufficiently accounted for even if they had not had reason to envy +her superior beauty. + +But of all the characters for whom our authoress has been pleased to +bespeak our interest, Hetty Sorrel is the most remarkable for unamiable +qualities. She is represented as "distractingly pretty," and we hear a +great deal about her "kitten-like beauty," and her graceful movements, +looks, and attitudes. But this is all that can be said for her. Her mind +has no room for anything but looks and dress; she has no feeling for +anybody but her little self; and is only too truly declared by Mrs. +Poyser to be "no better than a peacock, as 'ud strut about on the wall, +and spread its tail when the sun shone, if all the folks i' the parish +was dying"--"no better nor a cherry, wi' a hard stone inside it."[1] +Over and over this view of Hetty's character is enforced on us, from the +time when, early in the first volume, we are told that hers "was a +springtide beauty; it was the beauty of young frisking things, +round-limbed, gambolling, circumventing you by a false air of +innocence.[2] ..." + +[1] "Adam Bede," i. 228; ii. 75. +[2] _ibid_., i. 119. + +Her conduct throughout is such as to offend and disgust; and the +authoress does not seem to be sufficiently aware that, while the +descriptions of the little coquette's beauty leave that to be imagined, +her follies and faults and crimes are set before us as matters of hard, +unmistakeable fact, so that the reader is in no danger of being blinded +by the charms which blinded Adam Bede, and Hetty consequently appears as +little else than contemptible when she is not odious. Yet it is on this +silly, heartless, and wicked little thing that the interest of the story +is made to rest. Her agonies, as we have already said, are depicted with +very great power; yet, if they touch our hearts, it is merely because +they _are_ agonies, and our feeling is unmixed with any regard for the +sufferer herself. + +This habit of representing her characters without any concealment of +their faults is, no doubt, connected with that faculty which enables the +authoress to give them so remarkable an air of reality. There are, +indeed, exceptions to this, as there are in almost every work of +fiction. Thus, Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel strike us as old +acquaintances whom we have known not in real life, but in books. We are +not altogether sure of stately old Mrs. Irwine, and are sceptical as to +Dinah Morris, notwithstanding the very great pains which the authoress +has evidently bestowed on her--perhaps because she is utterly unlike +such female Methodists as have fallen within our own (happily, small) +experience; and Bob Jakin is a grotesque caricature, which would have +been far better done by Mr. Dickens, who is undeniably great in the +production of grotesques, although we do not remember that throughout +the whole of his voluminous works he has ever succeeded in embodying a +single natural and lifelike character. But, with a very few exceptions, +"George Eliot's" personages have that appearance of reality in which +those of Mr. Dickens are so conspicuously wanting. And while Mr. +Dickens's views of English life and society are about as far from the +truth as those of the French dramatists and romancers, "George Eliot" is +able to represent the social circumstances in which her action is laid +with the strongest appearance of verisimilitude. We may not ourselves +have known Shepperton, or Hayslope, or St. Ogg's; but we feel as much at +home in them as if we had.... + +Tulliver may be cited as another well-imagined and well-executed +character, with his downright impetuous honesty, his hatred of +"raskills," and his disposition to see rascality everywhere; his +resolution to stand on his rights, his good-natured contempt for his +wife, his very justifiable dislike of her sisters, his love for his +children, and his determination that they shall have a good education, +cost what it may,--the benefits of education having been impressed on +his mind by his own inability to "wrap up things in words as aren't +actionable," and by the consequent perception that "it's an uncommon +fine thing, that is, when we can let a man know what you think of him +without paying for it."[1] His love of litigation is reconciled with his +belief that "the law is meant to take care o' raskills," and that "Old +Harry made the lawyers" by the principle that the cause which has the +"biggest raskill" for attorney has the best chance of success; so that +honesty need not despair if it can only secure the professional +assistance of accomplished roguery. And when, notwithstanding this, the +law and Mr. Wakem have been too much for him, great skill is shown in +the description of poor Tulliver's latter days; his prostration and +partial recovery; the concentration of his feelings on the desire to +wipe out the dishonour of insolvency, and to avenge himself on the +hostile attorney. Indeed, we confess that, notwithstanding his somewhat +unedifying end, Tulliver is the only person in "The Mill on the Floss" +for whom we can bring ourselves to care much. + +[1] "The Mill on the Floss," i. 32. + +The reality of which we have been speaking is connected with a peculiar +sort of consciousness in the authoress, as if she had actually witnessed +all that she describes, and were resolved to describe it without any +attempt to refine beyond the naked truth. Thus, the most serious +characters make their most solemn and most pathetic speeches in +provincial dialect and ungrammatical constructions, although it must be +allowed that the authoress has not ventured so far in this way as to +play with the use and abuse of the aspirate. And her dialect appears to +be very carefully studied, although we may doubt whether the +Staffordshire provincialisms of "Clerical Life" and "Adam Bede" are +sufficiently varied when the scene is shifted in the latest book to the +Lincolnshire side of the Humber. But where a greater variation than that +between one midland dialect and another is required, "George Eliot's" +conscientiousness is very curiously shown. There is in "Mr. Gilfil's +Story" a gardener of the name of Bates, who is described as a +Yorkshireman, and in "Adam Bede" there is another gardener, Mr. Craig, +whose name would naturally indicate a Scotchman. Each of these +horticulturists is introduced into the dialogue, and of course the +reader would expect the one to talk Yorkshire and the other to talk some +variety of Scotch. But the authoress, apparently, did not feel herself +mistress of either Scotch or Yorkshire to such a degree as would have +warranted her in attempting them, and therefore, before her characters +are allowed to open their mouths, she, in each case, is careful to tell +us that we must moderate our expectations: "Mr. Bates's lips were of a +peculiar cut, and I fancy this had something to do with the peculiarity +of his dialect, which, as we shall see, was individual rather than +provincial."[1] + +[1] "Scenes of Clerical Life," i. 191. + +"I think it was Mr. Craig's pedigree only that had the advantage of +being Scotch, and not his 'bringing up'; for, except that he had a +stronger burr in his accent, his speech differed little from that of the +Loamshire people around him."[2] In short, except that lucifer matches +are twice introduced as familiar things in days when the tinder-box was +the only resource in general use for obtaining a light,[3] we have not +observed anything in which the authoress could be "caught out." + +[2] "Adam Bede," i. 302. +[3] "Adam Bede," i. 219, 362. + +But this conscientious fidelity has very serious drawbacks. It seems as +if the authoress felt herself under an obligation to give everything +literally as it took place; to shut out nothing which is superfluous; to +suppress nothing which is unfit for a work of fiction (for not only have +we a report of Dinah Morris's sermons, but the very words of the prayer +which she put up for Hetty in the prison); to abridge nothing which is +tiresome. People and incidents are described at length, although they +have little or nothing to do with the story. We may mention as instances +the detailed history and character which are given of Tom Tulliver's +tutor, the Reverend Walter Stelling, and the account of Mr. Poyser's +harvest-home, which, however good in itself, is utterly out of place +between the crisis and the conclusion of the story. But most especially +we complain of the fondness which the authoress shows for exhibiting +uninteresting and tiresome people in all their interminable tediousness; +and if the morbid tone which we have already mentioned reminds us of a +French school of novelists, her passion for photographing the minutest +details of dullness reminds us painfully of those American ladies who +contribute so largely to the literature of our railway-stalls, by +flooding their boundless prairies of dingy paper with inexhaustible +masses of blotchy type. We quite admit the naturalness of the +tradespeople and other small folks whom this writer has perhaps explored +more deeply than any earlier novelist; but surely we have far too much +of them. It has indeed been said that we are spoiled by the activity of +the present day for enjoying the faithful picture of what life was in +country parishes and in little country towns fifty years ago; but we +really cannot admit the justice of this attempt to throw the blame on +ourselves. Dullness, we may be sure, has not died out within the last +half century, but is yet to be found in plenty; and, if times were dull +fifty or a hundred years ago, the novelists of those days--Scott and +Fielding, and Smollett, and even Goldsmith in his simple tale--did not +make their readers groan under their dullness.... + +But _are_ we likely to feel more kindly towards such people as those of +whom we are now complaining, because all their triviality, and +smallness, and tediousness are displayed at wearisome length on paper? +If some Dutch painters bestowed their skill on homely old women and +boozy boors, there is no evidence that they were capable of better +things, and their choice of subjects is no justification for one who +certainly can do better. Nor do we complain that we have an old woman or +a coarse merrymaking occasionally, but that such things in their +monotonous meanness fill whole rooms of "George Eliot's" gallery; and, +in truth, the real parallel to her is not to be found in the old +Dutchmen who honestly painted what was before their eyes, but rather in +the perverseness of our modern "pre-Raphaelites." It is of these +gentlemen--who, by the way, in their reactionary affectations are the +most entire opposites of the simple, unaffected, and forward-striving +artists who really lived before Raphael--it is of these gentlemen, with +their choice of disagreeable subjects, uncomely models, and uncouth +attitudes, their bestowal of superfluous labour on trifling details, and +the consequent obtrusiveness of subordinate things so as to mar the +general effect of the work, that "George Eliot" too often reminds us. + +How very wearisome is the conversation of the clique of inferior women +who worship Mr. Tryan! how dismally twaddling is that respectable old +congregationalist, Mr. Jerome, with his tidy little garden and his +"littel chacenut hoss"! We feel for Mr. Tryan when in the society of +such people, although to him it was mitigated by the belief that he was +doing good by associating with them, and that by love of incense from +any quarter which is described as part of his character. But why should +it be inflicted in such fearful doses on us, who have done nothing to +deserve it, who have no "mission" to encounter it, and are entirely +without Mr. Tryan's consolations under the endurance of it? + +Adam Bede's mother is another sore trial of the reader's patience--with +her endless fretful chatter, and all the details of her urging her sons, +one after the other, to refresh themselves with cold potatoes: nay, we +are not reconciled to these vegetables even by the fact that on one +occasion they are recommended as "taters wi' the gravy in 'em."[1] But +it is in "The Mill on the Floss" that the plague of tedious conversation +reaches its height. Mrs. Tulliver is one of four married sisters, whose +maiden name had been Dodson, and in these sisters there is a studious +combination of family likeness with individual varieties of character. +Mrs. Tulliver herself--whose "blond" complexion is generally associated +by our authoress with imbecility of mind and character--belongs to that +class of minds of which Mrs. Quickly may be considered as the chief +intellectual type. Mrs. Pullet--the wife of a gentleman farmer, whose +great characteristic is a habit of sucking lozenges, and whom Tom +Tulliver most justly sets down as a "nincompoop"--is almost sillier than +Mrs. Tulliver. She has the gift of tears ever ready to flow, and sheds +them profusely on the anticipation of imaginary and ridiculous woes. Her +favourite vanity consists in drawing dismal pictures of the future and +in priding herself on the bodily sufferings of her neighbours; that one +had "been tapped no end o' times, and the water--they say you might ha' +swum in it if you'd liked"; that another's "breath was short to that +degree as you could hear him two rooms off"; and her highest religion-- +the loftiest exercise of her faith and self-denial--is the accumulation +of superfluous clothes and linen, in the hope that they may make a +creditable display after her death. Mrs. Deane is "a thin-lipped woman, +who made small well-considered speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating +them afterwards to her husband, and asking him if she had not spoken +very properly"; and of her we see but little. But of the eldest of the +four, Mrs. Glegg, we see so much that we are really made quite +uncomfortable by her; for she is a very formidable person indeed,-- +utterly without kindness, bullying everybody within her reach (her +husband included), holding herself up as a model to everybody, and +shaming all other families--especially those into which she and her +sisters had married--by odious comparisons with the Dodsons. All this we +grant is very cleverly done. The grim Mrs. Glegg and the fatuous Mrs. +Tulliver and Mrs. Pullet talk admirably in their respective kinds; and +we can quite believe that there are people who are not unfairly +represented by the Dodsons--with, the narrow limitation of their +thoughts to their own little circle--the extravagantly high opinion of +their own vulgar family, with the corresponding depreciation of all in +and about their own rank who do not belong to it--their perfect +conviction that their own family traditions (such as the copious eating +of salt in their broth) are the standard of all that is good--their +consecration of all their most elevated feelings to the worship of +furniture, and clothes, and table-linen, and silver spoons--their utter +alienation from all that, in the opinion of educated people, can make +life fit to be enjoyed. The humour of Mrs. Glegg's determination that no +ill desert of a relation shall interfere with the disposal of her +property by will on the most rigidly Dodsonian principles of justice, +according to the several degrees of Dodsonship, is excellent; and so is +the change in her behaviour towards Maggie, whom, after having always +bullied her, she takes up for the sake of Dodsondom's credit when +everybody else has turned against her.... + +[1] "Adam Bede," i. 54. + +The writer does not seem to be aware that the fools and bores of a book, +while they bore the other characters, ought not to bore but to amuse the +reader, and that they will become seriously wearisome to him if there be +too much of them. Shakespeare has contented himself with showing us his +Dogberry and Verges, his Shallow and Slender, and Silence, to such a +degree as may sufficiently display their humours; but he has not filled +whole acts with them, and, even if he had, a five-act play is a small +field for the display of prolix foolishness as compared with a +three-volume novel. Lord Macaulay has been supposed to speak sarcastically +in saying that he "would not advise any person who reads for amusement to +venture on a certain _jeu d'esprit_ of Mr. Sadler's as long as he can +procure a volume of the Statutes at Large";[1] but we are afraid that we +should not be believed if we were to mention the books to which _we_ +have had recourse by way of occasional relief from the task of perusing +"George Eliot's" tales. + +[1] "Miscellaneous Writings," ii. 68. + +In the case of "these emmet-like Dodsons and Tullivers," the authoress +again defends her principle. "I share with you," she says, "the sense of +oppressive narrowness; but it is necessary that we should feel it, if we +care to understand how it acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie."[2] We +must confess that we care very little for Tom and Maggie, who, although +the inscription on their tombstone and the motto on the title-page of +the book tell us that "in their death they were not divided," do not +strike us as having been "lovely and pleasant in their lives." We do not +think the development of the brother and the sister a matter of any +great interest; and, if it were, we believe that a sufficient ground +might have been laid for our understanding it without so severely trying +our patience by the details of the "sordid life" amid which their early +years were spent. + +[2] "The Mill on the Floss," ii. 150. + +Another mistake, as it appears to us, is the too didactic strain into +which the authoress occasionally falls--writing as if for the purpose of +forcing lessons on children or the poor, rather than for grown-up and +educated readers. The story of "Janet's Repentance" might, with the +omission of a few passages such as the satirical flings at Mr. Tryan's +female worshippers, be made into a very edifying little tract for some +"evangelical" society. Mr. Tryan's opponents are all represented as +brutes and monsters, drunkards and unclean, enemies of all goodness; +while, with the usual unscrupulousness of party tract-writers, we are +required to choose between an alliance with such infamous company and +unreserved adhesion to the Calvanistic curate, without being allowed any +possibility of a third course. And, in addition to Mr. Tryan's victory, +there is the conversion of Mrs. Dempster, not only from drunkenness to +teetotalism (which might form the text for a set of illustrations by Mr. +Cruikshank, in the moral style of his later days), but from hatred to +love of the Gospel according to Mr. Tryan. In its place we should not +care to object to such a story, or to a great deal of the needless talk +which it contains both of sinners and of saints; but we _do_ object to +it in a book which is intended for the lighter reading of educated +people, and the more so because we know that it comes from a writer who +can feel nothing of the bitter but conscientious bigotry which the +composition of such a story in good faith implies.... + +In reading of Maggie's early indiscretions, we--hardened, grey-headed +reviewers as we are--feel something like a renewal of the shame and +mortification with which, long decades of years ago, we read of the +weaknesses of Frank and Rosamond,--as if we ourselves were the little +girl who made the mistake of choosing the big, bright-coloured bottle +from the chemist's window, or the little boy who allowed himself to be +deceived by the flattery of the lady in the draper's shop. In order that +her hair may have no chance of appearing in curls on a great occasion +(according to her mother's wish), Maggie plunges her head into a basin +of water. On getting an old dress and a bonnet from her unloved aunt +Glegg, she bastes the frock along with the roast beef on the following +Sunday, and souses the bonnet under the pump. In consequence of the +continual remarks of her mother and aunts, about the un-Dodsonlike +colour of her hair, she cuts it all off. She makes the most deplorable +exhibition of her literary vanity at every turn. Out of spite she pushes +her cousin Lucy, when arrayed in the prettiest of dresses, into the +"cow-trodden mud," and thereupon she runs off to a gang of gipsies, with +the intention of becoming their queen,--an adventure from which we are +glad that she is allowed to escape with less of suffering than Miss +Edgeworth might perhaps have felt it a matter of duty to inflict on her. +For the Toms and Maggies, the Franks and Rosamonds, of real life, such +monitory anecdotes as these may be very good and useful; but it seems to +us that they are out of place in a book intended for readers who have +got beyond the early domestic schoolroom. + +We cannot praise the construction of these tales. The plots are very +slight; the narrative drags painfully in some parts, and in other parts +the authoress has recourse to very violent expedients, as where she +brings in the "startling Adelphi stage-effect" of the flood to drown Tom +and Maggie, in order to escape from the unmanageable complication of her +story. Both in "Adam Bede" and in "The Mill on the Floss" the chief +interest is over long before the tale comes to an end; and in looking at +the whole series together we see something of repetition. Thus, both +Tina and Hetty set their hearts on a young man above their own position, +and turn a deaf ear to a longer-known, more suitable, and worthier +suitor. Each disappears at a critical time, and each, after a +disappointment in the higher quarter, falls back on a marriage with the +humbler admirer; with the difference, however, that, as Hetty had +committed murder, and as Tina had just been saved from doing so, the +marriage in the first case never actually takes place, and in the second +it ends after a few months. And as a smaller instance of repetition, we +may compare the bedroom visit of the seraphic Dinah Morris to the +earthly Hetty with that of the pattern Lucy Deane to the tempestuous +Maggie Tulliver. + +There is less of affectation in these books than in most of our recent +novels, yet there is by far too much. Among the portions which are most +infected by this sin we may mention the description of scenery,--thanks, +doubtless, in no small measure, to the influence of that very dangerous +model Mr. Ruskin.... + +Before concluding our article we must notice the authoress's views on +two important subjects which enter largely into her stories--love and +religion. That ladies, of their own accord and uninvited, fall in love +with gentlemen is a common circumstance in novels written by ladies; and +we are very much obliged to Madame D'Arblay, Miss Austen, and the other +writers of the softer sex, who have let us into the knowledge of the +important fact that such is the way in real life. But the peculiarity of +"George Eliot," among English novelists, is that in her books everybody +falls in love with the wrong person. She seems to be continually on the +point of showing us, with the author of "The Rovers"-- + + How two swains one nymph her vows may give, + And how two damsels with one lover live. + +Love is represented as a passion conceived without any ground of +reasonable preference, and as entirely irresistible in its sway. Tina +bestows her affections on Captain Wybrow, while the Captain, without +caring for anybody but himself, is paying his addresses to Miss Assher; +and Mr. Gilfil is pining for Tina, whom, if he had any discernment at +all, he could not but see to be quite unfitted for him. Adam Bede is in +love with the utterly undeserving Hetty, while Dinah Morris and Mary +Burge are both in love with Adam, Hetty with Arthur Donnithorne, and +Seth Bede with Dinah. At last, Hetty is got out of the way, Dinah comes +to a clearer understanding of her feelings towards Adam, and Adam, on +being made aware of this, is set on by his mother to make a successful +proposal; but "quiet Mary Burge" subsides into a bridesmaid, and Seth, +the "poor wool-gatherin' Methodist," is left without any other +consolation than that of worshipping his sister-in-law. + +But it is in "The Mill on the Floss" that the unwholesome view which we +have mentioned finds its most startling development. Maggie is in love +with Philip, and Philip with Maggie; Stephen Guest is in love with Lucy +Deane, and Lucy with Stephen, while at the same time she has an +undeclared admirer in Tom Tulliver. But as soon as Maggie and Stephen +become acquainted with each other, they exercise a powerful mutual +attraction, and the mischief of love (as the passion is represented by +our authoress) breaks loose in terrible force. The reproach which Tom +Tulliver had coarsely thrown in Philip's teeth, that he had taken +advantage of Maggie's inexperience to secure her affections before she +had had any opportunity of comparing him with other men, turns out to be +entirely just. Stephen is a mere underbred coxcomb, and is intended to +appear as such (for we do not think that the authoress has failed in any +attempt to make him a gentleman); his only merit, in so far as we can +discover, is a foolish talent for singing, and, except as to person, he +is infinitely inferior to Philip. But for this mere physical superiority +the lofty-souled Maggie prefers him to the lover whom she had before +loved for his deformity; and the passion is represented as one which no +considerations of moral or religious principle, no regard to the claims +of others, no training derived from the hardships of her former life or +from the ascetic system to which she had at one time been devoted, can +withstand. Here is a delicate scene, which is described as having taken +place in a conservatory, to which the pair had withdrawn on the night of +a ball:-- + + Maggie bent her arm a little upward towards the large half-opened rose + that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm? + --the unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled + elbow, and the varied gently-lessening curves down to the delicate + wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm + softness? + + A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted towards the arm and + showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist. + + But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glanced at him + like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation. + + "How dare you?" she spoke in a deeply-shaken, half-smothered voice: + "what right have I given you to insult me?" + + She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the + sofa panting and trembling.[1] + +[1] iii. 156. + +We should not have blamed the young lady if, like one of Mr. Trollope's +heroines, she had made her admirer feel not only "the beauty of a +woman's arm," but its weight. But, unwarned by the grossness of his +behaviour on this occasion, she is represented as admitting Stephen to +further intercourse; and, although she rescues herself at last, it is +not until after having occasioned irreparable scandal. A good-natured +ordinary novelist might have found an easy solution for the difficulties +of the case at an earlier stage by marrying Stephen to Maggie, and +handing over Lucy (who is far too amiable to object to such a transfer) +to her admiring cousin Tom; while Philip, left in celibacy, might either +have been invested with a pathetic interest, or represented as justly +punished for the offence of forestalling. But George Eliot has higher +aims than ordinary novelists, and to her the transfer which we have +suggested would appear as a profanation. Her characters, therefore, +plunge into all manner of sacrifices of reputation and happiness; and it +is not until Maggie and Tom have been drowned, and Philip's whole life +embittered, that we catch a final view of Mr. Stephen Guest visiting the +grave of the brother and sister in company with the amiable wife, _née_ +Lucy Deane. If we are to accept the natural moral of this story, it +shows how coarse and immoral a very fastidious and ultra-refined +morality may become. + +It is with reluctance that we go on to notice the religion of these +books; but since religion appears so largely in them, we must not +decline the task. To us, at least, the theory of the writer's "High-Church +tendencies" could never have appeared plausible; for even in the +"Scenes of Clerical Life" the chief religious personage is the +"evangelical" curate Mr. Tryan, and whatever good there is in his parish +is confined to the circle of his partisans and converts; while in "Adam +Bede" the Methodess preacheress, Dinah Morris, is intended to shine with +spotless and incomparable lustre. Yet, although the highest characters, +in a religious view, are drawn from "evangelicism" and Methodism, we +find that neither of these systems is set forth as enough to secure the +perfection of everybody who may choose to profess it.... + +Mr. Parry, although agreeing with Mr. Tryan in opinion, is represented +as no less unpopular and inefficient than Mr. Tryan was the reverse; and +the Reverend Amos Barton is a hopeless specimen of that variety of +"evangelical" clergymen to which the late Mr. Conybeare gave the name of +"low and slow,"--a variety which, we believe, flourishes chiefly in the +midland counties. On the other hand, Mr. Gilfil and Mr. Irwine, +clergymen of the "old school," are held up as objects for our respect +and love; and Mr. Irwine is not only vindicated by Adam Bede in his old +age, in comparison with his evangelical successor Mr. Ryde, but the +question between high and low church, as represented by these two, is +triumphantly settled by a quotation which Adam brings from our old +friend Mrs. Poyser:-- + + Mrs. Poyser used to say--you know she would have her word about + everything--she said Mr. Irwine was like a good meal o' victual, you + were the better for him without thinking on it; and Mr. Ryde was like + a dose o' physic, he griped and worrited you, and after all he left + you much the same.[1] + +[1] "Adam Bede," i. 269. + +In "The Mill on the Floss," too, the "brazen" Mr. Stelling is +represented as "evangelical," in so far as he is anything; while Dr. +Kenn, a very high Anglican, is spoken of with all veneration; although, +perhaps, "George Eliot's" opinion as to the efficiency of the high +Anglican clergy may be gathered from the circumstance that when the +Doctor interferes for the benefit of Maggie Tulliver, he not only fails +to be of any use, but exposes himself to something like the same kind of +gossip which had arisen from Mr. Amos Barton's hospitality to Madame +Czerlaski. As to Methodism, again, the reader need hardly be reminded of +the sayings which we have quoted from Mrs. Poyser. And while the feeble +and "wool-gathering" Seth Bede becomes a convert, the strong-minded Adam +holds out, even although he is so tolerant as to marry a female +Methodist preacher, and to let her enjoy her "liberty of prophesying" +until stopped by a general order of the Wesleyan Conference. + +From all these things the natural inference would seem to be that the +authoress is neither High-Church nor Low-Church nor Dissenter, but a +tolerant member of what is styled the Broad-Church party--a party in +which we are obliged to say that breadth and toleration are by no means +universal. It would seem that, instead of being exclusively devoted to +any one of the religious types which she has embodied in the persons of +her tales (for as yet she has not presented us with a clergyman of any +liberal school), she regards each of them as containing an element of +pure Christianity, which, although in any one of them it may be alloyed +by its adjuncts and by the faults of individuals, is in itself of +inestimable value, and may be held alike by persons who differ widely +from each other as to the forms of religious polity and as to details of +Christian doctrine. + +But what is to be thought of the fact that the authoress of these tales +is also the translator of Strauss's notorious book? Is the Gospel which +she has represented in so many attractive lights nothing better to her, +after all, than "fabula ista de Christo"? Are the various forms under +which she has exhibited it no more for her than the Mahometan and Hindoo +systems were for the poet of Thalaba and Kehama? Has she been carrying +out in these novels the precepts of that chapter in which Dr. Strauss +teaches his disciples how, while believing the New Testament narrative +to be merely mythical, they may yet discharge the functions of the +Christian preacher without exposing themselves by their language to any +imputation of unsoundness? But, even apart from this distressing +question, there is much to interfere with the hope and the interest with +which we should wish to look forward to the future career of a writer so +powerful and so popular as the authoress of these books--much to awaken +very serious apprehensions as to the probable effect of her influence. +No one who has looked at all into our late fictitious literature can +have failed to be struck with the fondness of many of the writers of the +day for subjects which at an earlier time would not have been thought +of, or would have been carefully avoided. The idea that fiction should +contain something to soothe, to elevate, or to purify seems to be +extinct. In its stead there is a love for exploring what would be better +left in obscurity; for portraying the wildness of passion and the +harrowing miseries of mental conflict; for dark pictures of sin and +remorse and punishment; for the discussion of questions which it is +painful and revolting to think of. By some writers such themes are +treated with a power which fascinates even those who most disapprove the +manner in which it is exercised; by others with a feebleness which shows +that the infection has spread even to the most incapable of the +contributors to our circulating libraries. To us the influence of the +"Jack Shepherd" school of literature is really far less alarming than +that of a class of books which is more likely to find its way into the +circles of cultivated readers, and, most especially, to familiarize the +minds of our young women in the middle and higher ranks with matters on +which their fathers and brothers would never venture to speak in their +presence. It is really frightful to think of the interest which we have +ourselves heard such readers express in criminals like Paul Ferroll, and +in sensual ruffians like Mr. Rochester: and there is much in the +writings of "George Eliot" which, on like grounds, we feel ourselves +bound most earnestly to condemn. Let all honour be paid to those who in +our time have laboured to search out and to make known such evils of our +social condition as Christian sympathy may in some degree relieve or +cure. But we do not believe that any good end is to be effected by +fictions which fill the mind with details of imaginary vice and distress +and crime, or which teach it--instead of endeavouring after the +fulfilment of simple and ordinary duty--to aim at the assurance of +superiority by creating for itself fanciful and incomprehensible +perplexities. Rather we believe that the effect of such fictions must be +to render those who fall under their influence unfit for practical +exertion; while they most assuredly do grievous harm in many cases, by +intruding on minds which ought to be guarded from impurity the +unnecessary knowledge of evil. + + + + +BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE + +In the early days of the nineteenth century Edinburgh certainly aspired +to prouder eminence as a centre of light and learning than it has +continued to maintain. Tory energy, provoked by the arrogance of +Jeffrey, had found its earliest expression in London, but the northern +capital evidently determined not to be left behind in the game of +unprincipled vituperation. _Blackwood_, unlike its rivals in infancy, +was issued monthly, and its closely printed double columns add something +to the impression of heaviness in its satire. + +JOHN WILSON +(1785-1854) + +There is admittedly something incongruous in any association between the +genial and laughter-loving Christopher North and the reputation incurred +by the periodical with which he was long so intimately associated. He +had contributed--as few of his confederates would have been permitted-- +to the _Edinburgh_; but he was Literary Editor to _Blackwood_ from +October, 1817, to September, 1852. Originally a disciple of the Lake +School, at whom he was frequently girding, he migrated to Edinburgh +(where he became Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1820), and attracted +to himself many brilliant men of letters, including De Quincey. + +The "mountain-looking fellow," as Dickens called him, the patron of +"cock-fighting, wrestling, pugilistic contests, boat-racing, and +horse-racing" left his mark on his generation for a unique combination +of +boisterous joviality and hardhitting. Well known in the houses of the +poor; more than one observer has said that he reminded them of the +"first man, Adam." He "swept away all hearts, withersoever he would." +"Thor and Balder in one," "very Goth," "a Norse Demigod," "hair of the +true Sicambrian yellow"; Carlyle describes him as "fond of all +stimulating things; from tragic poetry down to whiskey-punch. He snuffed +and smoked cigars and drank liqueurs, and talked in the most +indescribable style.... He is a broad sincere man of six feet, with long +dishevelled flax-coloured hair, and two blue eyes keen as an eagle's ... +a being all split into precipitous chasms and the wildest volcanic +tumults ... a noble, loyal, and religious nature, not _strong_ enough to +vanquish the perverse element it is born into." + +The foundation of Wilson's criticism, unlike most of his contemporaries, +was generous and wide-minded appreciation, yet he "hacked about him, +distributing blows right and left, delivered sometimes for fun, though +sometimes with the most extraordinary impulse of perversity, in the +impetus of his career." With all a boy's love of a good fight, he shared +with youth its thoughtless indifference to the consequences. + +His not altogether unfriendly criticisms inspired one of Tennyson's +lightest effusions-- + + You did late review my lays, + Crusty Christopher; + You did mingle blame and praise + Rusty Christopher. + When I learnt from whence it came, + I forgave you all the blame, + Musty Christopher; + I could not forgive the praise + Fusty Christopher. + +The _Noctes Ambrosianae_ is certainly a unique production. Though +ostensibly a dialogue mainly between himself, Tickler (i.e., Lockhart), +and Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd--with other occasional dramatis personae; +the main bulk of them (including everything here quoted) was written by +Wilson himself--in this form, to produce an original effect. The +conversations are, for the most part, thoroughly dramatic, and cover +every conceivable subject from politics and literature to the beauty of +scenery, dress, cookery, and the various sports beloved of Christopher. +There is much boisterous interruption for eating, drinking, and personal +chaff. + +Of the longer quotations selected we would particularly draw attention +to the humorous and epigrammatic parody of Wordsworth, on whom Wilson +elsewhere bestows generous enthusiasm; and the broad-minded outlook +which can appreciate the contrasted virility of Byron and Dr. Johnson. +But it would be impossible to give an approximately fair impression of +the _Noctes_, without many examples of those paragraph criticisms +scattered broadcast on every page, which we have presented as "Crumbs" +from the feast. The magnificent recantation to Leigh Hunt--on whom +_Blackwood_ had bestowed even more than its share of abuse--has passed +into a proverb. + +ANONYMOUS + +As in the case of the _Quarterly_ these untraced effusions may be +assigned, with fair confidence, to the principal originators of the +magazine: Wilson himself, Lockhart, and William Maginn (1793-1842), a +thriftless Irishman who helped to start _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1830, and +stood for Captain Shandon in Pendennis; author of _Bob Burke's Duel with +Ensign Brady_, "perhaps the raciest Irish story ever written." + +They almost certainly combined in the heated attack on "The Cockney +School," of which Leigh Hunt's generous, but not always judicious, +advertisement was an obvious temptation to satire, embittered by +political bias. Coleridge, also, provided easy material for scorn from +vigorous manhood; and Shelley, as Wilson remarks elsewhere, was "the +greatest sinner of the oracular school--because the only true poet." + + + + +CHRISTOPHER NORTH ON POPE[1] +[1] A Discussion of the Edition by Bowles. + +[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, March, 1825] + + +_Tickler._ Pope was one of the most amiable men that ever lived. Fine +and delicate as were the temper and temperament of his genius, he had a +heart capable of the warmest human affection. He was indeed a loving +creature. + +_North._ Come, come, Timothy, you know you were sorely cut an hour or +two ago--so do not attempt characteristics. But, after all, Bowles does +not say that Pope was unamiable. + +_Tickler._ Yes, he does--that is to say, no man can read, even now, all +that he has written about Pope, without thinking on the whole, somewhat +indifferently of the man Pope. It is for this I abuse our friend Bowles. + +_Shepherd._ Ay, ay--I recollect now some of the havers o' Boll's about +the Blounts,--Martha and Theresa, I think you call them. Puir wee bit +hunched-backed, windle-strae-legged, gleg-eed, clever, acute, ingenious, +sateerical, weel-informed, warm-hearted, real philosophical, and maist +poetical creature, wi' his sounding translation o' a' Homer's works, +that reads just like an original War-Yepic,--His Yessay on Man that, in +spite o' what a set o' ignoramuses o' theological critics say about +Bolingbroke and Croussass, and heterodoxy and atheism, and like haven, +is just-ane o' the best moral discourses that ever I heard in or out o' +the poupit,--His yepistles about the Passions, and sic like, in the +whilk he goes baith deep and high, far deeper and higher baith than mony +a modern poet, who must needs be either in a diving-bell or a balloon,-- +His Rape o' the Lock o' Hair, wi' a' these Sylphs floating about in the +machinery o' the Rosicrucian Philosophism, just perfectly yelegant and +gracefu', and as gude, in their way, as onything o' my ain about +fairies, either in the _Queen's Wake_ or _Queen Hynde_,--His Louisa to +Abelard is, as I said before, coorse in the subject-matter, but, O sirs! +powerfu' and pathetic in execution--and sic a perfect spate o' +versification! His unfortunate lady, who sticked hersel for love wi' a +drawn sword, and was afterwards seen as a ghost, dim-beckoning through +the shade--a verra poetical thocht surely, and full both of terror and +pity.... + +_North._ Pope's poetry is full of nature, at least of what I have been +in the constant habit of accounting nature for the last threescore and +ten years. But (thank you, James, that snuff is really delicious) +leaving nature and art, and all that sort of thing, I wish to ask a +single question: what poet of this age, with the exception, perhaps, of +Byron, can be justly said, when put in comparison with Pope, to have +written the English language at all.... + +_Tickler._ What would become of Bowles himself, with all his elegance, +pathos, and true feeling? Oh! dear me, James, what a dull, dozing, +disjointed, dawdling, dowdy of a drawe would be his muse, in her very +best voice and tune, when called upon to get up and sing a solo after +the sweet and strong singer of Twickenham! + +_North._ Or Wordsworth--with his eternal--Here we go up, and up, and up, +and here we go down, down, and here we go roundabout, roundabout!--Look +at the nerveless laxity of his _Excursion!_--What interminable prosing!-- +The language is out of condition:--fat and fozy, thick-winded, purfled +and plethoric. Can he be compared with Pope?--Fie on't! no, no, no!-- +Pugh, pugh! + +_Tickler._ Southey--Coleridge--Moore? + +_North._ No; not one of them. They are all eloquent, diffusive, rich, +lavish, generous, prodigal of their words. But so are they all deficient +in sense, muscle, sinew, thews, ribs, spine. Pope, as an artist, beats +them hollow. Catch him twaddling. + +_Tickler._ It is a bad sign of the intellect of an age to depreciate the +genius of a country's classics. But the attempt covers such critics with +shame, and undying ridicule pursues them and their abettors. The Lake +Poets began this senseless clamour against the genius of Pope. + + + + +ON BYRON + +[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, October, 1825] + +_North._ People say, James, that Byron's tragedies are failures. Fools! +Is Cain, the dark, dim, disturbed, insane, hell-haunted Cain, a failure? +Is Sardanapalus, the passionate, princely, philosophical, joy-cheated, +throne-wearied voluptuary, a failure? Is Heaven and Earth, that +magnificent confusion of two worlds, in which mortal beings mingle in +love and hate, joy and despair, with immortal--the children of the dust +claiming alliance with the radiant progeny of the skies, till man and +angel seem to partake of one divine being, and to be essences eternal in +bliss or bale--is Heaven and Earth, I ask you, James, a failure? If so, +then Appollo has stopt payment--promising a dividend of one shilling in +the pound--and all concerned in that house are bankrupts. + +_Tickler._ You have nobly--gloriously vindicated Byron, North, and in +doing so, have vindicated the moral and intellectual character of our +country. Miserable and pernicious creed, that holds possible the lasting +and intimate union of the first, purest, highest, noblest, and most +celestial powers of soul and spirit, with confirmed appetencies, foul +and degrading lust, cowardice, cruelty, meanness, hypocrisy, avarice, +and impiety! You,--in a strong attempt made to hold up to execration the +nature of Byron as deformed by all these hideous vices,--you, my friend, +reverently unveiled the countenance of the mighty dead, and the +lineaments struck remorse into the heart of every asperser. + + + + +ON DR. JOHNSON + +[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, April, 1829] + +_North._ I forgot old Sam--a jewel rough set, yet shining like a star, +and though sand-blind by nature, and bigoted by Education, one of the +truly great men of England, and "her men are of men the chief," alike in +the dominions of the understanding, the reason, the passions, and the +imagination. No prig shall ever persuade me that _Rasselas_ is not a +noble performance--in design and execution. Never were the expenses of a +mother's funeral more gloriously defrayed by son, than the funeral of +Samuel Johnson's mother by the price of _Rasselas_, written for the +pious purpose of laying her head decently and honourably in the dust. + +_Shepherd._ Ay, that was pittin' literature and genius to a glorious +purpose indeed; and therefore nature and religion smiled on the wark, +and have stamped it with immortality. + +_North._ Samuel was seventy years old when he wrote the _Lives of the +Poets_. + +_Shepherd._ What a fine old buck! No unlike yoursel'. + +_North._ Would it were so! He had his prejudicies, and his partialities, +and his bigotries, and his blindnesses,--but on the same fruit-tree you +see shrivelled pears or apples on the same branch with jargonelles or +golden pippins worthy of paradise. Which would ye show to the +Horticultural Society as a fair specimen of the tree? + +_Shepherd._ Good, kit, good--philosophically picturesque. (_Mimicking +the old man's voice and manner._) + +_North._ Show me the critique that beats his on Pope, and on Dryden-- +nay, even on Milton; and hang me if you may not read his essay on +Shakespeare even after having read Charles Lamb, or heard Coleridge, +with increased admiration of the powers of all three, and of their +insight, through different avenues, and as it might seem almost with +different bodily and mental organs, into Shakespeare's "old exhausted," +and his "new imagined worlds." He was a critic and a moralist who would +have been wholly wise, had he not been partly--constitutionally insane. +For there is blood in the brain, James--even in the organ--the vital +principle of all our "eagle-winged raptures"; and there was a taint of +the black drop of melancholy in his. + +_Shepherd._ Wheesht--wheesht--let us keep aff that subject. All men ever +I knew are mad; and but for that law o' natur, never, never, in this +warld had there been a _Noctes Ambrosianae_. + + + + +CRUMBS FROM THE "NOCTES" + +MISS MITFORD + +_North._ Miss Mitford has not in my opinion either the pathos or humour +of Washington Irving; but she excels him in vigorous conception of +character, and in the truth of her pictures of English life and manners. +Her writings breathe a sound, pure, and healthy morality, and are +pervaded by a genuine rural spirit--the spirit of merry England. Every +line bespeaks the lady. + +_Shepherd._ I admire Miss Mitford just excessively. I dinna wunner at +her being able to write sae weel as she does about drawing-rooms wi' +sofas and settees, and about the fine folk in them seeing themsels in +lookin-glasses frae tap to tae; but what puzzles the like o' me, is her +pictures o' poachers, and tinklers, and pottery-trampers, and ither +neerdoweels, and o' huts and hovels without riggin' by the wayside, and +the cottages o' honest puir men, and byres, and barns, and stackyards, +and merry-makins at winter ingles, and courtship aneath trees, and at +the gable-end of farm houses, 'tween lads and lasses as laigh in life as +the servants in her father's ha'. That's the puzzle, and that's the +praise. But ae word explains a'--Genius--Genius, wull a' the +metafhizzians in the warld ever expound that mysterious monosyllable.-- +_Nov, 1826._ + +HAZLITT + +_Shepherd._. He had a curious power that Hazlitt, as he was ca'd, o' +simulatin' sowl. You could hae taen your Bible oath sometimes, when you +were readin him, that he had a sowl--a human sowl--a sowl to be saved-- +but then, heaven preserve us! in the verra middle aiblins o' a +paragraph, he grew transformed afore your verra face into something +bestial,--you heard a grunt that made ye grue, and there was an ill +smell in the room, as frae a pluff o' sulphur.--_April, 1827._ + +WORDSWORTH + +_Shepherd._ Wordsworth tells the world, in ane of his prefaces, that he +is a water-drinker--and its weel seen on him.--There was a sair want of +speerit through the haill o' yon lang "Excursion." If he had just made +the paragraphs about ae half shorter, and at the end of every ane taen a +caulker, like ony ither man engaged in geyan sair and heavy wark, think +na ye that his "Excursion" would hae been far less fatiguesome?--_April, +1827._ + +_North._ I confess that the "Excursion" is the worst poem, of any +character, in the English language. It contains about two hundred +sonorous lines, some of which appear to be fine, even in the sense, as +well as sound. The remaining seven thousand three hundred are quite +ineffectual. Then, what labour the builder of that lofty rhyme must have +undergone! It is, in its own way, a small tower of Babel, and all built +by a single man.--_Sept., 1825._ + +COLERIDGE + +_North._ James, you don't know S.T. Coleridge--do you? He writes but +indifferent books, begging his pardon: witness his "Friend," his "Lay +Sermons," and, latterly, his "Aids to Reflection"; but he becomes +inspired by the sound of his own silver voice, and pours out wisdom like +a sea. Had he a domestic Gurney, he might publish a Moral Essay, or a +Theological Discourse, or a Metaphysical Disquisition, or a Political +Harangue, every morning throughout the year during his lifetime. + +_Tickler._ Mr. Coleridge does not seem to be aware that he cannot write +a book, but opines that he absolutely has written several, and set many +questions at rest. There's a want of some kind or another in his mind; +but perhaps when he awakes out of his dream, he may get rational and +sober-witted, like other men, who are not always asleep. + +_Shepherd._ The author o' "Christabel," and "The Ancient Mariner," had +better just continue to see visions, and dream dreams--for he's no fit +for the wakin' world.--_April, 1827._ + +FASHIONABLE NOVELS + +_North._ James, I wish you would review for Maga all those fashionable +novels--Novels of High Life; such as _Pelham_--the _Disowned_. + +_Shepherd._ I've read thae twa, and they're baith gude. But the mair I +think on't, the profounder is my conviction that the strength o' human +nature lies either in the highest or lowest estate of life. Characters +in books should either be kings, and princes, and nobles, and on a level +with them, like heroes; or peasants, shepherds, farmers, and the like, +includin' a' orders amaist o' our ain working population. The +intermediate class--that is, leddies and gentlemen in general--are no +worth the Muse's while; for their life is made up chiefly o' mainners,-- +mainners,--mainners;--you canna see the human creters for their claes; +and should ane o' them commit suicide in despair, in lookin' on the dead +body, you are mair taen up wi' its dress than its decease.--_March, +1829._ + +WILL CARLETON + +_Shepherd._ What sort o' vols., sir, are the _Traits and Stories of the +Irish Peasantry_ [W. Carleton], published by Curry in Dublin. + +_North._ Admirable. Truly, intensely Irish. The whole book has the +brogue--never were the outrageous whimsicalities of that strange, wild, +imaginative people so characteristically displayed; nor, in the midst of +all the fun, frolic, and folly, is there any dearth of poetry, pathos, +and passion. The author's a jewel, and he will be reviewed next number. +--_May, 1830._ + +BURNS + +_Shepherd._ I shanna say ony o' mine's [songs] are as gude as some sax +or aucht o' Burns's--for about that number o' Robbie's are o' inimitable +perfection. It was heaven's wull that in them he should transcend a' the +minnesingers o' this warld. But they're too perfeckly beautifu' to be +envied by mortal man--therefore let his memory in them be hallowed for +evermair.--_August, 1834._ + +_Shepherd_. I was wrang in ever hintin ae word in disparagement o' +Burn's _Cottar's Saturday Night_. But the truth is, you see, that the +subjeck's sae heeped up wi' happiness, and sae charged wi' a' sort o' +sanctity--sae national and sae Scottish--that beautifu' as the poem is-- +and really, after a', naething can be mair beautifu'--there's nae +satisfying either paesant or shepherd by ony delineation o't, though +drawn in lines o' licht, and shinin' equally w' genius and wi' piety.-- +_Nov., 1834._ + + + + +LEIGH HUNT + +_Shepherd_. Leigh Hunt truly loved Shelley. + +_North_. And Shelley truly loved Leigh Hunt. Their friendship was +honourable to them both, for it was as disinterested as sincere; and I +hope Gurney will let a certain person in the City understand that I +treat his offer of a reviewal of Mr. Hunt's _London Journal_ with +disdain. If he has anything to say against us or against that gentleman, +either conjunctly or severally, let him out with it in some other +channel, and I promise him a touch and taste of the Crutch. He talks to +me of Maga's desertion of principle; but if he were a Christian--nay, a +man--his heart and head too would tell him that the Animosities are +mortal, but the Humanities live for ever--and that Leigh Hunt has more +talent in his little finger than the puling prig, who has taken upon +himself to lecture Christopher North in a scrawl crawling with forgotten +falsehoods. Mr. Hunt's _London Journal_, may dear James, is not only +beyond all comparison, but out of all sight, the most entertaining and +instructive of all the cheap periodicals; and when laid, as it duly is +once a week, on my breakfast table, it lies there--but is not permitted +to lie long--like a spot of sunshine dazzling the snow.--_Aug_., 1834. + + + + +ANONYMOUS ON COLERIDGE + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, October, 1817] + +SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE "BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA" OF S. T. COLERIDGE, +ESQ., 1817 + +When a man looks back on his past existence, and endeavours to recall +the incidents, events, thoughts, feelings, and passions of which it was +composed, he sees something like a glimmering land of dreams, peopled +with phantasms and realities undistinguishably confused and +intermingled--here illuminated with dazzling splendour, there dim with +melancholy mists,--or it may be shrouded in impenetrable darkness. To +bring, visibly and distinctly before our memory, on the one hand, all +our hours of mirth and joy, and hope and exultation,--and, on the other, +all our perplexities, and fears and sorrows, and despair and agony,-- +(and who has been so uniformly wretched as not to have been often +blest?--who so uniformly blest as not to have been often wretched?)-- +would be as impossible as to awaken, into separate remembrance, all the +changes and varieties which the seasons brought over the material +world,--every gleam of sunshine that beautified the Spring,--every cloud +and tempest that deformed the Winter. In truth, were this power and +domination over the past given unto us, and were we able to read the +history of our lives all faithfully and perspicuously recorded on the +tablets of the inner spirit,--those beings, whose existence had been +most filled with important events and with energetic passions, would be +the most averse to such overwhelming survey--would recoil from trains of +thought which formerly agitated and disturbed, and led them, as it were, +in triumph beneath the yoke of misery or happiness. The soul may be +repelled from the contemplation of the past as much by the brightness +and magnificence of scenes that shifted across the glorious drama of +youth, as by the storms that scattered the fair array into disfigured +fragments; and the melancholy that breathes from vanished delight is, +perhaps, in its utmost intensity, as unendurable as the wretchedness +left by the visitation of calamity. There are spots of sunshine sleeping +on the fields of past existence too beautiful, as there are caves among +its precipices too darksome to be looked on by the eyes of memory; and +to carry on an image borrowed from the analogy between the moral and +physical world, the soul may turn away in sickness from the untroubled +silence of a resplendent Lake, no less than from the haunted gloom of +the thundering Cataract. It is from such thoughts, and dreams, and +reveries, as these, that all men feel how terrible it would be to live +over again their agonies and their transports; that the happiest would +fear to do so as much as the most miserable; and that to look back to +our cradle seems scarcely less awful than to look forward to the grave. + +But if this unwillingness to bring before our souls, in distinct array, +the more solemn and important events of our lives, be a natural and +perhaps a wise feeling, how much more averse must every reflecting man +be to the ransacking of his inmost spirit for all its hidden emotions +and passions, to the tearing away that shroud which oblivion may have +kindly flung over his vices and his follies, or that fine and delicate +veil which Christian humility draws over his virtues and acts of +benevolence. To scrutinize and dissect the character of others is an +idle and unprofitable task; and the most skilful anatomist will often be +forced to withhold his hand when he unexpectedly meets with something he +does not understand--some confirmation of the character of his patient +which is not explicable on his theory of human nature. To become +operators on our own shrinking spirits is something worse; for by +probing the wounds of the soul, what can ensue but callousness or +irritability. And it may be remarked, that those persons who have busied +themselves most with inquiries into the causes, and motives, and +impulses of their actions, have exhibited, in their conduct, the most +lamentable contrast to their theory, and have seemed blinder in their +knowledge than others in their ignorance. + +It will not be supposed that any thing we have now said in any way bears +against the most important duty of self-examination. Many causes there +are existing, both in the best and the worst parts of our nature, which +must render nugatory and deceitful any continued diary of what passes +through the human soul; and no such confessions could, we humbly +conceive, be of use either to ourselves or to the world. But there are +hours of solemn inquiry in which the soul reposes on itself; the true +confessional is not the bar of the public, but it is the altar of +religion; there is a Being before whom we may humble ourselves without +being debased; and there are feelings for which human language has no +expression, and which, in the silence of solitude and of nature, are +known only unto the Eternal. + +The objections, however, which might thus be urged against the writing +and publishing accounts of all our feelings,--all the changes of our +moral constitution,--do not seem to apply with equal force to the +narration of our mere speculative opinions. Their rise, progress, +changes, and maturity may be pretty accurately ascertained; and as the +advance to truth is generally step by step, there seems to be no great +difficulty in recording the leading causes that have formed the body of +our opinions, and created, modified, and coloured our intellectual +character. Yet this work would be alike useless to ourselves and others, +unless pursued with a true magnanimity. It requires, that we should +stand aloof from ourselves, and look down, as from an eminence, on our +souls toiling up the hill of knowledge;--that we should faithfully +record all the assistance we received from guides or brother pilgrims;-- +that we should mask the limit of our utmost ascent, and, without +exaggeration, state the value of our acquisitions. When we consider how +many temptations there are even here to delude ourselves, and by a +seeming air of truth and candour to impose upon others, it will be +allowed, that, instead of composing memoirs of himself, a man of genius +and talent would be far better employed in generalizing the observations +and experiences of his life, and giving them to the world in the form of +philosophic reflections, applicable not to himself alone, but to the +universal mind of Man. + +What good to mankind has ever flowed from the confessions of Rousseau, +or the autobiographical sketch of Hume? From the first we rise with a +confused and miserable sense of weakness and of power--of lofty +aspirations and degrading appetencies--of pride swelling into blasphemy, +and humiliation pitiably grovelling in the dust--of purity of spirit +soaring on the wings of imagination, and grossness of instinct brutally +wallowing in "Epicurus' stye,"--of lofty contempt for the opinion of +mankind, yet the most slavish subjection to their most fatal prejudices-- +of a sublime piety towards God, and a wild violation of his holiest +laws. From the other we rise with feelings of sincere compassion for the +ignorance of the most enlightened. All the prominent features of Hume's +character were invisible to his own eyes; and in that meagre sketch +which has been so much admired, what is there to instruct, to rouse, or +to elevate--what light thrown over the duties of this life or the hopes +of that to come? We wish to speak with tenderness of a man whose moral +character was respectable, and whose talents were of the first order. +But most deeply injurious to every thing lofty and high-toned in human +Virtue, to every thing cheering, and consoling, and sublime in that +Faith which sheds over this Earth a reflection of the heavens, is that +memoir of a worldly-wise Man; in which he seems to contemplate with +indifference the extinction of his own immortal soul, and jibes and +jokes on the dim and awful verge of Eternity. + +We hope that our readers will forgive these very imperfect reflections +on a subject of deep interest, and accompany us now on our examination +of Mr. Coleridge's "Literary Life," the very singular work which caused +our ideas to run in that channel. It does not contain an account of his +opinions and literary exploits alone, but lays open, not unfrequently, +the character of the Man as well as of the Author; and we are compelled +to think, that while it strengthens every argument against the +composition of such Memoirs, it does, without benefiting the cause +either of virtue, knowledge, or religion, exhibit many mournful +sacrifices of personal dignity, after which it seems impossible that Mr. +Coleridge can be greatly respected either by the Public or himself. + +Considered merely in a literary point of view, the work is most +execrable. He rambles from one subject to another in the most wayward +and capricious manner; either from indolence, or ignorance, or weakness, +he has never in one single instance finished a discussion; and while he +darkens what was dark before into tenfold obscurity, he so treats the +most ordinary common-places as to give them the air of mysteries, till +we no longer know the faces of our old acquaintances beneath their cowl +and hood, but witness plain flesh and blood matters of fact miraculously +converted into a troop of phantoms. That he is a man of genius is +certain; but he is not a man of a strong intellect nor of powerful +talents. He has a great deal of fancy and imagination, but little or no +real feeling, and certainly no judgment. He cannot form to himself any +harmonious landscape such as it exists in nature, but beautified by the +serene light of the imagination. He cannot conceive simple and majestic +groupes of human figures and characters acting on the theatre of real +existence. But his pictures of nature are fine only as imaging the +dreaminess, and obscurity, and confusion of distempered sleep; while all +his agents pass before our eyes like shadows, and only impress and +affect us with a phantasmagorial splendour. + +It is impossible to read many pages of this work without thinking that +Mr. Coleridge conceives himself to be a far greater man than the Public +is likely to admit; and we wish to waken him from what seems to us a +most ludicrous delusion. He seems to believe that every tongue is +wagging in his praise--that every ear is open to imbibe the oracular +breathings of his inspiration. Even when he would fain convince us that +his soul is wholly occupied with some other illustrious character, he +breaks out into laudatory exclamations concerning himself; no sound is +so sweet to him as that of his own voice; the ground is hallowed on +which his footsteps tread; and there seems to him something more than +human in his very shadow. He will read no books that other people read; +his scorn is as misplaced and extravagant as his admiration; opinions +that seem to tally with his own wild ravings are holy and inspired; and +unless agreeable to his creed, the wisdom of ages is folly; and wits, +whom the world worship, dwarfed when they approach his venerable side. +His admiration of nature or of man, we had almost said his religious +feelings towards his God, are all narrowed, weakened, and corrupted, and +poisoned by inveterate and diseased egotism; and instead of his mind +reflecting the beauty and glory of nature, he seems to consider the +mighty universe itself as nothing better than a mirror in which, with a +grinning and idiot self-complacency, he may contemplate the Physiognomy +of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Though he has yet done nothing in any one +department of human knowledge, yet he speaks of his theories, and plans, +and views, and discoveries, as if he had produced some memorable +revolution in Science. He at all times connects his own name in Poetry +with Shakespeare, and Spenser, and Milton; in politics with Burke, and +Fox, and Pitt; in metaphysics with Locke, and Hartley, and Berkely, and +Kant--feeling himself not only to be the worthy compeer of those +illustrious Spirits, but to unite, in his own mighty intellect, all the +glorious powers and faculties by which they were separately +distinguished, as if his soul were endowed with all human power, and was +the depository of the aggregate, or rather the essence of all human +knowledge. So deplorable a delusion as this, has only been equalled by +that of Joanna Southcote, who mistook a complaint in the bowels for the +divine afflatus; and believed herself about to give birth to the +regenerator of the world, when sick unto death of an incurable and +loathsome disease. + +The truth is that Mr. Coleridge is but an obscure name in English +literature. In London he is well known in literary society, and justly +admired for his extraordinary loquacity: he has his own little circle of +devoted worshippers, and he mistakes their foolish babbling for the +voice of the world. His name, too, has been often foisted into Reviews, +and accordingly is known to many who never saw any of his works. In +Scotland few know or care any thing about him; and perhaps no man who +has spoken and written so much, and occasionally with so much genius and +ability, ever made so little impression on the public mind. Few people +know how to spell or pronounce his name; and were he to drop from the +clouds among any given number of well informed and intelligent men north +of the Tweed, he would find it impossible to make any intelligible +communication respecting himself; for of him and his writings there +would prevail only a perplexing dream, or the most untroubled ignorance. +We cannot see in what the state of literature would have been different +had he been cut off in childhood, or had he never been born; for except +a few wild and fanciful ballads, he has produced nothing worthy +remembrance. Yet, insignificant as he assuredly is, he cannot put pen to +paper without a feeling that millions of eyes are fixed upon him; and he +scatters his Sibylline Leaves around him, with as majestical an air as +if a crowd of enthusiastic admirers were rushing forward to grasp the +divine promulgations, instead of their being, as in fact they are, +coldly received by the accidental passenger, like a lying lottery puff +or a quack advertisement. + +This most miserable arrogance seems, in the present age, confined almost +exclusively to the original members of the Lake School, and is, we +think, worthy of especial notice, as one of the leading features of +their character. It would be difficult to defend it either in Southey or +Wordsworth; but in Coleridge it is altogether ridiculous. Southey has +undoubtedly written four noble Poems--Thalaba, Madoc, Kehama, and +Roderick; and if the Poets of this age are admitted, by the voice of +posterity, to take their places by the side of the Mighty of former +times in the Temple of Immortality, he will be one of that sacred +company. Wordsworth, too, with all his manifold errors and defects, has, +we think, won to himself a great name, and, in point of originality, +will be considered as second to no man of this age. They are entitled to +think highly of themselves, in comparison with their most highly gifted +contemporaries; and therefore, though their arrogance may be offensive, +as it often is, it is seldom or ever utterly ridiculous. But Mr. +Coleridge stands on much lower ground, and will be known to future times +only as a man who overrated and abused his talents--who saw glimpses of +that glory which he could not grasp--who presumptuously came forward to +officiate as High-Priest at mysteries beyond his ken--and who carried +himself as if he had been familiarly admitted into the Penetralia of +Nature, when in truth he kept perpetually stumbling at the very +Threshold. + +This absurd self-elevation forms a striking contrast with the dignified +deportment of all the other great living Poets. Throughout all the works +of Scott, the most original-minded man of this generation of Poets, +scarcely a single allusion is made to himself; and then it is with a +truly delightful simplicity, as if he were not aware of his immeasurable +superiority to the ordinary run of mankind. From the rude songs of our +forefathers he has created a kind of Poetry, which at once brought over +the dull scenes of this our unimaginative life all the pomp, and glory, +and magnificence of a chivalrous age. He speaks to us like some ancient +Bard awakened from his tomb, and singing of visions not revealed in +dreams, but contemplated in all the freshness and splendour of reality. +Since he sung his bold, and wild, and romantic lays, a more religious +solemnity breathes from our mouldering Abbeys, and a sterner grandeur +frowns over our time-shattered Castles. He has peopled our hills with +Heroes, even as Ossian peopled them; and, like a presiding spirit, his +Image haunts the magnificent cliffs of our Lakes and Seas. And if he be, +as every heart feels, the author of those noble Prose Works that +continue to flash upon the world, to him exclusively belongs the glory +of wedding Fiction and History in delighted union, and of embodying in +imperishable records the manners, character, soul, and spirit of +Caledonia; so that, if all her annals were lost, her memory would in +those tales be immortal. His truly is a name that comes to the heart of +every Briton with a start of exultation, whether it be heard in the hum +of cities or in the solitude of nature. What has Campbell ever obtruded +on the Public of his private history? Yet his is a name that will be +hallowed for ever in the souls of pure, and aspiring, and devout youth; +and to those lofty contemplations in which Poetry lends its aid to +Religion, his immortal Muse will impart a more enthusiastic glow, while +it blends in one majestic hymn all the noblest feelings which can spring +from earth, with all the most glorious hopes that come from the silence +of eternity. Byron indeed speaks of himself often, but his is like the +voice of an angel heard crying in the storm or the whirlwind; and we +listen with a kind of mysterious dread to the tones of a Being whom we +scarcely believe to be kindred to ourselves, while he sounds the depths +of our nature, and illuminates them with the lightnings of his genius. +And finally, who more gracefully unostentatious than Moore, a Poet who +has shed delight, and joy, and rapture, and exultation, through the +spirit of an enthusiastic People, and whose name is associated in his +native Land with every thing noble and glorious in the cause of +Patriotism and Liberty. We could easily add to the illustrious list; but +suffice it to say, that our Poets do in general bear their faculties +meekly and manfully, trusting to their conscious powers, and the +susceptibility of generous and enlightened natures, not yet extinct in +Britain, whatever Mr. Coleridge may think; for certain it is, that a +host of worshippers will crowd into the Temple, when the Priest is +inspired, and the flame he kindles is from Heaven. + +Such has been the character of great Poets in all countries and in all +times. Fame is dear to them as their vital existence--but they love it +not with the perplexity of fear, but the calmness of certain possession. +They know that the debt which nature owes them must be paid, and they +hold in surety thereof the universal passions of mankind. So Milton felt +and spoke of himself, with an air of grandeur, and the voice as of an +Archangel, distinctly hearing in his soul the music of after +generations, and the thunder of his mighty name rolling through the +darkness of futurity. So divine Shakespeare felt and spoke; he cared not +for the mere acclamations of his subjects; in all the gentleness of his +heavenly spirit he felt himself to be their prophet and their king, and +knew, + + When all the breathers of this world are dead, + That he entombed in men's eyes would lie. + +Indeed, who that knows any thing of Poetry could for a moment suppose it +otherwise? Whatever made a great Poet but the inspiration of delight and +love in himself, and an empassioned desire to communicate them to the +wide spirit of kindred existence? Poetry, like Religion, must be free +from all grovelling feelings; and above all, from jealousy, envy, and +uncharitableness. And the true Poet, like the Preacher of the true +religion, will seek to win unto himself and his Faith, a belief whose +foundation is in the depths of love, and whose pillars are the noblest +passions of humanity. + +It would seem that in truly great souls all feeling of self-importance, +in its narrower sense, must be incompatible with the consciousness of a +mighty achievement. The idea of the mere faculty or power is absorbed as +it were in the idea of the work performed. That work stands out in its +glory from the mind of its Creator; and in the contemplation of it, he +forgets that he himself was the cause of its existence, or feels only a +dim but sublime association between himself and the object of his +admiration; and when he does think of himself in conjunction with +others, he feels towards the scoffer only a pitying sorrow for his +blindness--being assured, that though at all times there will be +weakness, and ignorance, and worthlessness, which can hold no communion +with him or with his thoughts, so will there be at all times the pure, +the noble, and the pious, whose delight it will be to love, to admire, +and to imitate; and that never, at any point of time, past, present, or +to come, can a true Poet be defrauded of his just fame. + +But we need not speak of poets alone (though we have done so at present +to expose the miserable pretensions of Mr. Coleridge), but look through +all the bright ranks of men distinguished by mental power, in whatever +department of human science. It is our faith, that without moral there +can be no intellectual grandeur; and surely the self-conceit and +arrogance which we have been exposing, are altogether incompatible with +lofty feelings and majestic principles. It is the Dwarf alone who +endeavours to strut himself into the height of the surrounding company; +but the man of princely stature seems unconscious of the strength in +which nevertheless he rejoices, and only sees his superiority in the +gaze of admiration which he commands. Look at the most inventive spirits +of this country,--those whose intellects have achieved the most +memorable triumphs. Take, for example, Leslie in physical science, and +what airs of majesty does he ever assume? What is Samuel Coleridge +compared to such a man? What is an ingenious and fanciful versifier to +him who has, like a magician, gained command over the very elements of +nature,--who has realized the fictions of Poetry,--and to whom Frost and +Fire are ministering and obedient spirits? But of this enough.--It is a +position that doubtless might require some modification, but in the +main, it is and must be true, that real Greatness, whether in Intellect, +Genius, or Virtue, is dignified and unostentatious; and that no potent +spirit ever whimpered over the blindness of the age to his merits, and, +like Mr. Coleridge, or a child blubbering for the moon, with clamorous +outcries implored and imprecated reputation. + +The very first sentence of this Literary Biography shows how incompetent +Mr. Coleridge is for the task he has undertaken. + + It has been my lot to have had my name introduced both in conversation + and in print, more frequently than I find it easy to explain; _whether + I consider the fewness, unimportance, and limited circulation of my + writings, or the retirement and distance in which I have lived, both + from the literary and political world_. + +Now, it is obvious, that if his writings be few, and unimportant, and +unknown, Mr. Coleridge can have no reason for composing his Literary +Biography. Yet in singular contradiction to himself-- + +"If," says he, at p. 217, vol. i, "_the compositions which I have made +public_, and that too in a form the most certain of an extensive +circulation, though the least flattering to an author's self-love, had +been published in books, they _would have filled a respectable number of +volumes."_ + +He then adds, + + Seldom have I written that in a day, the acquisition or investigation + of which had not cost me _the precious labour of a month!_ + +He then bursts out into this magnificent exclamation, + + Would that the criterion of a scholar's ability were the number and + moral value of the truths which he has been the means of throwing + into general circulation! + +And he sums up all by declaring, + + By what I _have_ effected am I to be judged by my fellow men. + +The truth is, that Mr. Coleridge has lived, as much as any man of his +time, in literary and political society, and that he has sought every +opportunity of keeping himself in the eye of the public, as restlessly +as any charlatan who ever exhibited on the stage. To use his own words, +"In 1794, when I had barely passed the verge of manhood, I published a +small volume of juvenile poems." These poems, by dint of puffing, +reached a third edition; and though Mr. Coleridge pretends now to think +but little of them, it is amusing to see how vehemently he defends them +against criticism, and how pompously he speaks of such paltry trifles. +"They were marked _by an ease and simplicity_ which I have studied, +_perhaps with inferior success,_ to bestow on my latter compositions." +But he afterwards repents of this sneer at his later compositions, and +tells us, that they have nearly reached his standard of perfection! +Indeed, his vanity extends farther back than his juvenile poems; and he +says, "For a school boy, I was _above par in English versification_, and +had already produced two or three compositions, which I may venture to +say, _without reference to my age, were somewhat above mediocrity_." +Happily he has preserved one of those wonderful productions of his +precocious boyhood, and our readers will judge for themselves what a +clever child it was. + + Underneath a huge oak-tree, + There was of swine a huge company; + That grunted as they crunch'd the mast, + For that was ripe and fell full fast. + Then they trotted away for the wind grew high, + One acorn they left and no more might you spy. + +It is a common remark, that wonderful children seldom perform the +promises of their youth, and undoubtedly this fine effusion has not been +followed in Mr. Coleridge's riper years by works of proportionate merit. + +We see, then, that our author came very early into public notice; and +from that time to this, he has not allowed one year to pass without +endeavouring to extend his notoriety. His poems were soon followed (they +may have been preceded) by a tragedy, entitled, the "Fall of +Robespierre," a meagre performance, but one which, from the nature of +the subject, attracted considerable attention. He also wrote a whole +book, utterly incomprehensible to Mr. Southey, we are sure, on that +Poet's Joan of Arc; and became as celebrated for his metaphysical +absurdities, as his friend had become for the bright promise of genius +exhibited by that unequal, but spirited poem. He next published a Series +of political essays, entitled, the "Watchman," and "Conciones ad +Populum." He next started up, fresh from the schools of Germany, as the +principal writer in the Morning Post, a _strong opposition paper_. He +then published various outrageous political poems, some of them of a +gross personal nature. He afterwards assisted Mr. Wordsworth in planning +his Lyrical Ballads; and contributing several poems to that collection, +he shared in the notoriety of the Lake School. He next published a +mysterious periodical work, "The Friend," in which he declared it was +his intention to settle at once, and for ever, the principles of +morality, religion, taste, manners, and the fine arts, but which died of +a galloping consumption in the twenty-eighth week of its age. He then +published the tragedy of "Remorse," which dragged out a miserable +existence of twenty nights, on the boards of Drury-Lane, and then +expired for ever, like the oil of the orchestral lamps. He then forsook +the stage for the pulpit, and, by particular desire of his congregation, +published two "Lay Sermons." He then walked in broad day-light into the +shop of Mr. Murray, Albemarle Street, London, with two ladies hanging on +each arm, Geraldine and Christabel,--a bold step for a person at all +desirous of a good reputation, and most of the trade have looked shy at +him since that exhibition. Since that time, however, he has contrived +means of giving to the world a collected edition of all his poems, and +advanced to the front of the stage with a thick octavo in each hand, all +about himself and other Incomprehensibilities. We had forgot that he was +likewise a contributor to Mr. Southey's Omniana, where the Editor of the +Edinburgh Review is politely denominated an "ass," and then _became +himself a writer in the said Review_. And to sum up "the strange +eventful history" of this modest, and obscure, and retired person, we +must mention, that in his youth he held forth in a vast number of +Unitarian chapels--preached his way through Bristol, and "Brummagem," +and Manchester, in a "blue coat and white waistcoat"; and in after +years, when he was not so much afraid of "the scarlet woman," did, in a +full suit of sables, lecture on Poesy, to "crowded, and, need I add, +highly respectable audiences," at the Royal Institution. After this +slight and imperfect outline of his poetical, oratorical, metaphysical, +political, and theological exploits, our readers will judge, when they +hear him talking of "his retirement and distance from the literary and +political world," what are his talents for autobiography, and how far he +has penetrated into the mysterious non-entities of his own character. + +Mr. Coleridge has written conspicuously on the Association of Ideas, but +his own do not seem to be connected either by time, place, cause and +effect, resemblance, or contrast, and accordingly it is no easy matter +to follow him through all the vagaries of his Literary Life. We are +told, + + At school _I enjoyed the inestimable advantage_ of a very sensible, + though at the same time a very severe master.--I learnt from + him that Poetry, even that of the loftiest and wildest odes, had a + logic of its own as severe as that of science.--Lute, harp, and lyre; + muse, muses, and inspirations; Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene; + were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now + exclaiming, _"Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and Ink! Boy you mean! Muse! boy! + Muse! your Nurse's daughter you mean! Pierian Spring! O Aye! the + cloister Pump!"_--Our classical knowledge was the least of the good + gifts which we derived from his zealous and conscientious tutorage. + +With the then head-master of the grammar-school, Christ Hospital, we +were not personally acquainted; but we cannot help thinking that he has +been singularly unfortunate in his Eulogist. He seems to have gone out +of his province, and far out of his depth, when he attempted to teach +boys the profoundest principles of Poetry. But we must also add, that we +cannot credit this account of him; for this doctrine of poetry being at +all times logical, is that of which Wordsworth and Coleridge take so +much credit to themselves for the discovery; and verily it is one too +wilfully absurd and extravagant to have entered into the head of an +honest man, whose time must have been wholly occupied with the +instruction of children. Indeed Mr. Coleridge's own poetical practices +render this story incredible; for, during many years of his authorship, +his diction was wholly at variance with such a rule, and the strain of +his poetry as illogical as can be well imagined. When Mr. Bowyer +prohibited his pupils from using, in their themes, the above-mentioned +names, he did, we humbly submit, prohibit them from using the best means +of purifying their taste and exalting their imagination. Nothing could +be so graceful, nothing so natural, as classical allusions, in the +exercises of young minds, when first admitted to the fountains of Greek +and Latin Poetry; and the Teacher who could seek to dissuade their +ingenious souls from such delightful dreams, by coarse, vulgar, and +indecent ribaldry, instead of deserving the name of "sensible," must +have been a low-minded vulgar fellow, fitter for the Porter than the +Master of such an Establishment. But the truth probably is, that all +this is a fiction of Mr. Coleridge, whose wit is at all times most +execrable and disgusting. Whatever the merits of his Master were, Mr. +Coleridge, even from his own account, seems to have derived little +benefit from his instruction, and for the "inestimable advantage," of +which he speaks, we look in vain through this Narrative. In spite of so +excellent a teacher, we find Master Coleridge, + + Even before my fifteenth year, bewildered _in metaphysicks and in + theological controversy_. Nothing else pleased me. _History and + particular facts_ lost all interest in my mind. Poetry itself, yea + novels and romances, became insipid to me. This preposterous pursuit + was beyond doubt _injurious, both to my natural powers and to the + progress of my education._ + +This deplorable condition of mind continued "even unto my seventeenth +year." And now our readers must prepare themselves for a mighty and +wonderful change, wrought, all on a sudden, on the moral and +intellectual character of this metaphysical Greenhorn. _"Mr. Bowles' +Sonnets, twenty in number, and just then published in a quarto volume_ +(a most important circumstance!) _were put into my hand!"_ To those +sonnets, next to the School-master's lectures on Poetry, Mr. Coleridge +attributes the strength, vigour, and extension, of his own very original +Genius. + + By those works, year after year, I was enthusiastically delighted and + inspired. My earliest acquaintances will not have forgotten the + undisciplined eagerness and impetuous zeal with which I labored to + make proselytes, not only _of my companions, but of all with whom I + conversed, of whatever rank, and in whatever place._ As my school + finances did not permit me to purchase copies, I made, within less + than a year and a half, _more than forty transcriptions, as the best + presents I could make to those who had in any way won my regard._ My + obligations to Mr. Bowles were indeed important, and for radical good! + +There must be some grievous natural defect in that mind which, even at +the age of seventeen, could act so insanely; and we cannot but think, +that no real and healthy sensibility could have exaggerated to itself so +grossly the merits of Bowles' Sonnets. They are undoubtedly most +beautiful, and we willingly pay our tribute of admiration to the genius +of the amiable writer; but they neither did nor could produce any such +effects as are here described, except upon a mind singularly weak and +helpless. We must, however, take the fact as we find it; and Mr. +Coleridge's first step, after his worship of Bowles, was to see +distinctly into the defects and deficiencies of Pope (a writer whom +Bowles most especially admires, and has edited), and through all the +false diction and borrowed plumage of Gray! But here Mr. Coleridge drops +the subject of Poetry for the present, and proceeds to other important +matters. + +We regret that Mr. Coleridge has passed over without notice all the +years which he spent "in the happy quiet of ever-honoured Jesus College, +Cambridge." That must have been the most important period of his life, +and was surely more worthy of record than the metaphysical dreams or the +poetical extravagancies of his boyhood. He tells us, that he was sent to +the University "an excellent Greek and Latin scholar, and a tolerable +Hebraist"; and there might have been something rousing and elevating to +young minds of genius and power, in his picture of himself, pursuits, +visions, and attainments, during the bright and glorious morning of +life, when he inhabited a dwelling of surpassing magnificence, guarded +and hallowed, and sublimed by the Shadows of the Mighty. We should wish +to know what progress he made there in his own favourite studies; what +place he occupied, or supposed he occupied, among his numerous +contemporaries of talent; how much he was inspired by the genius of the +place; how far he "pierced the caves of old Philosophy," or sounded the +depths of the Physical Sciences. All this unfortunately is omitted, and +he hurries on to details often trifling and uninfluential, sometimes +low, vile, and vulgar, and, what is worse, occasionally inconsistent +with any feeling of personal dignity and self-respect. + +After leaving College, instead of betaking himself to some respectable +calling, Mr. Coleridge, with his characteristic modesty, determined to +set on foot a periodical work called "The Watchman," that through it +"_all might know the truth_." The price of this very useful article was +_"four-pence."_ Off he set on a tour to the north to procure +subscribers, "preaching in most of the great towns as a hireless +Volunteer, in a blue coat and white waistcoat, that not a rag of the +Woman of Babylon might be seen on me." In preaching, his object was to +show that our Saviour was the real son of Joseph, and that the +Crucifixion was a matter of small importance. Mr. Coleridge is now a +most zealous member of the Church of England--devoutly believes every +iota in the thirty-nine articles, and that the Christian Religion is +only to be found in its purity in the homilies and liturgy of that +Church. Yet, on looking back to his Unitarian zeal, he exclaims, + + O, never can I remember those days _with either shame or regret!_ + For I was _most sincere, most disinterested! Wealth, rank, life + itself,_ then seem'd cheap to me, compared with the interests of + truth, and the will of my Maker. I cannot even accuse myself of having + been actuated by _vanity!_ for in the expansion of my enthusiasm _I + did not think of myself at all!_ + + +This is delectable. What does he mean by saying that life seemed cheap? +What danger could there be in the performance of his exploits, except +that of being committed as a Vagrant? What indeed could rank appear to a +person thus voluntarily degraded? Or who would expect vanity to be +conscious of its own loathsomeness? During this tour he seems to have +been constantly exposed to the insults of the vile and the vulgar, and +to have associated with persons whose company must have been most odious +to a Gentleman. Greasy Tallow-chandlers, and pursey Woollen-drapers, and +grim-featured dealers in Hard-ware, were his associates at Manchester, +Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield; and among them the light of truth was +to be shed from its cloudy tabernacle in Mr. Coleridge's Pericranium. At +the house of a "Brummagem Patriot" he appears to have got dead drunk +with strong ale and tobacco, and in that pitiable condition he was +exposed to his disciples, lying upon a sofa, "with my face like a wall +that is white-washing, _deathly_ pale, and with the cold drops of +perspiration running down it from my forehead." Some one having said, +"Have you seen a paper to-day, Mr. Coleridge?" the wretched man replied, +with all the staring stupidity of his lamentable condition, "Sir! I am +far from convinced that a Christian is permitted to read either +newspapers, or any other works of merely political and temporary +interest." This witticism quite enchanted his enlightened auditors, and +they prolonged their festivities to an "early hour next morning." Having +returned to London with a thousand subscribers on his list, the +"Watchman" appeared in all his glory; but, alas! not on the day fixed +for the first burst of his effulgence; which foolish delay incensed many +of his subscribers. The Watchman, on his second appearance, spoke +blasphemously, and made indecent applications of Scriptural language; +then, instead of abusing Government and Aristocrats, as Mr. Coleridge +had pledged himself to his constituents to do, he attacked his own +Party; so that in seven weeks, before the shoes were old in which he +travelled to Sheffield, the Watchman went the way of all flesh, and his +remains were scattered "through sundry old iron shops," where for one +penny could be purchased each precious relic. To crown all, "his London +Publisher was a ----"; and Mr. Coleridge very narrowly escaped being +thrown into jail for this his heroic attempt to shed over the +manufacturing towns the illumination of knowledge. We refrain from +making any comments on this deplorable story. This Philosopher, and +Theologian, and Patriot, now retired to a village in Somersetshire, and, +after having sought to enlighten the whole world, discovered that he +himself was in utter darkness. + + Doubts rushed in, broke upon me from the fountains of the great + deep, and fell from the windows of heaven. The fontal truths of + natural Religion, and the book of Revelation, alike contributed to the + flood; and it was long ere my Ark touched upon Ararat, and rested. + My head was with Spinoza, though my heart was with Paul and John.... + +We have no room here to expose, as it deserves to be exposed, the +multitudinous political inconsistence of Mr. Coleridge, but we beg leave +to state one single fact: He abhorred, hated, and despised Mr. Pitt,-- +and he now loves and reveres his memory. By far the most spirited and +powerful of his poetical writings, is the War Eclogue, Slaughter, Fire, +and Famine; and in that composition he loads the Minister with +imprecations and curses, long, loud, and deep. But afterwards, when he +has thought it prudent to change his Principles, he denies that he ever +felt any indignation towards Mr. Pitt; and with the most unblushing +falsehood declares, that at the very moment his muse was consigning him +to infamy, death, and damnation, he would "have interposed his body +between him and danger." We believe that all good men, of all parties, +regard Mr. Coleridge with pity and contempt. + +Of the latter days of his literary life, Mr. Coleridge gives us no +satisfactory account. The whole of the second volume is interspersed +with mysterious inuendoes. He complains of the loss of all his friends, +not by death, but estrangement. He tries to account for the enmity of +the world to him, a harmless and humane man, who wishes well to all +created things, and "of his wondering finds no end." He upbraids himself +with indolence, procrastination, neglect of his worldly concerns, and +all other bad habits,--and then, with incredible inconsistency, vaunts +loudly of his successful efforts in the cause of Literature, Philosophy, +Morality, and Religion. Above all, he weeps and wails over the malignity +of Reviewers, who have persecuted him almost from his very cradle, and +seem resolved to bark him into the grave. He is haunted by the Image of +a Reviewer wherever he goes. They "push him from his stool," and by his +bedside they cry, "Sleep no more." They may abuse whomsoever they think +fit, save himself and Mr. Wordsworth. All others are fair game--and he +chuckles to see them brought down. But his sacred person must be +inviolate, and rudely to touch it, is not high treason, it is impiety. +Yet his "ever-honoured friend, the laurel-honouring Laureate," is a +Reviewer--his friend Mr. Thomas Moore is a Reviewer--his friend Dr. +Middleton, Bishop of Calcutta, was the Editor of a Review--almost every +friend he ever had is a Reviewer;--and to crown all, he himself is a +Reviewer. Every person who laughs at his silly Poems--and his +incomprehensible metaphysics, is malignant--in which case, there can be +little benevolence in this world; and while Mr. Francis Jeffrey is alive +and merry, there can be no happiness here below for Mr. Samuel +Coleridge. + +And here we come to speak of a matter, which, though somewhat of a +personal and private nature, is well deserving of mention in a Review of +Mr. Coleridge's Literary Life, for sincerity is the first of virtues, +and without it no man can be respectable or useful. He has, in this +Work, accused Mr. Jeffrey of meanness--hypocrisy--falsehood--and breach +of hospitality. That gentleman is able to defend himself--and his +defence is no business of ours. But we now tell Mr. Coleridge, that +instead of humbling his Adversary, he has heaped upon his own head the +ashes of disgrace--and with his own blundering hands, so stained his +character as a man of honour and high principles, that the mark can +never be effaced. All the most offensive attacks on the writings of +Wordsworth and Southey, had been made by Mr. Jeffrey before his visit to +Keswick. Yet, does Coleridge receive him with open arms, according to +his own account--listen, well-pleased, to all his compliments--talk to +him for hours on his Literary Projects--dine with him as his guest at an +Inn--tell him that he knew Mr. Wordsworth would be most happy to see +him--and in all respects behave to him with a politeness bordering on +servility. And after all this, merely because his own vile verses were +crumpled up like so much waste paper, by the grasp of a powerful hand in +the Edinburgh Review, he accuses Mr. Jeffrey of abusing hospitality +which he never received, and forgets, that instead of being the Host, he +himself was the smiling and obsequious Guest of the man he pretends to +have despised. With all this miserable forgetfulness of dignity and +self-respect, he mounts the high horse, from which he instantly is +tumbled into the dirt; and in his angry ravings collects together all +the foul trash of literary gossip to fling at his adversary, but which +is blown stifling back upon himself with odium and infamy. But let him +call to mind his own conduct, and talk not of Mr. Jeffrey. Many +witnesses are yet living of his own egotism and malignity; and often has +he heaped upon his "beloved Friend, the laurel-honouring Laureate," +epithets of contempt, and pity, and disgust, though now it may suit his +paltry purposes to worship and idolize. Of Mr. Southey we at all times +think, and shall speak, with respect and admiration; but his open +adversaries are, like Mr. Jeffrey, less formidable than his unprincipled +Friends. When Greek and Trojan meet on the plain, there is an interest +in the combat; but it is hateful and painful to think, that a hero +should be wounded behind his back, and by a poisoned stiletto in the +hand of a false Friend. + +The concluding chapter of this Biography is perhaps the most pitiful of +the whole, and contains a most surprising mixture of the pathetic and +the ludicrous. + + "Strange," says he, "as the delusion may appear, yet it is most + true, that three years ago I did not know or believe that I had an + enemy in the world; and now even my strongest consolations of + gratitude are mingled with fear, and I reproach myself for being too + often disposed to ask,--Have I one friend?" + +We are thus prepared for the narration of some grievous cruelty, or +ingratitude, or malice--some violation of his peace, or robbery of his +reputation; but our readers will start when they are informed, that this +melancholy lament is occasioned solely by the cruel treatment which his +poem of Christabel received from the Edinburgh Review and other +periodical Journals! It was, he tells us, universally admired in +manuscript--he recited it many hundred times to men, women, and +children, and always with an electrical effect--it was bepraised by most +of the great Poets of the day--and for twenty years he was urged to give +it to the world. But alas! no sooner had the Lady Christabel "come out," +than all the rules of good-breeding and politeness were broken through, +and the loud laugh of scorn and ridicule from every quarter assailed the +ears of the fantastic Hoyden. But let Mr. Coleridge be consoled. Mr. +Scott and Lord Byron are good-natured enough to admire Christabel, and +the Public have not forgotten that his Lordship handed her Ladyship upon +the stage. It is indeed most strange, that Mr., Coleridge is not +satisfied with the praise of those he admires,--but pines away for the +commendation of those he contemns. + +Having brought down his literary life to the great epoch of the +publication of Christabel, he there stops short; and that the world may +compare him as he appears at that aera to his former self, when "he set +sail from Yarmouth on the morning of the 10th September, 1798, in the +Hamburg Packet," he has republished, from his periodical work the +"Friend," seventy pages of Satyrane's Letters. As a specimen of his wit +in 1798, our readers may take the following:-- + +We were all on the deck, but in a short time I observed marks of + dismay. The Lady retired to the cabin in some confusion; and many + of the faces round me assumed a very doleful and frog-coloured + appearance; and within an hour the number of those on deck was + lessened by one half. I was giddy, but not sick; and the giddiness + soon went away, but left a feverishness and want of appetite, which I + attributed, in great measure, to the "_saeva mephitis_" of the + bilge-water; and it was certainly not decreased by the _exportations + from the cabin_. However, I was well enough to join the able-bodied + passengers, one of whom observed, not inaptly, that Momus might have + discovered an easier _way to see a man's inside_ than by placing a + window in his breast. He needed only have taken a salt-water trip in a + packet boat. I am inclined to believe, that a packet is far superior + to a stage-coach as a means of making men _open out to each other_! + +The importance of his observations during the voyage may be estimated by +this one:-- + + At four o'clock I observed a wild duck swimming on the waves,_a single + solitary wild duck!_ It is not easy to conceive how interesting a + thing it looked in that round objectless desert of waters! + +At the house of Klopstock, brother of the Poet, he saw a portrait of +Lessing, which he thus describes to the Public:--"His eyes were +uncommonly _like mine_! if any thing, rather larger and more prominent! +But the lower part of his face I and his nose--O what an exquisite +expression of elegance and sensibility!" He then gives a long account of +his interview with Klopstock the Poet, in which he makes that great man +talk in a very silly, weak, and ignorant manner. Mr. Coleridge not only +sets him right in all his opinions on English literature, but also is +kind enough to correct, in a very authoritative and dictatorial tone, +his erroneous views of the characteristic merits and defects of the most +celebrated German Writers. He has indeed the ball in his own hands +throughout the whole game; and Klopstock, who, he says, "was +seventy-four years old, with legs enormously swollen," is beaten to a +standstill. We are likewise presented with an account of a conversation +which his friend W. held with the German Poet, in which the author of +the Messiah makes a still more paltry figure. We can conceive nothing +more odious and brutal, than two young ignorant lads from Cambridge +forcing themselves upon the retirement of this illustrious old man, and, +instead of listening with love, admiration and reverence, to his +sentiments and opinions, insolently obtruding upon him their own crude +and mistaken fancies,--contradicting imperiously every thing he +advances,--taking leave of him with a consciousness of their own +superiority,--and, finally, talking of him and his genius in terms of +indifference bordering on contempt. This Mr. W. had the folly and the +insolence to say to Klopstock, who was enthusiastically praising the +Oberon of Wieland, that he never could see the smallest beauty in any +part of that Poem. + +We must now conclude our account of this "unaccountable" production. It +has not been in our power to enter into any discussion with Mr. +Coleridge on the various subjects of Poetry and Philosophy, which he +has, we think, vainly endeavoured to elucidate. But we shall, on a +future occasion, meet him on his own favourite ground. No less than 182 +pages of the second volume are dedicated to the poetry of Mr. +Wordsworth. He has endeavoured to define poetry--to explain the +philosophy of metre--to settle the boundaries of poetic diction--and to +show, finally, "What it is probable Mr. Wordsworth meant to say in his +dissertation prefixed to his Lyrical Ballads." As Mr. Coleridge has not +only studied the laws of poetical composition, but is a Poet of +considerable powers, there are, in this part of his Book, many acute, +ingenious, and even sensible observations and remarks; but he never +knows when to have done,--explains what requires no explanation,--often +leaves untouched the very difficulty he starts,--and when he has poured +before us a glimpse of light upon the shapeless form of some dark +conception, he seems to take a wilful pleasure in its immediate +extinction, and leads "us floundering on, and quite astray," through the +deepening shadows of interminable night. + +One instance there is of magnificent promise, and laughable +non-performance, unequalled in the annals of literary History. Mr. +Coleridge informs us, that he and Mr. Wordsworth (he is not certain which +is entitled to the glory of the first discovery) have found out the +difference between Fancy and Imagination. This discovery, it is +prophesied, will have an incalculable influence on the progress of all +the Fine Arts. He has written a long chapter purposely to prepare our +minds for the great discussion. The audience is assembled--the curtain +is drawn up--and there, in his gown, cap, and wig, is sitting Professor +Coleridge. In comes a servant with a letter; the Professor gets up, and, +with a solemn voice, reads to the audience.--It is from an enlightened +Friend; and its object is to shew, in no very courteous terms either to +the Professor or his Spectators, that he may lecture, but that nobody +will understand him. He accordingly makes his bow, and the curtain +falls; but the worst of the joke is, that the Professor pockets the +admittance-money,--for what reason, his outwitted audience are left, the +best way they can, to "fancy or imagine." + +But the greatest piece of Quackery in the Book is his pretended account +of the Metaphysical System of Kant, of which he knows less than nothing. +He wall not allow that there is a single word of truth in any of the +French Expositions of that celebrated System, nor yet in any of our +British Reviews. We do not wish to speak of what we do not understand, +and therefore say nothing of Mr. Coleridge's Metaphysics.... + +We have done. We have felt it our duty to speak with severity of this +book and its author--and we have given our readers ample opportunities +to judge of the justice of our strictures. We have not been speaking in +the cause of literature only, but, we conceive, in the cause of Morality +and Religion. For it is not fitting that He should be held up as an +example to the rising generation (but, on the contrary, it is most +fitting that he should be exposed as a most dangerous model), who has +alternately embraced, defended, and thrown aside all systems of +Philosophy--and all creeds of Religion,--who seems to have no power of +retaining an opinion,--no trust in the principles which he defends,--but +who fluctuates from theory to theory, according as he is impelled by +vanity, envy, or diseased desire of change,--and who, while he would +subvert and scatter into dust those structures of knowledge, reared by +the wise men of this and other generations, has nothing to erect in +their room but the baseless and air-built fabrics of a dreaming +Imagination. + + + + +ON THE COCKNEY SCHOOL OF POETRY + +No. I + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, October, 1817] + + Our talk shall be (a theme we never tire on) + Of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, + (Our England's Dante)--Wordsworth--HUNT, and KEATS, + The Muses' son of promise; and of what feats + He yet may do. + +CORNELIUS WEBB. + + +While the whole critical world is occupied with balancing the merits, +whether in theory or in execution, of what is commonly called THE LAKE +SCHOOL, it is strange that no one seems to think it at all necessary to +say a single word about another new school of poetry which has of late +sprung up among us. This school has not, I believe, as yet received any +name; but if I may be permitted to have the honour of christening it, it +may henceforth be referred to by the designation of THE COCKNEY SCHOOL. +Its chief Doctor and Professor is Mr. Leigh Hunt, a man certainly of +some talents, of extravagant pretensions both in wit, poetry, and +politics, and withal of exquisitely bad taste, and extremely vulgar +modes of thinking and manners in all respects. He is a man of little +education. He knows absolutely nothing of Greek, almost nothing of +Latin, and his knowledge of Italian literature is confined to a few of +the most popular of Petrarch's sonnets, and an imperfect acquaintance +with Ariosto, through the medium of Mr. Hoole. As to the French poets, +he dismisses them in the mass as a set of prim, precise, unnatural +pretenders. The truth is, he is in a state of happy ignorance about them +and all that they have done. He has never read Zaïre nor Phèdre. To +those great German poets who have illuminated the last fifty years with +a splendour to which this country has, for a long time, seen nothing +comparable, Mr. Hunt is an absolute stranger. Of Spanish books he has +read Don Quixote (in the translation of Motteux), and some poems of Lope +de Vega in the imitations of my Lord Holland. Of all the great critical +writers, either of ancient or of modern times, he is utterly ignorant, +excepting only Mr. Jeffrey among ourselves. + +With this stock of knowledge, Mr. Hunt presumes to become the founder of +a new school of poetry, and throws away entirely the chance which he +might have had of gaining some true poetical fame, had he been less +lofty in his pretensions. The story of Rimini is not wholly undeserving +of praise. It possesses some tolerable passages, which are all quoted in +the Edinburgh Reviewer's account of the poem, and not one of which is +quoted in the very illiberal attack upon it in the Quarterly. But such +is the wretched taste in which the greater part of the work is executed, +that most certainly no man who reads it once will ever be able to +prevail upon himself to read it again. One feels the same disgust at the +idea of opening Rimini, that impresses itself on the mind of a man of +fashion, when he is invited to enter, for a second time, the gilded +drawing-room of a little mincing boarding school mistress, who would +fain have an _At Home_ in her house. Every thing is pretence, +affectation, finery, and gaudiness. The beaux are attorneys' +apprentices, with chapeau bras and Limerick gloves--fiddlers, harp +teachers, and clerks of genius: the belles are faded fan-twinkling +spinsters, prurient vulgar misses from school, and enormous citizens' +wives. The company are entertained with lukewarm negus, and the sounds +of a paltry piano forte. + +All the great poets of our country have been men of some rank in +society, and there is no vulgarity in any of their writings; But Mr. +Hunt cannot utter a dedication, or even a note, without betraying the +_Shibboleth_ of low birth and low habits. He is the ideal of a Cockney +Poet. He raves perpetually about "greenfields," "jaunty streams," and +"o'er-arching leafiness," exactly as a Cheapside shop-keeper does about +the beauties of his box on the Camberwell road. Mr. Hunt is altogether +unacquainted with the face of nature in her magnificent scenes; he has +never seen any mountain higher than Highgate-hill, nor reclined by any +stream more pastoral than the Serpentine River. But he is determined to +be a poet eminently rural, and he rings the changes--till one is sick of +him, on the beauties of the different "high views" which he has taken of +God and nature, in the course of some Sunday dinner parties, at which he +has assisted in the neighbourhood of London. His books are indeed not +known in the country; his fame as a poet (and I might almost say, as a +politician too) is entirely confined to the young attorneys and +embryo-barristers about town. In the opinion of these competent judges, +London is the world--and Hunt is a Homer. + +Mr. Hunt is not disqualified by his ignorance and vulgarity alone, for +being the founder of a respectable sect in poetry. He labours under the +burden of a sin more deadly than either of these. The two great elements +of all dignified poetry, religious feeling, and patriotic feeling, have +no place in his mind. His religion is a poor tame dilution of the +blasphemies of the _Encyclopaedie_--his patriotism a crude, vague, +ineffectual, and sour Jacobinism. He is without reverence either for God +or man; neither altar nor throne have any dignity in his eyes. He speaks +well of nobody but two or three great dead poets, and in so speaking of +them he does well; but, alas! Mr. Hunt is no conjurer [Greek: technae ou +lanthanei]. He pretends, indeed, to be an admirer of Spencer and +Chaucer, but what he praises in them is never what is most deserving of +praise--it is only that which he humbly conceives, bears some +resemblance to the more perfect productions of Mr. Leigh Hunt; and we +can always discover, in the midst of his most violent ravings about the +Court of Elizabeth, and the days of Sir Philip Sidney, and the Fairy +Queen--that the real objects of his admiration are the Coterie of +Hampstead and the Editor of the Examiner. When he talks about chivalry +and King Arthur, he is always thinking of himself, and "_a small party +of friends, who meet once a-week at a Round Table, to discuss the merits +of a leg of mutton, and of the subjects upon which we are to write._"-- +Mr. Leigh Hunt's ideas concerning the sublime, and concerning his own +powers, bear a considerable resemblance to those of his friend Bottom, +the weaver, on the same subjects; "I will roar, that it shall do any +man's heart good to hear me."--"I will roar you an 'twere any +nightingale." + +The poetry of Mr. Hunt is such as might be expected from the personal +character and habits of its author. As a vulgar man is perpetually +labouring to be genteel--in like manner, the poetry of this man is +always on the stretch to be grand. He has been allowed to look for a +moment from the anti-chamber into the saloon, and mistaken the waving of +feathers and the painted floor for the _sine quâ non's_ of elegant +society. He would fain be always tripping and waltzing, and is sorry +that he cannot be allowed to walk about in the morning with yellow +breeches and flesh-coloured silk stockings. He sticks an artificial +rose-bud into his button hole in the midst of winter. He wears no +neckcloth, and cuts his hair in imitation of the Prints of Petrarch. In +his verses also he is always desirous of being airy, graceful, easy, +courtly, and ITALIAN. If he had the smallest acquaintance with the great +demigods of Italian poetry, he could never fancy that the style in which +he writes, bears any, even the most remote resemblance to the severe and +simple manner of Dante--the tender stillness of the lover of Laura--or +the sprightly and good-natured unconscious elegance of the inimitable +Ariosto. He has gone into a strange delusion about himself, and is just +as absurd in supposing that he resembles the Italian Poets as a greater +Quack still (Mr. Coleridge) is, in imagining that he is a Philosopher +after the manner of Kant or Mendelshon--and that "the eye of Lessing +bears a remarkable likeness to MINE," i.e., the eye of Mr. Samuel +Coleridge.[1] + +[1] Mr. Wordsworth (meaning, we presume, to pay Mr. Coleridge a + compliment), makes him look very absurdly, + + "A noticeable man, with _large grey eyes_." + + +The extreme moral depravity of the Cockney School is another thing which +is for ever thrusting itself upon the public attention, and convincing +every man of sense who looks into their productions, that they who sport +such sentiments can never be great poets. How could any man of high +original genius ever stoop publicly, at the present day, to dip his +fingers in the least of those glittering and rancid obscenities which +float on the surface of Mr. Hunt's Hippocrene? His poetry is that of a +man who has kept company with kept-mistresses. He talks indelicately +like a tea-sipping milliner girl. Some excuse for him there might have +been, had he been hurried away by imagination or passion. But with him +indecency is a disease, and he speaks unclean things from perfect +inanition. The very concubine of so impure a wretch as Leigh Hunt would +be to be pitied, but alas! for the wife of such a husband! For him there +is no charm in simple seduction; and he gloats over it only when +accompanied with adultery and incest. + +The unhealthy and jaundiced medium through which the Founder of the +Cockney School views every thing like moral truth, is apparent, not only +from his obscenity, but also from his want of respect for all that +numerous class of plain upright men, and unpretending women, in which +the real worth and excellence of human society consists. Every man is, +according to Mr. Hunt, a dull potato-eating blockhead--of no greater +value to God or man than any ox or dray-horse--who is not an admirer of +Voltaire's _romans_, a worshipper of Lord Holland and Mr. Haydon and a +quoter of John Buncle and Chaucer's Flower and Leaf. Every woman is +useful only as a breeding machine, unless she is fond of reading +Launcelot of the Lake, in an antique summer-house. + +How such a profligate creature as Mr. Hunt can pretend to be an admirer +of Mr. Wordsworth, is to us a thing altogether inexplicable. One great +charm of Wordsworth's noble compositions consists in the dignified +purity of thought, and the patriarchal simplicity of feeling, with which +they are throughout penetrated and imbued. We can conceive a vicious man +admiring with distant awe and spectacle of virtue and purity; but if he +does so sincerely, he must also do so with the profoundest feeling of +the error of his own ways, and the resolution to amend them. His +admiration must be humble and silent, not pert and loquacious. Mr. Hunt +praises the purity of Wordsworth as if he himself were pure, his dignity +as if he also were dignified. He is always like the ball of Dung in the +fable, pleasing himself, and amusing by-standers with his "nos poma +natamus." For the person who writes _Rimini_, to admire the Excursion, +is just as impossible as it would be for a Chinese polisher of +cherry-stones, or gilder of tea-cups, to burst into tears at the sight +of the Theseus or the Torso. + +The Founder of the Cockney School would fain claim poetical kindred with +Lord Byron and Thomas Moore. Such a connexion would be as unsuitable for +them as for William Wordsworth. The days of Mr. Moore's follies are long +since over; and, as he is a thorough gentleman, he must necessarily +entertain the greatest contempt for such an under-bred person as Leigh +Hunt. But Lord Byron! How must the haughty spirit of Lara and Harold +contemn the subaltern sneaking of our modern tuft-hunter. The insult +which he offered to Lord Byron in the dedication of Rimini,--in which +he, a paltry cockney newspaper scribbler, had the assurance to address +one of the most nobly-born of English Patricians, and one of the first +geniuses whom the world ever produced, as "My dear Byron," although it +may have been forgotten and despised by the illustrious person whom it +most nearly concerned,--excited a feeling of utter loathing and disgust +in the public mind, which will always be remembered whenever the name of +Leigh Hunt is mentioned. We dare say Mr. Hunt has some fine dreams about +the true nobility being the nobility of talent, and flatters himself, +that with those who acknowledge only that sort of rank, he himself +passes for being the _peer_ of Byron. He is sadly mistaken. He is as +completely a Plebeian in his mind as he is in his rank and station in +society. To that highest and unalienated nobility which the great Roman +satirist styles "sola atque unica," we fear his pretensions would be +equally unavailing. + +The shallow and impotent pretensions, tenets, and attempts, of this +man,--and the success with which his influence seems to be extending +itself among a pretty numerous, though certainly a very paltry and +pitiful, set of readers,--have for the last two or three years been +considered by us with the most sickening aversion. The very culpable +manner in which his chief poem was reviewed in the Edinburgh Review (we +believe it is no secret, at his own impatient and feverish request, by +his partner in the Round Table), was matter of concern to more readers +than ourselves. The masterly pen which inflicted such signal +chastisement on the early licentiousness of Moore, should not have been +idle on that occasion. Mr. Jeffrey does ill when he delegates his +important functions into such hands as Mr. Hazlitt. It was chiefly in +consequence of that gentleman's allowing Leigh Hunt to pass unpunished +through a scene of slaughter, which his execution might so highly have +graced that we came to the resolution of laying before our readers a +series of essays on _the Cockney School_--of which here terminates the +first. _Z_. + + + + +THE COCKNEY SCHOOL OF POETRY + +No. III + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, July, 1818] + +Our hatred and contempt of Leigh Hunt as a writer, is not so much owing +to his shameless irreverence to his aged and afflicted king--to his +profligate attacks on the character of the king's sons--to his low-born +insolence to that aristocracy with whom he would in vain claim the +alliance of one illustrious friendship--to his paid panderism to the +vilest passions of that mob of which he is himself a firebrand--to the +leprous crust of self-conceit with which his whole moral being is +indurated--to that loathsome vulgarity which constantly clings round him +like a vermined garment from St. Giles'--to that irritable temper which +keeps the unhappy man, in spite even of his vanity, in a perpetual fret +with himself and all the world beside, and that shews itself equally in +his deadly enmities and capricious friendships,--our hatred and contempt +of Leigh Hunt, we say, is not so much owing to these and other causes, +as to the odious and unnatural harlotry of his polluted muse. We were +the first to brand with a burning iron the false face of this +kept-mistress of a demoralizing incendiary. We tore off her gaudy veil and +transparent drapery, and exhibited the painted cheeks and writhing limbs +of the prostitute. We denounced to the execration of the people of +England, the man who had dared to write in the solitude of a cell, whose +walls ought to have heard only the sighs of contrition and repentance, a +lewd tale of incest, adultery, and murder, in which the violation of +Nature herself was wept over, palliated, justified, and held up to +imitation, and the violators themselves worshipped as holy martyrs. The +story of Rimini had begun to have its admirers; but their deluded minds +were startled at our charges,--and on reflecting upon the character of +the poem, which they had read with a dangerous sympathy, not on account +of its poetical merit, which is small indeed, but on account of those +voluptuous scenes, so dangerous even to a pure imagination, when +insidiously painted with the seeming colours of virtue,--they were +astounded at their own folly and their own danger, and consigned the +wretched volume to that ignominious oblivion, which, in a land of +religion and morality, must soon be the doom of all obscene and +licentious productions. + +The story of Rimini is heard of no more. But Leigh Hunt will not be +quiet. His hebdomadal hand [**Pointing hand symbol] is held up, even on +the Sabbath, against every man of virtue and genius in the land; but the +great defamer claims to himself an immunity from that disgrace which he +knows his own wickedness has incurred,--the Cockney calumniator would +fain hold his own disgraced head sacred from the iron fingers of +retribution. But that head shall be brought low--aye--low "as heaped up +justice" ever sunk that of an offending scribbler against the laws of +Nature and of God. + +Leigh Hunt dared not, Hazlitt dared not, to defend the character of the +"Story of Rimini." A man may venture to say that in verse which it is +perilous to utter in plain prose. Even they dared not to affirm to the +people of England, that a wife who had committed incest with her +husband's brother, ought on her death to be buried in the same tomb with +her fraticidal [Transcriber's note: sic] paramour, and that tomb to be +annually worshipped by the youths and virgins of their country. And +therefore Leigh Hunt flew into a savage passion against the critic who +had chastised his crime, pretended that he himself was insidiously +charged with the offences which he had applauded and celebrated in +others, and tried to awaken the indignation of the public against his +castigator, as if he had been the secret assassin of private character, +who was but the open foe of public enormity. The attempt was hopeless,-- +the public voice has lifted up against Hunt,--and sentence of +excommunication from the poets of England has been pronounced, enrolled, +and ratified. + +There can be no radical distinction allowed between the private and +public character of a poet. If a poet sympathizes with and justifies +wickedness in his poetry, he is a wicked man. It matters not that his +private life may be free from wicked actions. Corrupt his moral +principles must be,--and if his conduct has not been flagrantly immoral, +the cause must be looked for in constitution, &c., but not in +conscience. It is therefore of little or no importance, whether Leigh +Hunt be or be not a bad private character. He maintains, that he is a +most excellent private character, and that he would blush to tell the +world how highly he is thought of by an host of respectable friends. Be +it so,--and that his vanity does not delude him. But this is most sure, +that, in such a case, the world will never be brought to believe even +the truth. The world is not fond of ingenious distinctions between the +theory and the practice of morals. The public are justified in refusing +to hear a man plead in favour of his character, when they hold in their +hands a work of his in which all respect to character is forgotten. We +must reap the fruit of what we sow; and if evil and unjust reports have +arisen against Leigh Hunt as a man, and unluckily for him it is so, he +ought not to attribute the rise of such reports to the political +animosities which his virulence has excited, but to the real and obvious +cause--his voluptuous defence of crimes revolting to Nature. + +The publication of the voluptuous story of Rimini was followed, it would +appear, by mysterious charges against Leigh Hunt in his domestic +relations. The world could not understand the nature of his poetical +love of incest; and instead of at once forgetting both the poem and the +poet, many people set themselves to speculate, and talk, and ask +questions, and pry into secrets with which they had nothing to do, till +at last there was something like an identification of Leigh Hunt himself +with Paolo, the incestuous hero of Leigh Hunt's chief Cockney poem. This +was wrong, and, we believe, wholly unjust; but it was by no means +unnatural; and precisely what Leigh Hunt is himself in the weekly +practice of doing to other people without the same excuse. Leigh Hunt +has now spoken out so freely to the public on the subject, that there +can be no indelicacy in talking of it, in as far as it respects him, at +least.... + +There is no need for us to sink down this unhappy man into deeper +humiliation. Never before did the abuse and prostitution of talents +bring with them such prompt and memorable punishment. The pestilential +air which Leigh Hunt breathed forth into the world to poison and +corrupt, has been driven stiflingly back upon himself, and he who strove +to spread the infection of loathsome licentiousness among the tender +moral constitutions of the young, has been at length rewarded, as it was +fitting he should be, by the accusation of being himself guilty of those +crimes which it was the object of "The Story of Rimini" to encourage and +justify in others. The world knew nothing of him but from his works; and +were they blameable (even though they erred) in believing him capable of +any enormities in his own person, whose imagination feasted and gloated +on the disgusting details of adultery and incest? They were repelled and +sickened by such odious and unnatural wickedness--he was attracted and +delighted. What to them was the foulness of pollution, seemed to him the +beauty of innocence. What to them was the blast from hell, to him was +the air from heaven. They read and they condemned. They asked each other +"What manner of man is this?" The charitable were silent. It would +perhaps be hard to call them uncharitable who spoke aloud. Thoughts were +associated with his name which shall be nameless by us; and at last the +wretched scribbler himself has had the gross and unfeeling folly to +punish them all to the world, and that too in a tone of levity that +could have been becoming only on our former comparatively trivial +charges against him of wearing yellow breeches, and dispensing with the +luxury of a neckcloth. He shakes his shoulders, according to his rather +iniquitous custom, at being told that he is suspected of adultery and +incest! A pleasant subject of merriment, no doubt, it is--though +somewhat embittered by the intrusive remembrance of that unsparing +castigator of vice, Mr. Gifford, and clouded over by the melancholy +breathed from the shin-bone of his own poor old deceased grandmother. +What a mixture of the horrible and absurd! And the man who thus writes +is--not a Christian, for that he denies--but, forsooth, a poet! one of +the + + Great spirits who on earth are sojourning! + +But Leigh Hunt is not guilty, in the above paragraph, of shocking levity +alone,--he is guilty of falsehood. It is not true, that he learns for +the first time, from that anonymous letter (so vulgar, that we could +almost suspect him of having written it himself) what charges were in +circulation against him. He knew it all before. Has he forgotten to whom +he applied for explanation when Z.'s sharp essay on the Cockney Poetry +cut him to the heart? He knows what he said upon those occasions, and +let him ponder upon it. But what could induce him to suspect the amiable +Bill Hazlitt, "him, the immaculate," of being Z.? It was this,--he +imagined that none but that foundered artist could know the fact of his +feverish importunities to be reviewed by him in the Edinburgh Review. +And therefore, having almost "as fine an intellectual touch" as "Bill +the painter" himself, he thought he saw Z. lurking beneath the elegant +exterior of that highly accomplished man. + + Dear Hazlitt, whose tact intellectual is such, + That it seems to feel truth as one's fingers do touch. + +But, for the present, we have nothing more to add. Leigh Hunt is +delivered into our hands to do with him as we will. Our eyes shall be +upon him, and unless he amend his ways, to wither and to blast him. The +pages of the Edinburgh Review, we are confident, are henceforth shut +against him. One wicked Cockney will not again be permitted to praise +another in that journal, which, up to the moment when incest and +adultery were defended in its pages, had, however openly at war with +religion, kept at least upon decent terms with the cause of morality. It +was indeed a fatal day for Mr. Jeffrey, when he degraded both himself +and his original coadjutors, by taking into pay such an unprincipled +blunderer as Hazlitt. He is not a coadjutor, he is an accomplice. The +day is perhaps not far distant, when the Charlatan shall be stripped to +the naked skin, and made to swallow his own vile prescriptions. He and +Leigh Hunt are + + Arcades ambo + Et cantare pares-- + +Shall we add, + + et respondere parati? + + + + +Z. ON KEATS + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, August, 1818] + +COCKNEY SCHOOL OF POETRY + +No. IV + + ---- OF KEATS, + THE MUSES' SON OF PROMISE, AND WHAT FEATS + HE YET MAY DO, &C. + +CORNELIUS WEBB. + + +Of all the manias of this mad age, the most incurable, as well as the +most common, seems to be no other than the _Metromanie_. The just +celebrity of Robert Burns and Miss Baillie has had the melancholy effect +of turning the heads of we know not how many farm-servants and unmarried +ladies; our very footmen compose tragedies, and there is scarcely a +superannuated governess in the island that does not leave a roll of +lyrics behind her in her band-box. To witness the disease of any human +understanding, however feeble, is distressing; but the spectacle of an +able mind reduced to a state of insanity is of course ten times more +afflicting. It is with such sorrow as this that we have contemplated the +case of Mr. John Keats. This young man appears to have received from +nature talents of an excellent, perhaps even of a superior order-- +talents which, devoted to the purposes of any useful profession, must +have rendered him a respectable, if not an eminent citizen. His friends, +we understand, destined him to the career of medicine, and he was bound +apprentice some years ago to a worthy apothecary in town. But all has +been undone by a sudden attack of the malady to which we have alluded. +Whether Mr. John had been sent home with a diuretic or composing draught +to some patient far gone in the poetical mania, we have not heard. This +much is certain, that he has caught the infection, and that thoroughly. +For some time we were in hopes, that he might get off with a violent fit +or two; but of late the symptoms are terrible. The phrenzy of the +"Poems" was bad enough in its way; but it did not alarm us half so +seriously as the calm, settled, imperturbable drivelling idiocy of +"Endymion." We hope, however, that in so young a person, and with a +constitution originally so good, even now the disease is not utterly +incurable. Time, firm treatment, and rational restraint, do much for +many apparently hopeless invalids; and if Mr. Keats should happen, at +some interval of reason, to cast his eye upon our pages, he may perhaps +be convinced of the existence of his malady, which, in such cases, is +often all that is necessary to put the patient in a fair way of being +cured. + +The readers of the Examiner newspaper were informed, some time ago, by a +solemn paragraph, in Mr. Hunt's best style, of the appearance of two new +stars of glorious magnitude and splendour in the poetical horizon of the +land of Cockaigne. One of these turned out, by and by, to be no other +than Mr. John Keats. This precocious adulation confirmed the wavering +apprentice in his desire to quit the gallipots, and at the same time +excited in his too susceptible mind a fatal admiration for the character +and talents of the most worthless and affected of all the versifiers of +our time. One of his first productions was the following sonnet, +"_written on the day when Mr. Leigh Hunt left prison._" It will be +recollected, that the cause of Hunt's confinement was a series of libels +against his sovereign, and that its fruit was the odious and incestuous +"Story of Rimini." + + What though, for shewing truth to flattered state, + _Kind Hunt_ was shut in prison, yet has he, + In his immortal spirit been as free + As the sky-searching lark, and as elate. + Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait? + Think you he nought but prison walls did see, + Till, so unwilling, thou unturn'dst the key? + Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate! + _In Spenser's halls_! he strayed, and bowers fair, + Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew + _With daring Milton_! through the fields of air; + To regions of his own his genius true + Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair + When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew? + +The absurdity of the thought in this sonnet is, however, if possible, +surpassed in another, "_addressed to Haydon_" the painter, that clever, +but most affected artist, who as little resembles Raphael in genius as +he does in person, notwithstanding the foppery of having his hair curled +over his shoulders in the old Italian fashion. In this exquisite piece +it will be observed, that Mr. Keats classes together WORDSWORTH, HUNT, +and HAYDON, as the three greatest spirits of the age, and that he +alludes to himself, and some others of the rising brood of Cockneys, as +likely to attain hereafter an equally honourable elevation. Wordsworth +and Hunt! what a juxta-position! The purest, the loftiest, and, we do +not fear to say it, the most classical of living English poets, joined +together in the same compliment with the meanest, the filthiest, and the +most vulgar of Cockney poetasters. No wonder that he who could be guilty +of this should class Haydon with Raphael, and himself with Spenser. + + Great spirits now on earth are sojourning; + He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, + Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake, + Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing: + _He of the rose, the violet, the spring, + The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake_: + And lo!--whose steadfastness would never take + A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering. + And other spirits there are standing apart + Upon the forehead of the age to come; + These, these will give the world another heart, + And other pulses. _Hear ye not the hum + Of mighty workings_?-- + _Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb_. + +The nations are to listen and be dumb! and why, good Johnny Keats? +because Leigh Hunt is editor of the Examiner, and Haydon has painted the +judgment of Solomon, and you and Cornelius Webb, and a few more city +sparks, are pleased to look upon yourselves as so many future +Shakespeares and Miltons! The world has really some reason to look to +its foundations! Here is a _tempestas in matulâ_ with a vengeance. At +the period when these sonnets were published, Mr. Keats had no +hesitation in saying, that he looked on himself as "_not yet_ a glorious +denizen of the wide heaven of poetry," but he had many fine soothing +visions of coming greatness, and many rare plans of study to prepare him +for it.... + +Having cooled a little from this "fine passion," our youthful poet +passes very naturally into a long strain of foaming abuse against a +certain class of English Poets, whom, with Pope at their head, it is +much the fashion with the ignorant unsettled pretenders of the present +time to undervalue. Begging these gentlemen's pardon, although Pope was +not a poet of the same high order with some who are now living, yet, to +deny his genius, it is just about as absurd as to dispute that of +Wordsworth, or to believe in that of Hunt. Above all things, it is most +pitiably ridiculous to hear men, of whom their country will always have +reason to be proud, reviled by uneducated and flimsy striplings, who are +not capable of understanding either their merits, or those of any other +_men of power_--fanciful dreaming tea-drinkers, who, without logic +enough to analyse a single idea, or imagination enough to form one +original image, or learning enough to distinguish between the written +language of Englishmen and the spoken jargon of Cockneys, presume to +talk with contempt of some of the most exquisite spirits the world ever +produced, merely because they did not happen to exert their faculties in +laborious affected descriptions of flowers seen in window-pots, or +cascades heard at Vauxhall; in short, because they chose to be wits, +philosophers, patriots, and poets, rather than to found the Cockney +school of versification, morality, and politics, a century before its +time. After blaspheming himself into a fury against Boileau, &c., Mr. +Keats comforts himself and his readers with a view of the present more +promising aspect of affairs; above all, with the ripened glories of the +poet of Rimini. Addressing the names of the departed chiefs of English +poetry, he informs them, in the following clear and touching manner, of +the existence of "him of the Rose," &c. + + From a thick brake, + Nested and quiet in a valley mild, + Bubbles a pipe; fine sounds are floating wild + About the earth. Happy are ye and glad.... + +From some verses addressed to various individuals of the other sex, it +appears, notwithstanding all this gossamer-work, that Johnny's +affectations are not entirely confined to objects purely etherial. Take, +by way of specimen, the following prurient and vulgar lines, evidently +meant for some young lady east of Temple-bar. + + Add too, the sweetness + Of thy honied voice; the neatness + Of thine ankle lightly turn'd: + With those beauties, scarce discerned, + Kept with such sweet privacy, + That they seldom meet the eye + Of the little loves that fly + Round about with eager pry. + Saving when, with freshening lave, + Thou dipp'st them in the taintless wave; + Like twin water lilies, born + In the coolness of the morn. + O, if thou hadst breathed then, + Now the Muses had been ten. + Couldst thou wish for lineage _higher_ + Than twin sister of _Thalia_? + At last for ever, evermore, + Will I call the Graces four. + +Who will dispute that our poet, to use his own phrase (and rhyme), + + Can mingle music fit for the soft _ear_ + Of Lady _Cytherea_. + +So much for the opening bud; now for the expanded flower. It is time to +pass from the juvenile "Poems," to the mature and elaborate "Endymion, a +Poetic Romance." The old story of the moon falling in love with a +shepherd, so prettily told by a Roman Classic, and so exquisitely +enlarged and adorned by one of the most elegant of German poets, has +been seized upon by Mr. John Keats, to be done with as might seem good +unto the sickly fancy of one who never read a single line either of Ovid +or of Wieland. If the quantity, not the quality, of the verses dedicated +to the story is to be taken into account, there can be no doubt that Mr. +Keats may now claim Endymion entirely to himself. To say the truth, we +do not suppose either the Latin or the German poet would be very anxious +to dispute about the property of the hero of the "Poetic Romance." Mr. +Keats has thoroughly appropriated the character, if not the name. His +Endymion is not a Greek shepherd, love of a Grecian goddess; he is +merely a young Cockney rhymster, dreaming a phantastic dream at the full +of the moon. Costume, were it worth while to notice such a trifle, is +violated in every page of this goodly octavo. From his prototype Hunt, +John Keats has acquired a sort of vague idea, that the Greeks were a +most tasteful people, and that no mythology can be so finely adapted for +the purposes of poetry as theirs. It is amusing to see what a hand the +two Cockneys make of this mythology; the one confesses that he never +read the Greek Tragedians, and the other knows Homer only from Chapman, +and both of them write about Apollo, Pan, Nymphs, Muses, and Mysteries, +as might be expected from persons of their education. We shall not, +however, enlarge at present upon this subject, as we mean to dedicate an +entire paper to the classical attainments and attempts of the Cockney +poets. As for Mr. Keats's "Endymion," it has just as much to do with +Greece as it has with "old Tartary the fierce"; no man, whose mind has +ever been imbued with the smallest knowledge or feeling of classical +poetry or classical history, could have stooped to profane and vulgarise +every association in the manner which has been adopted by this "son of +promise." Before giving any extracts, we must inform our readers, that +this romance is meant to be written in English heroic rhyme. To those +who have read any of Hunt's poems, this hint might indeed be needless. +Mr. Keats has adopted the loose, nerveless versification, and Cockney +rhymes of the poet of Rimini; but in fairness to that gentleman, we must +add, that the defects of the system are tenfold more conspicuous in his +disciples' work than in his own. Mr. Hunt is a small poet, but he is a +clever man. Mr. Keats is a still smaller poet, and he is only a boy of +pretty abilities, which he has done every thing in his power to +spoil.... + +After all this, however, the "modesty," as Mr. Keats expresses it, of +the Lady Diana prevented her from owning in Olympus her passion for +Endymion. Venus, as the most knowing in such matters, is the first to +discover the change that has taken place in the temperament of the +goddess. "An idle tale," says the laughter-loving dame, + + A humid eye, and steps luxurious, + When these are new and strange, are ominous. + +The inamorata, to vary the intrigue, carries on a romantic intercourse +with Endymion, under the disguise of an Indian damsel. At last, however, +her scruples, for some reason or other, are all overcome, and the Queen +of Heaven owns her attachment. + + She gave her fair hands to him, and behold, + Before three swiftest kisses he had told, + They vanish far away!--Peona went + Home through the gloomy wood in wonderment. + +And so, like many other romances, terminates the "Poetic Romance" of +Johnny Keats, in a patched-up wedding. + +We had almost forgotten to mention, that Keats belongs to the Cockney +School of Politics, as well as the Cockney School of Poetry. + +It is fit that he who holds Rimini to be the first poem, should believe +the Examiner to be the first politician of the day. We admire +consistency, even in folly. Hear how their bantling has already learned +to lisp sedition. + + There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men + With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen + Their baaing vanities, to browse away + The comfortable green and juicy hay + From human pastures; or, O torturing fact! + Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd + Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe + Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge + Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight + Able to face an owl's, they still are dight + By the blue-eyed nations in empurpled vests, + And crowns, and turbans. With unladen breasts, + Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount + To their spirit's perch, their being's high account, + Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones-- + Amid the fierce intoxicating tones. + Of trumpets, shoutings, and belaboured drums, + And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums, + In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone-- + Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon, + And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.-- + Are then regalities all gilded masks? + +And now, good-morrow to "the Muses' son of Promise"; as for "the feats +he yet may do," as we do not pretend to say, like himself, "Muse of my +native land am I inspired," we shall adhere to the safe old rule of +_pauca verba_. We venture to make one small prophecy, that his +bookseller will not a second time venture £50 upon any thing he can +write. It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starving apothecary than +a starved poet; so back to the shop Mr. John, back to plasters, pills, +and ointment boxes, &c. But, for Heaven's sake, young Sangrado, be a +little more sparing of extenuatives and soporifics in your practice than +you have been in your poetry. + +Z. + + + + +ON SHELLEY + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, September, 1820] + +"PROMETHEUS UNBOUND" + + +Whatever may be the difference of men's opinions concerning the measure +of Mr. Shelley's poetical power, there is one point in regard to which +all must be agreed, and that is his Audacity. In the old days of the +exulting genius of Greece, Aeschylus dared two things which astonished +all men, and which still astonish them--to exalt contemporary men into +the personages of majestic tragedies--and to call down and embody into +tragedy, without degradation, the elemental spirits of nature and the +deeper essences of Divinity. We scarcely know whether to consider the +_Persians_ or the _Prometheus Bound_ as the most extraordinary display +of what has always been esteemed the most audacious spirit that ever +expressed its workings in poetry. But what shall we say of the young +English poet who has now attempted, not only a flight as high as the +highest of Aeschylus, but the very flight of that father of tragedy--who +has dared once more to dramatise Prometheus--and, most wonderful of all, +to dramatise the _deliverance_ of Prometheus--which is known to have +formed the subject of a lost tragedy of Aeschylus no ways inferior in +mystic elevation to that of the [Greek: Desmotaes]. + +Although a fragment of that perished master-piece be still extant in the +Latin version of Attius--it is quite impossible to conjecture what were +the personages introduced in the tragedy of Aeschylus, or by what train +of passions and events he was able to sustain himself on the height of +that awful scene with which his surviving _Prometheus_ terminates. It is +impossible, however, after reading what is left of that famous +trilogy,[1] to suspect that the Greek poet symbolized any thing whatever +by the person of Prometheus, except the native strength of human +intellect itself--its strength of endurance above all others--its +sublime power of patience. STRENGTH and FORCE are the two agents who +appear on this darkened theatre to bind the too benevolent Titan--_Wit_ +and _Treachery_, under the forms of Mercury and Oceanus, endeavour to +prevail upon him to make himself free by giving up his dreadful secret;-- +but _Strength_ and _Force_, and _Wit_ and _Treason_, are all alike +powerless to overcome the resolution of that suffering divinity, or to +win from him any acknowledgment of the new tyrant of the skies. Such was +this simple and sublime allegory in the hands of Aeschylus. As to what +had been the original purpose of the framers of the allegory, that is a +very different question, and would carry us back into the most hidden +places of the history of mythology. No one, however, who compares the +mythological systems of different races and countries, can fail to +observe the frequent occurrence of certain great leading Ideas and +leading Symbolisations of ideas too--which Christians are taught to +contemplate with a knowledge that is the knowledge of reverence. Such, +among others, are unquestionably the ideas of an Incarnate Divinity +suffering on account of mankind--conferring benefits on mankind at the +expense of his own suffering;--the general idea of vicarious atonement +itself--and the idea of the dignity of suffering as an exertion of +intellectual might--all of which may be found, more or less obscurely +shadowed forth, in the original [Greek: Mythos] of Prometheus the Titan, +the enemy of the successful rebel and usurper Jove. We might have also +mentioned the idea of a _deliverer_, waited for patiently through ages +of darkness, and at least arriving in the person of the child of Io-- +but, in truth, there is no pleasure, and would be little propriety, in +seeking to explain all this at greater length, considering, what we +cannot consider without deepest pain, the very different views which +have been taken of the original allegory by Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley. + +[1] There was another and an earlier play of Aeschylus, Prometheus the + Fire-Stealer, which is commonly supposed to have made part of the + series; but the best critics, we think, are of opinion, that that + was entirely a satirical piece. + +It would be highly absurd to deny, that this gentleman has manifested +very extraordinary powers of language and imagination in his treatment +of the allegory, however grossly and miserably he may have tried to +pervert its purpose and meaning. But of this more anon. In the meantime, +what can be more deserving of reprobation than the course which he is +allowing his intellect to take, and that too at the very time when he +ought to be laying the foundations of a lasting and honourable name. +There is no occasion for going round about the bush to hint what the +poet himself has so unblushingly and sinfully blazoned forth in every +part of his production. With him, it is quite evident that the Jupiter +whose downfall has been predicted by Prometheus, means nothing more than +Religion in general, that is, every human system of religious belief; +and that, with the fall of this, he considers it perfectly necessary (as +indeed we also believe, though with far different feelings) that every +system of human government also should give way and perish. The patience +of the contemplative spirit in Prometheus is to be followed by the +daring of the active demagorgon, at whose touch all "old thrones" are at +once and for ever to be cast down into the dust. It appears too plainly, +from the luscious pictures with which his play terminates, that Mr. +Shelley looks forward to an unusual relaxation of all moral _rules_--or +rather, indeed, to the extinction of all moral feelings, except that of +a certain mysterious indefinable _kindliness_, as the natural and +necessary result of the overthrow of all civil government and religious +belief. It appears, still more wonderfully, that he contemplates this +state of things as the ideal SUMMUM BONUM. In short, it is quite +impossible that there should exist a more pestiferous mixture of +blasphemy, sedition, and sensuality, than is visible in the whole +structure and strain of this poem--which, nevertheless, and +notwithstanding all the detestation its principles excite, must and will +be considered by all that read it attentively, as abounding in poetical +beauties of the highest order--as presenting many specimens not easily +to be surpassed, of the moral sublime of eloquence--as overflowing with +pathos, and most magnificent in description. Where can be found a +spectacle more worthy of sorrow than such a man performing and glorying +in the performance of such things? His evil ambition,--from all he has +yet written, but most of all, from what he has last and best written, +his _Prometheus_,--appears to be no other, than that of attaining the +highest place among those poets,--enemies, not friends, of their +species, who, as a great and virtuous poet has well said (putting evil +consequence close after evil cause). + + Profane the God-given strength, and _mar the lofty line._ + +We should hold ourselves very ill employed, however, were we to enter at +any length into the reprehensible parts of this remarkable production. +It is sufficient to shew, that we have not been misrepresenting the +purpose of the poet's mind, when we mention, that the whole tragedy ends +with a mysterious sort of dance, and chorus of elemental spirits, and +other indefinable beings, and that the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR, one of the +most singular of these choral personages, tells us: + + I wandering went + Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind, + And first was disappointed not to see + Such mighty change as I had felt within + Expressed in other things; but soon I looked, + And behold! THRONES WERE KINGLESS, and men walked + One with the other, even as spirits do, etc. + + * * * * * + +We cannot conclude without saying a word or two in regard to an +accusation which we have lately seen brought against ourselves in some +one of the London Magazines; we forget which at this moment. We are +pretty sure we know who the author of that most false accusation is--of +which more hereafter. He has the audacious insolence to say, that we +praise Mr. Shelley, although we dislike his principles, just because we +know that he is not in a situation of life to be in any danger of +suffering pecuniary inconvenience from being run down by critics, and, +_vice versâ_, abuse Hunt, Keats, and Hazlitt, and so forth, because we +know that they are poor men; a fouler imputation could not be thrown on +any writer than this creature has dared to throw on us; nor a more +utterly false one; we repeat the word again--than this is when thrown +upon us. + +We have no personal acquaintance with any of these men, and no personal +feelings in regard to any one of them, good or bad. We never even saw +any one of their faces. As for Mr. Keats, we are informed that he is in +a very bad state of health, and that his friends attribute a great deal +of it to the pain he has suffered from the critical castigation his +Endymion drew down on him in this magazine. If it be so, we are most +heartily sorry for it, and have no hesitation in saying, that had we +suspected that young author, of being so delicately nerved, we should +have administered our reproof in a much more lenient shape and style. +The truth is, we from the beginning saw marks of feeling and power in +Mr. Keats's verses, which made us think it very likely, he might become +a real poet of England, provided he could be persuaded to give up all +the tricks of Cockneyism, and forswear for ever the thin potations of +Mr. Leigh Hunt. We, therefore, rated him as roundly as we decently could +do, for the flagrant affectations of those early productions of his. In +the last volume he has published, we find more beauties than in the +former, both of language and of thought, but we are sorry to say, we +find abundance of the same absurd affectations also, and superficial +conceits, which first displeased us in his writings;--and which we are +again very sorry to say, must in our opinion, if persisted in, utterly +and entirely prevent Mr. Keats from ever taking his place among the pure +and classical poets of his mother tongue. It is quite ridiculous to see +how the vanity of these Cockneys makes them overrate their own +importance, even in the eyes of us, that have always expressed such +plain unvarnished contempt for them, and who do feel for them all, a +contempt too calm and profound, to admit of any admixture of any thing +like anger or personal spleen. We should just as soon think of being +wroth with vermin, independently of their coming into our apartment, as +we should of having any feelings at all about any of these people, other +than what are excited by seeing them in the shape of authors. Many of +them, considered in any other character than that of authors are, we +have no doubt, entitled to be considered as very worthy people in their +own way. Mr. Hunt is said to be a very amiable man in his own sphere, +and we believe him to be so willingly. Mr. Keats we have often heard +spoken of in terms of great kindness, and we have no doubt his manners +and feelings are calculated to make his friends love him. But what has +all this to do with our opinion of their poetry? What, in the name of +wonder, does it concern us, whether these men sit among themselves, with +mild or with sulky faces, eating their mutton steaks, and drinking their +porter at Highgate, Hampstead, or Lisson Green? What is there that +should prevent us, or any other person, that happens not to have been +educated in the University of Little Britain, from expressing a simple, +undisguised, and impartial opinion, concerning the merits or demerits of +men that we never saw, nor thought of for one moment, otherwise than as +in their capacity of authors? What should hinder us from saying, since +we think so, that Mr. Leigh Hunt is a clever wrong-headed man, whose +vanities have got inwoven so deeply into him, that he has no chance of +ever writing one line of classical English, or thinking one genuine +English thought, either about poetry or politics? What is the spell that +must seal our lips, from uttering an opinion equally plain and +perspicuous concerning Mr. John Keats, viz., that nature possibly meant +him to be a much better poet than Mr. Leigh Hunt ever could have been, +but that, if he persists in imitating the faults of that writer, he must +be contented to share his fate, and be like him forgotten? Last of all, +what should forbid us to announce our opinion, that Mr. Shelley, as a +man of genius, is not merely superior, either to Mr. Hunt, or to Mr. +Keats, but altogether out of their sphere, and totally incapable of ever +being brought into the most distant comparison with either of them. It +is very possible, that Mr. Shelley himself might not be inclined to +place himself so high above these men as we do, but that is his affair, +not ours. We are afraid that he shares, (at least with one of them) in +an abominable system of belief, concerning Man and the World, the +sympathy arising out of which common belief, may probably sway more than +it ought to do on both sides. But the truth of the matter is this, and +it is impossible to conceal it were we willing to do so, that Mr. +Shelley is destined to leave a great name behind him, and that we, as +lovers of true genius, are most anxious that this name should ultimately +be pure as well as great. + +As for the principles and purposes of Mr. Shelley's poetry, since we +must again recur to that dark part of the subject; we think they are on +the whole, more undisguisedly pernicious in this volume, than even in +his Revolt of Islam. There is an Ode to Liberty at the end of the +volume, which contains passages of the most splendid beauty, but which, +in point of meaning, is just as wicked as any thing that ever reached +the world under the name of Mr. Hunt himself. It is not difficult to +fill up the blank which has been left by the prudent bookseller, in one +of the stanzas beginning: + + O that the free would stamp the impious name, + Of ----- into the dust! Or write it there + So that this blot upon the page of fame, + Were as a serpent's path, which the light air + Erases, etc., etc. + +but the next speaks still more plainly: + + O that the WISE from their bright minds would kindle + Such lamps within the dome of this wide world, + That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle + Into the HELL from which it first was hurled! + +This is exactly a versification of the foulest sentence that ever issued +from the lips of Voltaire. Let us hope that Percy Bysshe Shelley is not +destined to leave behind him, like that great genius, a name for ever +detestable to the truly FREE and the truly WISE. He talks in his preface +about MILTON, as a "Republican," and a "bold inquirer into Morals and +religion." Could any thing make us despise Mr. Shelley's understanding, +it would be such an instance of voluntary blindness as this! Let us +hope, that ere long a lamp of genuine truth may be kindled within his +"bright mind"; and that he may walk in its light the path of the true +demigods of English genius, having, like them, learned to "fear God and +Honour the king." + + + + +THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW + +Started in 1824 to represent Radical opinions, the _Westminster_ was +associated, in its palmy days, with such "persons of importance" as +George Eliot, George Henry Lewes, and J.S. Mill, retaining to the +present moment an isolated preference for the expression of +unconventional, and often _outré_ opinions. It has always been somewhat +fanatical and, now that really distinguished writers seldom enter its +pages, has become associated, in the general view, with the promotion of +fads. + +JOHN STUART MILL + +(1806-1873) + +Though Mill's principle work was of a highly expert and technical +nature, he had the rare power of conveying accurate expressions of sound +thoughts in popular language; and he was conspicuous for the moral +fervour of his opinions in practical politics. His fascinating +autobiography is absolutely sincere, and very copious, in its +revelations. It has been said, moreover, that he was "more at pains to +conceal his originality" than "most writers are to set forth" this +quality: and it was this characteristic which inspired his broad-minded +conduct of the _London Review_, soon incorporated with the +_Westminster_, which, after ten years as a contributor, he edited from +1834, and owned from 1837 until 1840. Here he made "a noble experiment +to endeavour to combine opposites, and to maintain a perpetual attitude +of sympathy with hostile opinions." It was officially, the organ of +Utilitarianism; but articles were frequently inserted requiring the +editorial _caveat_. It was the friend of liberty in every shape and +form. + +In a philosophic writer whose style was admittedly always literary, it +is of special interest to notice that he so frequently chose a volume of +poetry to review himself: and no better example of this work can be +found than the following critique of Tennyson, which, again, may be most +profitably compared with Gladstone's. It proves that he loved poetry for +its own sake. + +The notice of Macaulay's Lays further illustrates his interesting +_theories_ of poetry. + +JOHN STERLING + +(1806-1844) + +It is the remarkable fate of Sterling, leaving behind him no work of +permanent distinction--to have been the subject of two biographies by +persons of far greater importance than his--Archdeacon Hare and Thomas +Carlyle. The editorial foot-note affixed to the following review, in +which Mill describes him as "one of our most valued contributors" +provides further evidence of what his contemporaries expected of "Poor +Sterling." "A loose, careless looking, thin figure," says Carlyle, "in +careless dim costume, sat, in a lounging posture, carelessly and +copiously talking. I was struck with the kindly but restless +swift-glancing eyes, which looked as if the spirits were all out coursing +like a pack of merry eager beagles, beating every bush.... A smile, half +of kindly impatience, half of real mirth, often sat on his face." + +Sterling wrote poetry, essays, and stories, largely inspired by +capricious enthusiasms. The son of an editor of _The Times_, he was, for +a short time owner of _The Athenaeum_, and also a curate under Hare. + +Since Carlyle's "extraordinary elegy, apology, eulogium" is itself a +classic, particular interest attaches itself to Sterling's generous +estimate of the man destined to make him immortal. + + + + +J.S. MILL ON TENNYSON + +[From _The Westminster Review_, January, 1831] + +_Poems, chiefly Lyrical._ By ALFRED TENNYSON. Wilson, 12 mo. 1830. + +It would be a pity that poetry should be an exception to the great law +of progression that obtains in human affairs; and it is not. The +machinery of a poem is not less susceptible of improvement than the +machinery of a cotton mill; nor is there any better reason why the one +should retrograde from the days of Milton, than the other from those of +Arkwright.... + +The old epics will probably never be surpassed, any more than the old +coats of mail; and for the same reason; nobody wants the article; its +object is accomplished by other means; they are become mere +curiosities.... + +Poetry, like charity, begins at home. Poetry, like morality, is founded +in the precept, know thyself. Poetry, like happiness, is in the human +heart. Its inspiration is of that which is in man, and it will never +fail because there are changes in costume and grouping. What is the +vitality of the Iliad? Character; nothing else. All the rest is only +read out of antiquarianism or of affectation. Why is Shakespeare the +greatest of poets? Because he was one of the greatest of philosophers. +We reason on the conduct of his characters with as little hesitation as +if they were real living human beings. Extent of observation, accuracy +of thought, and depth of reflection, were the qualities which won the +prize of sovereignty for his imagination, and the effect of these +qualities was practically to anticipate, so far as was needful for his +purposes, the mental philosophy of a future age. Metaphysics must be the +stem of poetry for the plant to thrive; but if the stem flourishes we +are not likely to be at a loss for leaves, flowers, and fruit. Now, +whatever theories may have come into fashion and gone out of fashion, +the real science of mind advances with the progress of society like all +other sciences. The poetry of the last forty years already shows +symptoms of life in exact proportion as it is imbued with this science. +There is least of it in the exotic legends of Southey, and the feudal +romances of Scott. More of it, though in different ways, in Byron and +Campbell. In Shelley there would have been more still, had he not +devoted himself to unsound and mystical theories. Most of all in +Coleridge and Wordsworth. They are all going or gone; but here is a +little book as thoroughly and unitedly metaphysical and poetical in its +spirit as any of them; and sorely shall we be disappointed in its author +if it be not the precursor of a series of productions which shall +beautifully illustrate our speculations, and convincingly prove their +soundness. + +Do not let our readers be alarmed. These poems are anything but heavy; +anything but stiff and pedantic, except in one particular, which shall +be noticed before we conclude; anything but cold and logical. They are +graceful, very graceful; they are animated, touching, and impassioned. +And they are so, precisely because they are philosophical; because they +are not made up of metrical cant and conventional phraseology; because +there is sincerity where the author writes from experience, and accuracy +whether he writes from experience or observation; and he only writes +from experience and observation, because he has felt and thought, and +learned to analyse thought and feeling; because his own mind is rich in +poetical associations, and he has wisely been content with its riches; +and because, in his composition, he has not sought to construct an +elaborate and artificial harmony, but only to pour forth his thoughts in +those expressive and simple melodies whose meaning, truth, and power, +are the soonest recognised, and the quickest felt.... + +Mr. Tennyson seems to obtain entrance into a mind as he would make his +way into a landscape; he climbs the pineal gland as if it were a hill in +the centre of the scene; looks around on all objects with their +varieties of form, their movements, their shades of colour, and their +mutual relations and influences, and forthwith produces as graphic a +delineation in the one case as Wilson or Gainsborough could have done in +the other, to the great enrichment of our gallery of intellectual +scenery.... + +Our author has the secret of the transmigration of the soul. He can cast +his own spirit into any living thing, real or imaginary.... + +"Mariana" is, we are disposed to think, although there are several poems +which rise up reproachfully in our recollection as we say so, +altogether, the most perfect composition in the volume. The whole of +this poem, of eighty-four lines, is generated by the legitimate process +of poetical creation, as that process is conducted in a philosophical +mind, from a half sentence in Shakespeare. There is no mere +samplification; it is all production, and production from that single +germ. That must be a rich intellect, in which thoughts thus take root +and grow.... + +A considerable number of the poems are amatory; they are the expression +not of heathen sensuality, nor of sickly refinement, nor of fantastic +devotion, but of manly love; and they illustrate the philosophy of the +passion while they exhibit the various phases of its existence and +embody its power.... + +Mr. Tennyson sketches females as well as ever did Sir Thomas Lawrence. +His portraits are delicate, his likenesses (we will answer for them), +perfect, and they have life, character, and individuality. They are +nicely assorted also to all the different gradations of emotion and +passion which are expressed in common with the descriptions of them. +There is an appropriate object for every shade of feeling, from the +light touch of a passing admiration, to the triumphant madness of soul +and sense, or the deep and everlasting anguish of survivorship.... + +That these poems will have a rapid and extensive popularity +we do not anticipate. Their very originality will prevent their being +appreciated for a time. But that time will come, we hope, to a not far +distant end. They demonstrate the possession of powers, to the future +direction of which we look with some anxiety. A genuine poet has deep +responsibilities to his country and the world, to the present and future +generations, to earth and heaven. He, of all men, should have distinct +and worthy objects before him, and consecrate himself to their +promotion. It is then he best consults the glory of his art, and his own +lasting fame. Mr. Tennyson has a dangerous quality in that facility of +impersonation on which we have remarked, and by which he enters so +thoroughly into the most strange and wayward idiosyncracies of other +men. It must not degrade him into a poetical harlequin. He has higher +work to do than that of disporting himself among "mystics" and "flowing +philosophers." He knows that "the poet's mind is holy ground"; He knows +that the poet's portion is to be + + Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, + The love of love; + +he has shown, in the lines from which we quote, his own just conception +of the grandeur of the poet's destiny; and we look to him for its +fulfilment. It is not for such men to sink into mere verse-makers for +the amusement of themselves or others. They can influence the +associations of unnumbered minds; they can command the sympathies of +unnumbered hearts; they can disseminate principles; they can give those +principles power over men's imaginations; they can excite in a good +cause the sustained enthusiasm that is sure to conquer; they can blast +the laurels of tyrants, and hallow the memories of the martyrs' +patriotism; they can act with a force, the extent of which it is +difficult to estimate, upon national feelings and character, and +consequently upon national happiness. + + + + +MILL ON MACAULAY'S "LAYS" + +[From _The Westminster Review_. February, 1843] + +It is with the two great masters of modern ballad poetry (Campbell and +Scott) that Mr. Macaulay's performances are really to be compared, and +not with the real ballads or epics of an early age. The "Lays," in point +of form, are not in the least like the genuine productions of a +primitive age or people, and it is no blame to Mr. Macaulay that they +are not. He professes imitation of Homer, but we really see no +resemblance, except in the nature of some of the incidents, and the +animation and vigour of the narrative; and the "Iliad," after all, is +not the original ballads of the Trojan War, but these ballads moulded +together, and wrought into the forms of a more civilised and cultivated +age. It is difficult to conjecture what the form of the old Roman ballad +may have been, and certain, that whatever they were, they could no more +satisfy the aesthetic requirements of modern culture, than an ear +accustomed to the great organs of Freyburg or Harlem could relish +Orpheus's hurdy-gurdy, although the airs which Orpheus played, if they +could be recovered, might perhaps be executed with great effect on the +more perfect instrument. + +The former of Mr. Macaulay's ballad poetry are essentially modern: they +are those of the romantic and chivalrous, not the classical ages, and +even in those they are a reproduction, not of the originals, but of the +imitations of Scott. In this we think he has done well, for Scott's +style is as near to that of the ancient ballad as we conceive to be at +all compatible with real popular effect on the modern mind. The +difference between the two may be seen by the most cursory comparison of +any real old ballad, "Chevy Chase," for instance, with last canto of +Marmion, or with any of these "Lays." Conciseness is the characteristic +of the real ballad, diffuseness of the modern adaptation. The old bard +did everything by single touches; Scott and Mr. Macaulay by repetition +and accumulation of particulars. They produce all their effect by what +they _say_; he by what he _suggested_; by what he stimulated the +imagination to paint for itself. But then the old ballads were not +written for the light reading of tired readers. To do the work in +_their_ way, they required to be brooded over, or had at least the aid +of tune and of impassioned recitation. Stories which are to be told to +children in the age of eagerness and excitability, or sung in banquet +halls to assembled warriors, whose daily ideas and feelings supply a +flood of comment ready to gush forth on the slightest hint of the poet, +cannot fly too swift and straight to the mark. But Mr. Macaulay wrote to +be only read, and by readers for whom it was necessary to do all. + +These poems, therefore, are not the worse for being un-Roman in their +form; and in their substance they are Roman to a degree which deserves +great admiration. Mr. Macaulay's prose writings had not prepared us for +the power which he has here manifested of identifying himself easily and +completely, with states of feeling and modes of life alien to modern +experience. Nobody could have previously doubted that he possessed +fancy, but he has added to it the higher faculty of Imagination. We have +not been able to detect, in the four poems, one idea or feeling which +was not, or might not have been Roman; while the externals of Roman +life, and the feelings characteristic of Rome and of that particular +age, are reproduced with great felicity, and without being made unduly +predominant over the universal features of human nature and human life. + +Independently therefore of their value as poems, these compositions are +a real service rendered to historical literature; and the author has +made this service greater by his prefaces, which will do more than the +work of a hundred dissertations in rendering that true conception of +early Roman history, the irrefragable establishment of which has made +Niebuhr illustrious, familiar to the minds of general readers. This is +no trifling matter, even in relation to present interests, for there is +no estimating the injury which the cause of popular institutions has +suffered, and still suffers from misrepresentations of the early +condition of the Roman and Plebs, and its noble struggles against its +taskmasters. And the study of the manner in which the heroic legends of +early Rome grew up as poetry and gradually became history, has important +bearings on the general laws of historical evidence, and on the many +things which, as philosophy advances, are more and more seen to be +therewith connected. On this subject Mr. Macaulay has not only +presented, in an agreeable form, the results of previous speculation, +but has, though in an entirely unpretending manner, thrown additional +light upon it by his own remarks: as where he shows, by incontestible +instances, that a similar transformation of poetic fiction into history +has taken place on various occasions in modern and sceptical times.... + +We are more disposed to break a lance with our author on the general +merits of Roman literature, which, by a heresy not new with him, he +sacrifices, in what appears to us a most unfair degree, on the score of +its inferior originality to the Grecian. It is true the Romans had no +Aeschylus nor Sophocles, and but a secondhand Homer, though this last +was not only the most finished but even the most original of imitators. +But where was the Greek model of the noble poem of Lucretius? What, +except the mere idea, did the Georgics borrow from Hesiod? and whoever +thinks of comparing the two poems? Where, in Homer or the Euripides, +will be found the original of the tender and pathetic passages in the +Aeneid, especially the exquisitely told story of Dido? There is no +extraordinary merit in the "Carmen Secculare" as we have it, the only +production of Horace which challenges comparison with Pindar; although +we are not among those who deem Pindar one of the brightest stars in the +Greek heaven. But from whom are the greater part of Horace's _Carmina_ +borrowed (they should never be termed Odes), any more than those of +Burns or Béranger, the analogous authors in modern times? and by what +Greek minor poems are they surpassed? We say nothing of Catullus, whom +some competent judges prefer to Horace. Does the lyric, then, or even +the epic poetry of the Romans, deserve no better title than that of "a +hot-house plant, which, in return for assiduous and skilful culture, +yielded only scanty and sickly fruits?" The complete originality and +eminent merit of their satiric poetry, Mr. Macaulay himself +acknowledges. As for prose, we give up Cicero as compared with +Demosthenes, but with no one else; and is Livy less original, or less +admirable, than Herodotus? Tacitus may have imitated, even to +affectation, the condensation of Thucydides, as Milton imitated the +Greek and Hebrew poets; but was the mind of the one as essentially +original as that of the other? Is the Roman less an unapprochable +master, in his peculiar line, that of sentimental history, than the +Grecian in his? and what Greek historian has written anything similar or +comparable to the sublime peroration of the _Life of Agricola_? The +Latin genius lay not in speculation, and the Romans did undoubtedly +borrow all their philosophical principles from the Greeks. Their +originality _there_, as is well said by a remarkable writer in the most +remarkable of his works,[1] consisted in taking these principles _au +serieux_. They _did_ what the others talked about. Zeno, indeed, was not +a Roman; but Poetus Thrasea and Marcus Antoninus were. + +[1] Mr. Maurice, in the essay on the history of moral speculation and + culture, which forms the article "Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy" + in the _Encyclopaedia Metropolitana._ + + + + +JOHN STERLING ON CARLYLE + +[From _London and Westminster Review_ October, 1839] + +All countries at all times require, and England perhaps at the present +not less than others, men having a faith at once distinct and large, the +expression of what is best in their times, and having also the courage +to proclaim it, and take their stand upon it.... + +But in our day such visionaries are less and less possible. The spread +of shallow but clear knowledge, like the cold snow-water issuing from +the glaciers, daily chills and disenchants the hearts of millions once +credulous. Daily, therefore, does it become more probable that millions +will follow in the track of those who are called their betters. Thus +will they find in the world nothing but an epicurean stye, to be +managed, with less dirt and better food, by patent steam-machinery; but +still a place for swine, though the swine may be washed, and their +victuals more equally divided. + +Is it not then strange that in such a world, in such a country, and +among those light-hearted Edinburgh Reviewers, a man should rise and +proclaim a creed; not a new and more ingenious form of words, but a +truth to be embraced with the whole heart, and in which the heart shall +find as he has found, strength for all combats, and consolation, though +stern not festal, under all sorrows? Amid the masses of English printing +sent forth every day, part designed for the most trivial entertainment, +part black with the narrowest and most lifeless sectarian dogmatism, +part, and perhaps the best, exhibiting only facts and theories in +physical science, and part filled with the vulgarest economical projects +and details, which would turn all life into a process of cookery, +culinary, political, or sentimental--how few writings are there that +contain like these a distinct doctrine as to the position and calling of +man, capable of affording nourishment to the heart, and support to the +will, and in harmony at the same time with the social state of the +world, and with the most enlarged and brightened insight which human +wisdom has yet attained to? + +We have been so little prepared to look for such an appearance that it +is difficult for us to realize the conception of a genuine coherent view +of life thus presented to us in a book of our day, which shall be +neither a slight compendium of a few moral truisms, flavoured with a few +immoral refinements and paradoxes, such as constitute the floating +ethics and religion of the time; nor a fierce and gloomy distortion of +some eternal idea torn from its pure sphere of celestial light to be +raved about by the ignorant whom it has half-enlightened, and half made +frantic. But here, in our judgment--that is, in the judgment of one man +who speaks considerately what he fixedly believes--we have the thought +of a wide, and above all, of a deep soul, which has expressed in fitting +words, the fruits of patient reflection, of piercing observation, of +knowledge many-sided and conscientious, of devoutest awe and +faithfullest love.... + +The clearness of the eye to see whatever is permanent and substantial, +and the fervour and strength of heart to love it as the sole good of +life, are, in our view, Mr. Carlyle's pre-eminent characteristics, as +those of every man entitled to the fame of the most generous order of +greatness. Not to paint the good which he sees and loves, or see it +painted, and enjoy the sight; not to understand it, and exult in the +knowledge of it; but to take his position upon it, and for it alone to +breathe, to move, to fight, to mourn, and die--this is the destination +which he has chosen for himself. His avowal of it and exhortation to do +the like is the object of all his writings. And, reasonably considered, +it is no small service to which he is thus bound. For the real, the +germinal truth of nature, is not a dead series of physical phenomena +into the like of which all phenomena are cunningly to be explained away. +This pulseless, rigid iron frame-work, on which the soft soil of human +life is placed, and above which its aërial flowers and foliage rise, +does not pass with him for the essential and innermost principle of all. +It is rather that which, being itself poorest, the poorest of faculties +can apprehend. As physical mechanism, it is that which is most palpable, +and undeniable by any, because it is that which lies nearest the +nothingness whence it has been hardly rescued, and is therefore, most +akin to minds in whose meanness of structure or culture, even human +existence might seem scarce better than nothingness. He knows, few in +our nation so well, that of a world of new machinery, the highest king +and priest would be the neatest clockwork figure. And in such a world, a +being feeling ever towards or somewhat beyond what he can weigh and +measure, and looking up to find above himself that which is too high for +him to understand, would be an anomaly as lawless and incredible as the +wildest fabled monster, the Minotaur or the Chimera, the Titan--the +Sphynx itself--nay a more delirious riddle than any that in dreams it +proposes to us. + +On the other hand, neither is for him the solid, abiding, inexhaustible, +that merely which is received as such by the popular acquiescence. It +must needs be a truth which the spirit, cleared and strengthened by +manifold knowledge and experience, and above all by steadfast endeavour, +can rest in and say: This I mean; not because it is told me, were my +informants all the schools of Rabbins or a hierarchy of angels; but +because I have looked into it, tried it, found it healthful and +sufficient, and thus know that it will stand the stress of life. We may +be right or wrong in our estimate of Mr. Carlyle, but we cannot be +mistaken in supposing that on this kind of anvil have all truly great +men been fashioned, and of metal thus honest and enduring. + +Further it must be said that, true as is his devotion to the truth, so +flaming and cordial is his hatred of the false, in whatever shapes and +names delusions may show themselves. Affectations, quackeries, tricks, +frauds, swindlings, commercial or literary, baseless speculations, loud +ear-catching rhetoric, melodramatic sentiment, moral drawlings and +hyperboles, religious cant, clever political shifts, and conscious or +half-conscious fallacies, all in his view, come under the same hangman's +rubric,--proceed from the same offal heart. However plausible, popular, +and successful, however dignified by golden and purple names, they are +lies against ourselves, against whatever in us is not altogether +reprobate and infernal. His great argument, theme of his song, spirit of +his language, lies in this, that there is a work for man worth doing, +which is to be done with the whole of his heart, not the half or any +other fraction. Therefore, if any reserve be made, any corner kept for +something unconnected with this true work and sincere purpose, the whole +is thereby vitiated and accurst. So far as his arm reaches he is undoing +whatever in nature is holy: ruining whatever is the real creation of the +great worker of all. This truth of purpose is to the soul what life is +to the body of man; that which unites and organises the mass, keeping +all the parts in due proportion and concord, and restraining them from +sudden corruption into worthless dust.... + +Anyone who should take up the writings themselves with no other +preconception than that which we have attempted to give him, would +doubtless be startled at the strangeness of the style which prevails +more or less throughout them. They are not careless, headstrong, +passionate, confused; but they bear a constant look of oddity which +seems at first mere wilful wantonness, and which we only afterwards find +to be the discriminating stamp of original and strong feeling. This-- +this feeling, rooted in profound susceptibility and matured into a +central vivifying power--is, we should say, the author's most +extraordinary distinction. For it is not the ostentatious, impetuous +sentiment, which calls, a sufficient audience being by, on heaven and +earth for sympathy, and would wish for that of Tartarus too, as an +additional acknowledgment of its sublime sincerity. Here, on the +contrary, the feeling is not that which the man is proud of, and would +fain exhibit. He shrinks from the profession, nay from the sense of it; +even painfully labours to trifle, and be at ease, that he may hide from +others, and may for himself forget, the thorny fagot load of his own +emotions. Yet make them known he must; for they are not those of some +private personal grief or passion, from which he may escape into +literature or science, and leave his pains and longings behind him; but +his sensibilities are burning with a slow, immense fire, kindled by the +very theme on which he writes, and compelling him to write. The +greatness and weakness, the infinite hopes and unquenchable reality of +human life; the aching pressure of the body and its wants on the myriads +of millions in whom celestial force sleeps and dreams of hell; the sight +of follies, frauds, cruelties, and lascivious luxury in the midst of a +race then endowed and thus suffering; and the unconquerable will and +thought with which the few work out the highest calling of all men; +these it is, and not self-indulging distresses and theatrical +aspirations of his own, which boil and storm within. Therefore does he +speak with the solid strength and energy, which gives so serious and +rugged an aspect to his sentences; while, perpetually checking himself, +from a wise man's shame at excessive emotion, and from the knowledge +that others will but half sympathise with him, he adds to his most +weighty utterances a turn of irony which relieves the excessive +strain.... Add to this, that Mr. Carlyle's resolution to convey his +meaning at all hazards, makes him seize the most effectual and sudden +words in spite of usage and fashionable taste; and that, therefore, when +he can get a brighter tint, a more expressive form, by means of some +strange--we must call it--Carlylism; English, Scotch, German, Greek, +Latin, French, Technical, Slang, American, or Lunar, or altogether +superlunar, transcendental, and drawn from the eternal nowhere--he uses +it with a courage which might blast an academy of lexicographers into a +Hades, void even of vocables.... + +Here must end our remarks on the admirable writings of a great man. +Could it be hoped, that by what has been said, any readers, and +especially any thinkers, will be led to give them the attention they +require, but also deserve, in this there would be ample repayment, even +were there not at all events a higher reward, for the labour, which is +not a slight one, of forming and assorting distinct opinions on a matter +so singular and so complex. For few bonds that unite human beings are +purer or happier than a common understanding and reverence of what is +truly wise and beautiful. This also is religion. Standing at the +threshold of these works, we may imitate the saying of the old +philosopher to the friends who visited him on their return from the +temples--Let us enter, for here too are gods. + + + + +FRASER'S MAGAZINE + +WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY + +(1811-1863) + +There can be no occasion to enlarge upon this generous tribute of one of +the greatest of our Victorian novelists to another. Considering how +inevitably the critic is driven to compare these two, if not to set one +up against the other, we can experience no feeling but pleasure and +pride in humanity, before the evidence of their mutual appreciation. +_The Cornhill_ "In Memoriam" article of Charles Dickens may well stand +beside this burst of glowing enthusiasm. + +We have retained, by way of illustrating our general subject, a +paragraph from the earlier part of the article, in which Thackeray falls +foul of reviewers in general, for characteristics from which he himself +was singularly free. + + +CHARLES KINGSLEY + +(1819-1875) + +The brilliant versatility of Kingsley's work will prepare us, in some +measure, for his virile impatience, here revealed, with elements in the +romantic revival of poetry among his contemporaries, which were an +offence to his "muscular" morality. "There are certain qualities which +may be called moral in all his work, evincing a literary faculty of the +highest kind. Always instructive without being exactly instructed, +always argumentative without being very guarded in argument, he yet +displays a marvellously contagious enthusiasm for his own creeds, and +surrounds his own ideals with an atmosphere of passionate nobility. We +forgive the partisanship for the sincerity of the partisan." + + * * * * * + +Alexander Smith (1830-1867) was a poet and essayist of some distinction; +though A. H. Clough also criticises his exclusive devotion to the +"writers of his own immediate time"; and calls him "the latest disciple +of the school of Keats." The volume of essays entitled _Dreamthorp_ +"entitles him to a place among the best writers of English prose." + + +ANONYMOUS + +There is a similarity, and a difference, between this summary of +Christmas literature and Thackeray's. The personal criticism lacks his +special geniality, revealing rather a tone which would have perfectly +suited Blackwood or the _Quarterly_. Lytton was a favourite subject of +abuse to his contemporaries. + + + + +THACKERAY ON DICKENS + +[From "A Box of Novels," _Fraser's Magazine_, February, 1844] + +MR. TITMARSH, in Switzerland, to MR. YORKE + +...This introduction, then, will have prepared you for an exceedingly +humane and laudatory notice of the packet of works which you were good +enough to send me, and which, though they doubtless contain a great deal +that the critic would not write (from the extreme delicacy of his taste +and the vast range of his learning) also contain, between ourselves, a +great deal that the critic _could_ not write if he would ever so; and +this is a truth which critics are sometimes apt to forget in their +judgments of works of fiction. As a rustical boy, hired at twopence a +week, may fling stones at the blackbirds and drive them off and possibly +hit one or two, yet if he get into the hedge and begin to sing, he will +make a wretched business of the music, and Labin and Colin and the +dullest swains of the village will laugh egregiously at his folly; so +the critic employed to assault the poet.... But the rest of the simile +is obvious, and will be apprehended at once by a person of your +experience. + +The fact is, that the blackbirds of letters--the harmless, kind singing +creatures who line the hedge-sides and chirp and twitter as nature bade +them (they can no more help singing, these poets, than a flower can help +smelling sweet), have been treated much too ruthlessly by the watch-boys +of the press, who have a love for flinging stones at the little +innocents, and pretend that it is their duty, and that every wren or +sparrow is likely to destroy a whole field of wheat, or to turn out a +monstrous bird of prey. Leave we these vain sports and savage pastimes +of youth, and turn we to the benevolent philosophy of maturer age. + + * * * * * + +And now there is but one book left in the box, the smallest one, but oh! +how much the best of all. It is the work of the master of all the +English humourists now alive; the young man who came and took his place +calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it. Think of all +we owe Mr. Dickens since these half-dozen years, the store of happy +hours that he has made us pass, the kindly and pleasant companions whom +he has introduced to us, the harmless laughter, the generous wit, the +frank, manly, human love which he has taught us to feel! Every month of +these years has brought us some kind token from this delightful genius. +His books may have lost in art, perhaps, but could we afford to wait? +Since the days when the _Spectator_ was produced by a man of kindred +mind and temper, what books have appeared that have taken so +affectionate a hold of the English public as these? They have made +millions of rich and poor happy; they might have been locked up for nine +years, doubtless, and pruned here and there, and improved (which I +doubt) but where would have been the reader's benefit all this time, +while the author was elaborating his performance? Would the +communication between the writer and the public have been what it is +now--something continual, confidential, something like personal +affection? I do not know whether these stories are written for future +ages; many sage critics doubt on this head. There are always such +conjurors to tell literary fortunes; and, to my certain knowledge, Boz, +according to them, has been sinking regularly these six years. I doubt +about that mysterious writing for futurity which certain big wigs +prescribe. Snarl has a chance, certainly. His works, which have not been +read in this age, _may_ be read in future; but the receipt for that sort +of writing has never as yet been clearly ascertained. Shakespeare did +not write for futurity, he wrote his plays for the same purpose which +inspires the pen of Alfred Bunn, Esquire, viz., to fill his Theatre +Royal. And yet we read Shakespeare now. Le Sage and Fielding wrote for +their public; and through the great Dr. Johnson put his peevish protest +against the fame of the latter, and voted him "a dull dog, sir,--a low +fellow," yet somehow Harry Fielding has survived in spite of the critic, +and Parson Adams is at this minute as real a character, as much loved by +us as the old doctor himself. What a noble, divine power of genius this +is, which, passing from the poet into his reader's soul, mingles with +it, and there engenders, as it were, real creatures; which is as strong +as history, which creates beings that take their place besides nature's +own. All that we know of Don Quixote or Louis XIV we got to know in the +same way--out of a book. I declare I love Sir Roger de Coverley quite as +much as Izaak Walton, and have just as clear a consciousness of the +looks, voice, habit, and manner of being of the one as of the other. + +And so with regard to this question of futurity; if any benevolent being +of the present age is imbued with a desire to know what his +great-great-grandchild will think of this or that author--of Mr. Dickens +especially, whose claims to fame have raised the question--the only way to +settle it is by the ordinary historic method. Did not your +great-great-grandfather love and delight in Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? +Have they lost their vitality by their age? Don't they move laughter and +awaken affection now as three hundred years ago? And so with Don Pickwick +and Sancho Weller, if their gentle humours and kindly wit, and hearty +benevolent natures, touch us and convince us, as it were, now, why should +they not exist for our children as well as for us, and make the +twenty-fifth century happy, as they have the nineteenth? Let Snarl console +himself, then, as to the future. + +As for the _Christmas Carol_, or any other book of a like nature which +the public takes upon itself to criticise, the individual critic had +quite best hold his peace. One remembers what Buonaparte replied to some +Austrian critics, of much correctness and acumen, who doubted about +acknowledging the French republic. I do not mean that the _Christmas +Carol_ is quite as brilliant or self-evident as the sun at noonday; but +it is so spread over England by this time, that no sceptic, no _Fraser's +Magazine_,--no, not even the godlike and ancient _Quarterly_ itself +(venerable, Saturnian, big-wigged dynasty!) could review it down. +"Unhappy people! deluded race!" One hears the cauliflowered god exclaim, +mournfully shaking the powder out of his ambrosial curls, "What strange +new folly is this? What new deity do you worship? Know ye what ye do? +Know ye that your new idol hath little Latin and less Greek? Know ye +that he has never tasted the birch at Eton, nor trodden the flags of +Carfax, nor paced the academic flats of Trumpington? Know ye that in +mathematics, or logic, this wretched ignoramus is not fit to hold a +candle to a wooden spoon? See ye not how, from describing law humours, +he now, forsooth, will attempt the sublime? Discern ye not his faults of +taste, his deplorable propensity to write blank verse? Come back to your +ancient, venerable, and natural instructors. Leave this new, low and +intoxicating draught at which ye rush, and let us lead you back to the +old wells of classic lore. Come and repose with us there. We are your +gods; we are the ancient oracles, and no mistake. Come listen to us once +more, and we will sing to you the mystic numbers of _as in presenti_ +under the arches of the _Pons asinorum_." But the children of the +present generation hear not; for they reply, "Rush to the Strand, and +purchase five thousand more copies of the _Christmas Carol_." + +In fact, one might as well detail the plot of the _Merry Wives of +Windsor_ or _Robinson Crusoe_, as recapitulate here the adventures of +Scrooge the miser, and his Christmas conversion. I am not sure that the +allegory is a very complete one, and protest, with the classics, against +the use of blank verse in prose; but here all objections stop. Who can +listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a +national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal +kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were women; neither +knew the other, or the author, and both said, by way of criticism, "God +bless him!" A Scotch philosopher, who nationally does not keep +Christmas, on reading the book, sent out for a turkey, and asked two +friends to dine--this is a fact! Many men were known to sit down after +perusing it, and write off letters to their friends, not about business, +but out of their fulness of heart, and to wish old acquaintances a happy +Christmas. Had the book appeared a fortnight earlier, all the prize +cattle would have been gobbled up in pure love and friendship, Epping +denuded of sausages, and not a turkey left in Norfolk. His royal +highness's fat stock would have fetched unheard of prices, and Alderman +Bannister would have been tired of slaying. But there is a Christmas for +1844 too; the book will be as early then as now, and so let speculators +look out. + +As for TINY TIM, there is a certain passage in the book regarding that +young gentleman, about which a man should hardly venture to speak in +print or in public, any more than he would of any other affections of +his private heart. There is not a reader in England but that little +creature will be a bond of union between the author and him; and he will +say of Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, "GOD BLESS HIM!" What a +feeling is this for a writer to be able to inspire, and what a reward to +reap. + +M. A. T. + + + + +CHARLES KINGSLEY ON ALEXANDER +SMITH AND ALEXANDER POPE + +[From _Fraser's Magazine_, October, 1853] + +_Poems_, by ALEXANDER SMITH. London, Bogue. 1853 + +On reading this little book, and considering all the exaggerated praise +and exaggerated blame which have been lavished on it, we could not help +falling into many thoughts about the history of English poetry for the +last forty years, and about its future destiny. Great poets, even true +poets, are becoming more and more rare among us. There are those even +who say that we have none; an assertion which, as long as Mr. Tennyson +lives, we shall take the liberty of denying. But, were he, which Heaven +forbid, taken from us, whom have we to succeed him? And he, too, is +rather a poet of the sunset than of the dawn--of the autumn than of the +spring. His gorgeousness is that of the solemn and fading year; not of +its youth, full of hope, freshness, gay and unconscious life. Like some +stately hollyhock or dahlia of this month's gardens, he endures while +all other flowers are dying; but all around is winter--a mild one, +perhaps, wherein a few annuals or pretty field weeds still linger on; +but, like all mild winters, especially prolific in fungi, which, too, +are not without their gaudiness, even their beauty, although bred only +from the decay of higher organisms, the plagiarists of the vegetable +world.... + +"What matter, after all?" one says to oneself in despair, re-echoing Mr. +Carlyle. "Man was not sent into this world to write poetry. What we want +is truth--what we want is activity. Of the latter we have enough in all +conscience just now. Let the former need be provided for by honest and +righteous history, and as for poets, let the dead bury their dead." ... +And yet, after all, man will write poetry, in spite of Mr. Carlyle: nay, +beings who are not men, but mere forked radishes, will write it. Man is +a poetry-writing animal. Perhaps he was meant to be one. At all events, +he can no more be kept from it than from eating. It is better, with Mr. +Carlyle's leave, to believe that the existence of poetry indicates some +universal human hunger, whether after "the beautiful," or after "fame," +or after the means of paying butchers' bills, and accepting it as a +necessary evil which must be committed, to see that it be committed as +well, or at least a little ill, as possible. In excuse of which we may +quote Mr. Carlyle against himself, reminding him of a saying in Goethe +once bepraised by him in print,--"we must take care of the beautiful for +the useful will take care of itself." + +And never, certainly, since Pope wrote his _Dunciad_, did the beautiful +require more taking care of, or evince less capacity for taking care of +itself, and never, we must add, was less capacity for taking care of it +evinced by its accredited guardians of the press than at this present +time, if the reception given to Mr. Smith's poem is to be taken as a +fair expression of "the public taste." + +Now, let it be fairly understood, Mr. Alexander Smith is not the object +of our reproaches: but Mr. Smith's models and flatterers. Against him we +have nothing whatever to say; for him, very much indeed.... + +What if he has often copied.... He does not more than all schools have +done, copy their own masters.... We by no means agree in the modern +outcry for "originality." ... + +As for manner, he does sometimes, in imitating his models, out-Herod +Herod. But why not? If Herod be a worthy king, let him be by all means +out-Heroded, if any man can do it. One cannot have too much of a good +thing. If it be right to bedizen verses with metaphors and similes which +have no reference, either in tone or in subject, to the matter in hand, +let there be as many of them as possible. If a saddle is a proper place +for jewels, then let the seat be paved with diamonds and emeralds, and +Runjeet Singh's harness maker be considered as a lofty artist, for whose +barbaric splendour Mr. Peat and his Melton customers are to forswear +pigskin and severe simplicity--not to say utility, and comfort. If +poetic diction be different in species from plain English, then let us +have it as poetical as possible, as unlike English: as ungrammatical, +abrupt, insolved, transposed, as the clumsiness, carelessness, or +caprice of man can make it. If it be correct to express human thought by +writing whole pages of vague and bald abstract metaphyric, and then +trying to explain them by concrete concetti; which bear an entirely +accidental and mystical likeness to the notion which they are to +illustrate, then let the metaphysic be as abstract as possible, the +concetti as fanciful and far-fetched as possible. If Marino and Cowley +be greater poets than Ariosto and Milton, let young poets imitate the +former with might and main, and avoid spoiling their style by any +perusal of the too-intelligible common sense of the latter. If Byron's +moral (which used to be thought execrable) be really his great +excellence, his style (which used to be thought almost perfect) unworthy +of this age of progress, then let us have his moral without his style, +his matter without his form; or--that we may be sure of never falling +for a moment into his besetting sin of terseness, grace, and +completeness--without any form at all. If poetry, in order to be worthy +of the nineteenth century, ought to be as unlike as possible to Homer or +Sophocles, Virgil or Horace, Shakespeare or Spenser, Dante or Tasso, let +those too idolised names be rased henceforth from the calendar; let the +_Ars Poetica_, be consigned to flames by Mr. Calcraft, and Bartinus +Scriblerus's _Art of Sinking_ placed forthwith on the list of the +Committee of the Council for Education, that not a working man in +England may be ignorant that, whatsoever superstitions about art may +have haunted the benighted heathens who built the Parthenon, _nous avons +changés tout cela_. In one word, if it be best and most fitting to write +poetry in the style in which almost everyone has been trying to write it +since Pope and plain sense went out, and Shelley and the seventh heaven +came in; let it be so written: and let him who most perfectly so "sets +the age to music," be presented by the assembled guild of critics, not +with the obsolete and too classical laurel, but with an electro-plated +brass medal, bearing the due inscription, _Ars est nescire artem_. And +when, in twelve months' time, he finds himself forgotten, perhaps +descried, for the sake of the next aspirant, let him reconsider himself, +try whether, after all, the common sense of the many will not prove a +juster and a firmer standing-ground than the sentimentality and bad +taste of the few, and read Alexander Pope. + +In Pope's writings, whatsoever he may not find, he will find the very +excellences after which our young poets strive in vain, produced by +their seeming opposites, which are now despised and discarded; +naturalness produced by studious art; daring sublimity by strict +self-restraint; depth by clear simplicity; pathos by easy grace; and a +morality infinitely more merciful, as well as more righteous, than the +one now in vogue among poetasters, by honest faith in God.... + +Yes, Pope knew, as well as Wordsworth and our "Naturalisti," that no +physical fact was so mean or coarse as to be below the dignity of +poetry--when in its right place. He could draw a pathos and sublimity +out of the dirty inn-chamber, such as Wordsworth never elicited from +tubs and daffodils--because he could use them according to the rules of +art, which are the rules of sound reason and of true taste.... + +The real cause of the modern vagueness is rather to be found in shallow +and unsound culture, and in that inability, or carelessness about seeing +any object clearly, which besets our poets just now; as the cause of +antique clearness lies in the nobler and healthier manhood, in the +severer and more methodic habits of thought, the sounder philosophic and +critical training which enabled Spenser and Milton to draw up a state +paper, or to discourse deep metaphysics, with the same manful possession +of their subject which gives grace and completeness to the _Penseroso_ +or the _Epithalmion_. And if our poets have their doubts, they should +remember, that those to whom doubt and enquiry are real and stern, are +not inclined to sing about them till they can sing poems of triumph over +them. There has no temptation taken our modern poets save that which is +common to man--the temptation of wishing to make the laws of the +universe and of art fit them, as they do not feel inclined to make +themselves fit the laws, or care to find them out.... + +The "poetry of doubt," however pretty, would stand us in little stead if +we were threatened with a second Armada. It will conduce little to the +valour, "virtues," manhood of any Englishman to be informed by any poet, +even in the most melodious verse, illustrated by the most startling and +pan-cosmic metaphors, "See what a highly organised and peculiar +stomach-ache I have had! Does it not prove indisputably that I am not as +other men are?" What gospel there can be in such a message to any honest +man who has either to till the earth, plan a railroad, colonise Australia, +or fight the despots, is hard to discover. Hard indeed to discover how +this most practical, and therefore most epical of ages, is to be "set to +music," when all those who talk about so doing persist obstinately in +poring, with introverted eyes, over the state of their own digestion, or +creed. + +What man wants, what art wants, perhaps what the maker of the both +wants, is a poet who shall begin by confessing that he is as other men +are, and sing about things which concern all men, in language which all +men can understand. This is the only road to that gift of prophecy which +most young poets are nowadays in such a hurry to arrogate to +themselves.... + +There is just now as wide a divorce between poetry and the commonsense +of all time, as there is between poetry and modern knowledge. Our poets +are not merely vague and confused, they are altogether fragmentary-- +_disjecta membra poetarum_; they need some uniting idea. And what idea? + +Our answer will probably be greeted with a laugh. Nevertheless we answer +simply. What our poets want is faith. There is little or no faith +nowadays. And without faith there can be no real art, for art is the +outward expression of firm, coherent belief.... + +In the meanwhile, poets write about poets, and poetry, and guiding the +age, and curbing the world, and waking it, and thrilling it, and making +it start, and weep, and tremble, and self-conceit only knows what else; +and yet the age is not guided, or the world curbed, or thrilled, or +waked, or anything else, by them. Why should it be? Curb and thrill the +world? The world is just now a most practical world; and these men are +utterly unpractical. The age is given up to physical science: these men +disregard and outrage it in every page by their false analogies.... + +Let the poets of the new school consider carefully Wolfe's "Sir John +Moore," Campbell's "Hohenlinden," "Mariners of England," and "Rule +Britannia," Hood's "Song of the Shirt" and "Bridge of Sighs," and then +ask themselves, as men who would be poets, were it not better to have +written any one of these glorious lyrics than all which John Keats has +left behind him; and let them be sure that, howsoever they may answer +the question to themselves, the sound heart of the English people has +already made its choice, and that when that beautiful "Hero and +Leander," in which Hood has outrivalled the conceit-mongers at their own +weapons, by virtue of that very terseness, clearness, and manliness +which they neglect, has been gathered to the limbo of the Crashawes and +Marines, his "Song of the Shirt" and his "Bridge of Sighs," will be +esteemed by great new English nations far beyond the seas, for what they +are--two of the most noble lyric poems ever written by an English pen. +If our poetasters talk with Wordsworth of the dignity and pathos of the +commonest human things, they will find them there in perfection; if they +talk about the cravings of the new time, they will find them there. If +they want the truly sublime and awful, they will find them there also. +But they will find none of their own favourite concetti; hardly even a +metaphor; no taint of this new poetic diction into which we have now +fallen, after all our abuse of the far more manly and sincere "poetic +diction" of the eighteenth century; they will find no loitering by the +way to argue and moralise, and grumble at Providence, and show off the +author's own genius and sensibility; they will find, in short, two real +works of art, earnest, melodious, self-forgetful, knowing clearly what +they want to say, saying it in the shortest, the simplest, the calmest, +the most finished words. Saying it--rather taught to say it. For if that +"divine inspiration of poets," of which the poetasters make such rash +and irreverent boastings, have, indeed, as all ages have held, any +reality corresponding to it, it will rather be bestowed on such works as +these, appeals from an unrighteous man to a righteous God, than on men +whose only claim to celestial help seems to be that mere passionate +sensibility, which our modern Draco once described when speaking of poor +John Keats, as "an infinite hunger after all manner of pleasant things, +crying to the universe, 'oh, that thou wert one great lump of sugar, +that I might suck thee!'" + + + + +ANONYMOUS + +NOVELS FOR CHRISTMAS, 1837 + +[From _Fraser's Magazine_, January, 1838] + + +If[1] against the inroads of the evangelical party the orthodox church +has need of a defender, it hardly would wish, we should think, to be +assisted _tali auxilio_. Mrs. Trollope has not exactly the genius which +is best calculated to support the Church of England, or to argue upon so +grave a subject as that on which she has thought proper to write. + +[1] _The Vicar of Wrexhill_. By Mrs. Trollope. London, 1837. + +With a keen eye, a very sharp tongue, a firm belief, doubtless, in the +high church doctrines, and a decent reputation from the authorship of +half-a-dozen novels, or other light works, Mrs. Trollope determined on +no less an undertaking than to be the champion of oppressed Orthodoxy. +These are feeble arms for one who would engage in such a contest, but +our fair Mrs. Trollope trusted entirely in her own skill, and the weapon +with which she proposed to combat a strong party is no more nor less +than this novel of _The Vicar of Wrexhill_. It is a great pity that the +heroine ever set forth on such a foolish errand; she has only harmed +herself and her cause (as a bad advocate always will), and had much +better have remained home, pudding-making or stocking-mending, than have +meddled with matters which she understands so ill. + +In the first place (we speak it with due respect for the sex), she is +guilty of a fault which is somewhat too common among them; and having +very little, except prejudice, on which to found an opinion, she makes +up for want of argument by a wonderful fluency of abuse. A woman's +religion is chiefly that of the heart, and not of the head. She goes +through, for the most part, no tedious process of reasoning, no dreadful +stages of doubt, no changes of faith: she loves God as she loves her +husband--by a kind of instinctive devotion. Faith is a passion with her, +not a calculation; so that, in the faculty of believing, though they far +exceed the other sex, in the power of convincing they fall far short of +them. + +Oh! we repeat once more, that ladies would make puddings and mend +stockings! that they would not meddle with religion (what is styled +religion, we mean), except to pray to God, to live quietly among their +families, and move lovingly among their neighbours! Mrs. Trollope, for +instance, who sees so keenly the follies of the other party--how much +vanity there is in Bible Meetings--how much sin even at Missionary +Societies--how much cant and hypocrisy there is among those who +desecrate the awful name of God, by mixing it with their mean interests +and petty projects--Mrs. Trollope cannot see that there is any hypocrisy +or bigotry on her part. She, who designates the rival party as false, +and wicked, and vain--tracing all their actions to the basest motives, +declaring their worship of God to be only one general hypocrisy, their +conduct at home one fearful scene of crime, is blind to the faults on +her own side. Always bitter against the Pharisees, she does as the +Pharisees do. It is vanity, very likely, which leads these people to use +God's name so often, and to devote all to perdition who do not coincide +in their peculiar notions. Is Mrs. Trollope less vain than they when she +declares, and merely _declares_, her own to be the real creed, and +stigmatises its rival so fiercely? Is Mrs. Trollope serving God, in +making abusive licencious pictures of those who serve Him in a different +way? Once, as Mrs. Trollope has read--it was a long time ago!--there was +a woman taken in sin; the people brought her before a great Teacher of +Truth, who lived in those days. Shall we not kill her? said they; the +laws command that all adulteresses be killed. We can fancy a Mrs. +Trollope in the crowd, shouting, "oh, the wretch! oh, the abominable +harlot! kill her, by all means--stoning is really too good for her!" But +what did the Divine Teacher say? He was quite as anxious to prevent the +crime as any Mrs. Trollope of them all; but he did not even make an +allusion to it--he did not describe the manner in which the poor +creature was caught--He made no speech to detail the indecencies which +she committed, or to raise the fury of the mob against her--He said "let +the man who is without sin himself throw the first stone!" Whereupon the +Pharisees and Mrs. Trollope slunk away, for they knew they were no +better than she. There was as great a sin in His eyes as that of the +poor erring woman--it was the sin of pride. + +Mrs. Trollope may make a licentious book, of which the heroes and +heroines are all of the evangelical party; and it may be true, that +there are scoundrels belonging to that party as to every other; but her +shameful error has been in fixing upon the evangelical _class_ as an +object of satire, making them necessarily licentious and hypocritical, +and charging everyone of them with the vices which belong to only a very +few of all sects.... + +There are some books, we are told, in the libraries of Roman Catholic +theologians, which, though written for the most devout purposes, are so +ingeniously obscene as to render them quite dangerous for common eyes. +The groom, in the old story, had never learned the art of greasing +horses' teeth, to prevent their eating oats, until the confessor, in +interrogating him as to his sins, asked him the question. The next time +the groom came to confess, he _had_ greased the horses' teeth. It was +the holy father who taught him, by the very fact of warning him against +it. By which we mean, that there are some scenes of which it is better +not to speak at all. + +Our fair moralist, however, has no such squeamishness. She will show up +these odious evangelicals; she will expose them and chastise them, +wherever they be. So have we seen, in that beautiful market in Thames +Street, whither the mariners of England bring the glittering produce of +their nets--so have we seen, we say, in Billingsgate, a nymph attacking +another of her sisterhood. How keenly she detects and proclaims the +number and enormity of her rival's faults! How eloquently she enlarges +upon the gin she has drunk, the children she has confided to the parish, +the watchmen whose noses she has broken, and the bridewells which she +has visited in succession! No one can but admire the lady's eloquence +and talent in conducting the case for the prosecution; no one will, +perhaps, doubt the guilt of the hapless object on whom her wrath is +vented. But, with all her rage for morality, had not that fair accused +have better left the matter alone? That torrent of slang and oath, O +nymph! falls ill from thy lips, which should never open but for a soft +word or a smile; that accurate description of vice, sweet orator [-tress +or-trix]! only shows that thou thyself art but too well acquainted with +scenes which thy pure eyes should never have beheld. And when we come to +the matter in dispute--a simple question of mackerel--O, Mrs. Trollope! +Why, why should you abuse other people's fish, and not content yourself +with selling your _own_.... + +There can be little doubt as to the cleverness of this novel, but, +coming from a women's pen, it is most odiously and disgustingly +indecent. As a party attack, it is an entire failure; and as a +representation of a very large portion of English Christians, a shameful +and wicked slander. + + + + +BULWER'S "ERNEST MALTRAVERS" + +To talk of _Ernest Maltravers_ now, is to rake up a dead man's ashes. +The poor creature came into the world almost still-born, and, though he +has hardly been before the public for a month, is forgotten as much as +_Rienzi_ or the _Disowned_. What a pity that Mr. Bulwer will not learn +wisdom with age, and confine his attention to subjects at once more +grateful to the public and more suitable to his own powers! He excels in +the _genre_ of Paul de Kock, and is always striving after the style of +Plato; he has a keen perception of the ridiculous and, like Liston or +Cruikshank, and other comic artists, persists that his real vein is the +sublime. What a number of sparkling magazine-papers, what an outpouring +of fun and satire, might we have had from Neddy Bulwer, had he not +thought fit to turn moralist, metaphysician, politician, poet, and be +Edward Lytton, Heaven--knows--what Bulwer, Esquire and M.P., a dandy, a +philosopher, a spouter at Radical meetings. We speak feelingly, for we +knew the youth at Trinity Hall, and have a tenderness even for his +tomfooleries. He has thrown away the better part of himself--his great +inclination for the LOW, namely; if he would but leave off scents for +his handkerchief, and oil for his hair; if he would but confine himself +to three clean shirts a week, a couple of coats in a year, a beefsteak +and onions for dinner, his beaker a pewter-pot, his carpet a sanded +floor, how much might be made of him even yet! An occasional pot of +porter too much--a black eye, in a tap-room fight with a carman--a night +in the watch-house--or a surfeit produced by Welsh-rabbit and gin and +beer, might, perhaps, redden his fair face and swell his slim waist; but +the _mental_ improvement which he would acquire under such treatment-- +the intellectual pluck and vigour which he would attain by the stout +diet--the manly sports and conversation in which he would join at the +Coal-Hole, or the Widow's, are far better for him than the feeble +fribble of the Reform Club (not inaptly called "The Hole in the Wall"); +the windy French dinners, which, as we take it, are his usual fare; and, +above all, the unwholesome Radical garbage which form the political food +of himself and his clique in the House of Commons. + +For here is the evil of his present artificial courses--the humbug +required to keep up his position as dandy, politician, and philosopher +(in neither of which latter characters the man is in earnest), must get +into _his heart_ at last; and then his trade is ruined. A little more +politics and Plato, and the natural disappears altogether from Mr. +Bulwer's writings: the individual man becomes as undistinguishable +amidst the farrago of philosophy in which he has chosen to envelope +himself, as a cutlet in the sauces of a French cook. The idiosyncracy of +the mutton perishes under the effects of the adjuncts: even so the +moralising, which may be compared to the mushrooms, of Mr. Bulwer's +style; the poetising, which may be likened unto the flatulent turnips +and carrots; and the politics, which are as the gravy, reeking of filthy +garlic, greasy with rancid oil;--even so, we say, pursuing this savoury +simile to its fullest extent, the natural qualities of young Pelham--the +wholesome and juicy _mutton of the mind_, is shrunk and stewed away. + +Or, to continue in this charming vein of parable, the author of _Pelham_ +may be likened to Beau Tibbs. Tibbs, as we all remember, would pass for +a pink of fashion, and had a wife whom he presented to the world as a +paragon of virtue and _ton_, and who was but the cast-off mistress of a +lord. Mr. Bulwer's philosophy is his Mrs. Tibbs; he thrusts her forward +into the company of her betters, as if her rank and reputation never +admitted of a question. To all his literary undertakings this goddess of +his accompanies him; what a cracked, battered truly she is! with a +person and morals that would suit Vinegar yard, and a chastity that +would be hooted in Drury Lane. + +The morality which Mr. Bulwer has acquired in his researches, political +and metaphysical, is of the most extraordinary nature. For one who is +always preaching of Truth of Beauty, the dulness of his moral sense is +perfectly ludicrous. He cannot see that the hero into whose mouth he +places his favourite metaphysical gabble--his dissertations about the +stars, the passions, the Greek plays, and what not--his eternal whine +about what he calls the good and the beautiful--is a fellow as mean and +paltry as can be well imagined; a man of rant, and not of action; +foolishly infirm of purpose, and strong only in desire; whose beautiful +is a tawdry strumpet, and whose good would be crime in the eyes of an +honest man. So much for the portrait of Ernest Maltravers: as for the +artist, we cannot conceive a man to have failed more completely. He +wishes to paint an amiable man, and he succeeds in drawing a scoundrel: +he says he will give us the likeness of a genius, and it is only the +picture of a _humbug_. + +Ernest Maltravers is an eccentric and enthusiastic young man, to whom we +are introduced upon his return from a German university. Fond of wild +adventure and solitary rambles, we find him upon a heath, wandering +alone, tired, and benighted. The two first chapters of the book are in +Mr. Bulwer's very best manner; the description of the lone hut to which +the lad comes--the ruffian who inhabits it--the designs which he has +upon the life of his new guest, and the manner in which his daughter +defeats them, are told with admirable liveliness and effect. The young +man escapes, and with him the girl who had prevented his murder. Both +are young, interesting, and tender hearted; she loves but him, and would +die of starvation without him. Ernest Maltravers cannot resist the claim +of so unprotected a creature; he hires a cottage for her, and a +writing-master. He is a young man of genius, and generous dispositions; he +is a Christian, and instructs the ignorant Alice in the awful truth of his +religion; moreover he is deep in poetry, philosophy, and the German +metaphysics. How should such a Christian instruct an innocent and +beautiful child, his pupil? What should such a philosopher do? Why +seduce her, to be sure! After a deal of namby-pamby Platonism, the girl, +as Mr. Bulwer says, "goes to the deuce." The expression is as charming +as the morality, and appears amidst a quantity of the very finest +writing about the good and the beautiful, youth, love, passion, nature +and so forth. It is curious how rapidly one turns from good to bad in +this book. How clever the descriptions are! how neatly some of the minor +events and personalities are hit off! and yet, how astonishingly vile +and contemptible the chief part of it is!--that part, we mean, which +contains the adventures of the hero, and, of course, the choice +reflections of the author. + +The declamations about virtue are endless, as soon as Maltravers appears +upon the scene; and yet we find him committing the agreeable little +_faux pas_ of which we have just spoken. In one place, we have him +making violent love to another man's wife; in another place, raging for +blood like a tiger and swearing for revenge.... + +It is curious and painful to read Mr. Bulwer's [philosophy], and to mark +the easy vanity with which virtue is assumed here, self-knowledge +arrogated, and a number of windy sentences, which really possess no +meaning, are gravely delivered with all the emphasis of truth and the +air of profound conviction. + +"I have learned," cries our precious philosopher, "to lean on my own +soul, and not look eleswhere [Transcriber's note: sic] for the reeds +that a wind can break!" And what has he learned by leaning on his own +soul? Is it to be happier than others? or to be better? Not he!--he is +as wretched and wicked a dog as any unhung. He "leans on his own soul," +and makes love to the Countess and seduces Alice Darvell. A ploughboy is +a better philosopher and moralist than this mouthing Maltravers, with +his boasted love of mankind (which reduces itself to a very coarse love +of _woman_kind), and his scorn of "the false gods and miserable creeds" +of the world, and his soul "lifting its crest to heaven!" A Catholic +whipping himself before a stone-image, a Brahmin dangling on a hook, or +standing on one leg for a year, has a higher notion of God than this +ranting fool, who is always prating about his own perfections and his +divine nature; the one is humble, at least, though blind; the other is +proud of his very imperfections and glories in his folly. What does this +creature know of virtue, who finds it _by leaning on his own soul_, +forsooth? What does he know of God, who, in looking for him, can see but +himself, steeped in sin, bloated and swollen with monstrous pride, and +strutting before the world and the creator as a maker of systems, a +layer down of morals, and a preacher of beauty and truth?... + +[Some of the] characters are excellently drawn; how much better than +"_their lips spake of sentiment, and their eyes applied it_!" How soon +these philosophers begin ogling! how charmingly their unceasing gabble +about beauty and virtue is exemplified in their actions! Mr. Bulwer's +philosophy is like a French palace--it is tawdry, shady, splendid; but, +_gare aux nez sensibles_! one is always reminded of the sewer. "Their +lips spoke sentiment, and their eyes applied it." O you naughty, naughty +Mr. Bulwer! + + + + +WILLIAM JOHN FOX + +The dedicatory inscription in the volume of _The Monthly Repository_, in +which the following review appears, will indicate--in a few words--the +motives inspiring the editor, W. J. Fox, in his journalistic career:-- +"To the Working People of Great Britain and Ireland; who, whether they +produce the means of physical support and enjoyment, or aid the progress +of moral, political, and social reform and improvement, are +fellow-labourers for the well-being of the entire community." + + * * * * * + +_Pauline_ was published, when Browning was 21, at his aunt's expense. It +secured only _one_ favourable notice, here printed; while the author and +his sister deliberately destroyed the unsold copies. + + + + +W. J. FOX ON BROWNING + +[From _The Monthly Repository_, 1833] + +_Pauline; A Fragment of a Confession_. London, Saunders & Otley. 1833 + +The most deeply interesting adventures, the wildest vicissitudes, the +most daring explorations, the mightiest magic, the fiercest conflicts, +the brightest triumphs, and the most affecting catastrophes, are those +of the spiritual world.... + +The knowledge of mind is the first of sciences; the records of its +formation and workings are the most important of histories; and it is +eminently a subject for poetical exhibition. The annals of a poet's mind +are poetry. Nor has there ever been a genuine bard, who was not himself +more poetical than any of his productions. They are emanations of his +essence. He himself is, or has been, all that he truly and touchingly, +_i.e._, poetically, describes. Wordsworth, indeed, never carried a +pedlar's pack, nor did Byron ever command a pirate ship, or Coleridge +shoot an albatross; but there were times and moods in which their +thoughts intently realised, and identified themselves with the +reflective wanderer, the impetuous Corsair, and the ancient mariner. +They felt _their_ feelings, thought _their_ thoughts, burned with +_their_ passions, dreamed _their_ dreams, and lived their lives, or died +their deaths. In relation to his creations, the poet is the omnific +spirit in whom they have their being. All their vitality must exist in +his life. He only, in them, displays to us fragments of himself. The +poem, in which a great poet should reveal the whole of himself to +mankind would be a study, a delight, and a power, for which there is yet +no parallel; and around which the noblest creations of the noblest +writers would range themselves as subsidiary luminaries. + +These thoughts have been suggested by the work before us, which, though +evidently a hasty and imperfect sketch, has truth and life in it, which +gave us the thrill, and laid hold of us with the power, the sensation of +which has never yet failed us as a test of genius. Whoever the anonymous +author may be, he is a poet. A pretender to science cannot always be +safely judged of by a brief publication, for the knowledge of some facts +does not imply the knowledge of other facts; but the claimant of poetic +honours may generally be appreciated by a few pages, often by a few +lines, for if they be poetry, he is a poet. We cannot judge of the house +by the brick, but we can judge of the statue of Hercules by its foot. We +felt certain of Tennyson, before we saw the book, by a few verses which +had straggled into a newspaper; we are not less certain of the author of +Pauline. + +Pauline is the recipient of the confessions: the hero is as anonymous as +the author, and this is no matter, for _poet_ is the title both of the +one and the other. The confessions have nothing in them which needs +names: the external world is only reflected in them in its faintest +shades; its influences are only described after they have penetrated +into the intellect. We have never read anything more purely +confessional. The whole composition is of the spirit, spiritual. The +scenery is in the chambers of thought: the agencies are powers and +passions; the events are transitions from one state of spiritual +existence to another. And yet the composition is not dreamy; there is on +it a deep stamp of reality. Still less is it characterised by coldness. +It has visions that we love to look upon, and tones that touch the +inmost heart till it responds. + +The poet's confessions are introduced with an analysis of his spiritual +constitution, in which he is described as having an intense +consciousness of individuality, combined with a sense of power, a +self-supremacy, and a "principle of restlessness which would be all, have, +see, know, taste, feel all"; of this essential self, imagination is +described as the characteristic quality; an imagination, steady and +unfailing in its power. A "yearning after God," or supreme and universal +good, unconsciously cherished through the earlier stages of the history, +keeps this mind from utterly dissipating itself; and, which seems to us +the only point in which the coherence fails, there is added an unaptness +for love, a mere perception of the beautiful, the perception being felt +more precious than its object.... + +And now when he has run the whole toilsome yet giddy round and arrived +at the goal, there arises, even though that goal be religion, or because +it is religion, a yearning after human sympathies and affections, which +would not have assorted with any state or moment of the previous +experience; he could not have loved before; at one time it would have +been only a fancy, a cold, and yet perhaps extravagant imagining; at +another, a low and selfish passion. Some souls are purified _by_ love, +others are purified _for_ love. Othello needed not Desdemona to listen +to his tale of disastrous chances; they were only external perils, rapid +by elevated station; but the mind that has gone through more than his +vicissitudes, been in deeper dangers, and deadlier struggles, even when +it rests at last in a far higher repose and dignity, yearns for some one +who will "seriously incline" to listen to the "strange eventful +history," one who will sympathise and soothe, who will receive the +confession, and give the absolution of heaven its best earthly +ratification, that of a pure and loving heart. The poem is addressed to +Pauline; with her it begins, and ends; and her presence is felt +throughout, as that of a second conscience, wounded by evil, but never +stern, and incorporate in a form of beauty, which blends and softens the +strong contrasts of different portions of the poem, so that all might be +murmured by the breath of affection. + +The author cannot expect such a poem as this to be popular, to make a +"hit," to produce a "sensation." The public are but slow in recognising +the claims of Tennyson whom in some respects he resembles; and the +common eye scarcely yet discerns among the laurel-crowned, the form of +Shelley, who seems (how justly, we stop not now to discuss), to have +been the god of his early idolatory. Whatever inspiration may have been +upon him from that deity, the mysticism of the original oracles has been +happily avoided. And whatever resemblance he may bear to Tennyson (a +fellow worshipper probably at the same shrine) he owes nothing of the +perhaps inferior melody of his verse to an employment of archaisms which +it is difficult to defend from the charge of affectation. But he has not +given himself the chance for popularity which Tennyson did, and which it +is evident that he easily might have done. His poem stands alone, with +none of those light but taking accompaniments, songs that sing +themselves, sketches that everybody knows, light little lyrics, floating +about like humming birds, around the trunk and foliage of the poem +itself; and which would attract so many eyes, and delight so many ears, +that will be slow to perceive the higher beauty of that composition, and +to whom a sycamore is no sycamore, unless it be "musical with bees." + + + + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY + +(1785-1859) + +De Quincey has been said to have "taken his place in our literature as +the author of about 150 magazine articles," and, though chiefly +remembered by his _Confessions of an Opium Eater_ and by his wonderful +experiments in "impassioned prose," there can be no question that his +critical work occupied much of his attention, and was nearly always +original. In many respects his point of view was perverse, and towards +his contemporaries occasionally spiteful; while his tendency to dwell +upon disputed points was apt to obscure the general impression. + + * * * * * + +It is interesting to compare his unmeasured condemnation of Pope with +Kingsley's eulogy: since both were, more or less, directly inspired by +the contrast of eighteenth century correctness to the poetical gospel of +the Lake Poets. From the two articles we can obtain a fair and emphatic +statement of "both sides of the case." + + + + +DE QUINCEY ON POPE + +[From _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_, May, 1851] + +Whom shall we pronounce a fit writer to be laid before an auditory of +working-men, as a model of what is just in composition--fit either for +conciliating their regard to literature at first or afterwards for +sustaining it? The qualifications for such a writer are apparently these +two; first, that he should deal chiefly with the elder and elementary +affections of man, and under those relations which concern man's +grandest capacities; secondly, that he should treat his subject with +solemnity, and not with sneer--with earnestness, as one under a +prophet's burden of impassioned truth, and not with the levity of a girl +hunting a chance-started caprice. I admire Pope in the very highest +degree; but I admire him as a pyrotechnic artist for producing brilliant +and evanescent effects out of elements that have hardly a moment's life +within them. There is a flash and a startling explosion, then there is a +dazzling coruscation, all purple and gold; the eye aches under the +suddenness of a display that, springing like a burning arrow out of +darkness, rushes back into the darkness with arrowy speed, and in a +moment is all over. Like festal shows, or the hurrying music of such +shows-- + + It _was_, and it is not. + +Untruly, therefore, was it ever fancied of Pope, that he +belonged by his classification to the family of the Drydens. Dryden had +within him a principle of continuity which was not satisfied without +lingering upon his own thoughts, brooding over them, and oftentimes +pursuing them through their unlinkings with the _sequaciousness_ (pardon +a Coleridgian word) that belongs to some process of creative nature, +such as the unfolding of a flower. But Pope was all jets and tongues of +flame; all showers of scintillation and sparkle. Dryden followed, +genially, an impulse of his healthy nature. Pope obeyed, spasmodically, +an overmastering febrile paroxysm. Even in these constitutional +differences between the two are written and are legible the +corresponding necessities of "utter falsehood in Pope, and of loyalty to +truth in Dryden." Strange it is to recall this one striking fact, that +if once in his life Dryden might reasonably have been suspected of +falsehood, it was in the capital matter of religion. He _ratted_ from +his Protestant faith; and according to the literal origin of that figure +he _ratted_; for he abjured it as rats abjure a ship in which their +instinct of divination has deciphered a destiny of ruin, and at the very +moment when Popery wore the promise of a triumph that might, at any +rate, have lasted his time. Dryden was a papist by apostacy; and +perhaps, not to speak uncharitably, upon some bias from self-interest. +Pope, on the other hand, was a Papist by birth, and by a tie of honour; +and he resisted all temptations to desert his afflicted faith, which +temptations lay in bribes of great magnitude prospectively, and in +persecutions for the present that were painfully humiliating. How base a +time-server does Dryden appear on the one side! on the other, how much +of a martyr should we be disposed to pronounce Pope! And yet, for all +that, such is the overruling force of a nature originally sincere, the +apostate Dryden wore upon his brow the grace of sincerity, whilst the +pseudo-martyr Pope, in the midst of actual fidelity to his church, was +at his heart a traitor--in the very oath of his allegiance to his +spiritual mistress had a lie upon his lips, scoffed at her while +kneeling in homage to her pretensions, and secretly forswore her +doctrines while suffering insults in her service. + +The differences as to truth and falsehood lay exactly where by all the +external symptoms they ought _not_ to have lain. But the reason for this +anomaly was that to Dryden sincerity had been a perpetual necessity of +his intellectual nature, whilst Pope, distracted by his own activities +of mind, living in an irreligious generation, and beset by infidel +friends, had early lost his anchorage of traditional belief; and yet, +upon honourable scruple of fidelity to the suffering Church of his +fathers, he sought often to dissemble the fact of his own scepticism, +which often he thirsted ostentatiously to parade. Through a motive of +truthfulness he became false. And in this particular instance he would, +at any rate, have become false, whatever had been the native +constitution of his mind. It was a mere impossibility to reconcile any +real allegiance to his church with his known irreverence to religion. +But upon far more subjects than this Pope was habitually false to the +quality of his thoughts, always insincere, never by any accident in +earnest, and consequently many times caught in ruinous self-contradiction. +Is that the sort of writer to furnish an advantageous study for the +precious leisure, precious as rubies, of the toil-worn artisan. + +The root and pledge of this falseness in Pope lay in a disease of his +mind, which he (like the Roman poet Horace) mistook for a feature of +praeter-natural strength; and this disease was the incapacity of +self-determination towards any paramount or abiding _principles_. Horace, +in a well-known passage, had congratulated himself upon this disease as +upon a trophy of philosophical emancipation: + + Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri, + Quo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes: + +which words Pope translates, and applies to himself in his +English adaptation of this epistle-- + + But ask not to what doctors I apply-- + Sworn to no master, of no sect am I. + As drives the storm, at any door I knock; + And house with Montaigne now, and now with Locke. + +That is, neither one poet nor the other having, as regarded philosophy, +any internal principle of gravitation or determining impulse to draw him +in one direction rather than another, was left to the random control of +momentary taste, accident, or caprice; and this indetermination of pure, +unballasted levity both Pope and Horace mistook for a special privilege +of philosophic strength. Others, it seems, were chained and coerced by +certain fixed aspects of truth, and their efforts were over-ruled +accordingly in one uniform line of direction. But _they_, the two +brilliant poets, fluttered on butterfly wings to the right and the left, +obeying no guidance but that of some instant and fugitive sensibility to +some momentary phasis of beauty. In this dream of drunken eclecticism, +and in the original possibility of such an eclecticism, lay the ground +of that enormous falsehood which Pope practised from youth to age. An +eclectic philosopher already, in the very title which he assumes, +proclaims his self-complacency in the large liberty of error purchased +by the renunciation of all controlling principles. Having served the +towing-line which connected him with any external force of guiding and +compulsory truth, he is free to go astray in any one of ten thousand +false radiations from the true centre of rest. By his own choice he is +wandering in a forest all but pathless, + + --ubi passim + Pallantes error recto de tramite pellit; + +and a forest not of sixty days' journey, like that old Hercynian +forest of Caesar's time, but a forest which sixty generations +have not availed to traverse or familiarise in any one direction.... + +_Here_ would be the most advantageous and _remunerative_ station to take +for one who should undertake a formal exposure of Pope's +hollow-heartedness; that is, it would most commensurately reward the pains +and difficulties of such an investigation. But it would be too long a task +for this situation, and it would be too polemic. It would move through a +jungle of controversies.... Instead of this I prefer, as more amusing, +as less elaborate, and as briefer, to expose a few of Pope's _personal_ +falsehoods, and falsehoods as to the notorieties of _fact_. Truth +speculative often-times, drives its roots into depth, so dark that the +falsifications to which it is liable, though detected, cannot always be +exposed to the light of day--the result is known, but not therefore +seen. Truth personal, on the other hand, may easily be made to confront +its falsifier, not with reputation only, but with the visible _shame_ of +refutation. Such shame would settle upon _every_ page of Pope's satires +and moral epistles, oftentimes upon every couplet, if any censor, armed +with an adequate knowledge of the facts, were to prosecute the inquest. +And the general impression from such an inquest would be, that Pope +never delineated a character, nor uttered a sentiment, nor breathed an +aspiration, which he would not willingly have recast, have retracted, +have abjured or trampled underfoot with the curses assigned to heresy, +if by such an act he could have added a hue of brilliancy to his +colouring or a new depth to his shadows. There is nothing he would not +have sacrificed, not the most solemn of his opinions, nor the most +pathetic memorial from his personal experience, in return for a +sufficient consideration, which consideration meant always with _him_ +poetic effect. It is not, as too commonly is believed, that he was +reckless of other people's feelings; so far from _that_, he had a morbid +_facility_ in his kindness; and in cases where he had no reason to +suspect any lurking hostility, he showed even a paralytic benignity. +But, simply and constitutionally, he was incapable of a sincere thought +or a sincere emotion. Nothing that ever he uttered, were it even a +prayer to God, but he had a fancy for reading it backwards. And he was +evermore false, not as loving or preferring falsehood, but as one who +could not in his heart perceive much real difference between what people +affected to call falsehood, and what they affected to call truth. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Famous Reviews, by Editor: R. Brimley Johnson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS REVIEWS *** + +***** This file should be named 11251-8.txt or 11251-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/2/5/11251/ + +Produced by Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/11251-8.zip b/old/11251-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9d0815 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11251-8.zip diff --git a/old/11251.txt b/old/11251.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9cc56a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11251.txt @@ -0,0 +1,19166 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Famous Reviews, by Editor: R. Brimley Johnson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Famous Reviews + +Author: Editor: R. Brimley Johnson + +Release Date: February 24, 2004 [EBook #11251] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS REVIEWS *** + + + + +Produced by Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + +FAMOUS REVIEWS + + +_FROM THE SAME PUBLISHERS_ + + +FAMOUS SPEECHES. First Series. From Cromwell to Gladstone. Selected and +Edited with Introductory Notes by HERBERT PAUL. In demy 8vo, cloth, 470 +pp. 7s. 6d. net. + +FAMOUS SPEECHES. Second Series. From Lord Macaulay to Lord Rosebery. +Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes by HERBERT PAUL. In demy +8vo, cloth, 398 pp. 7s. 6d. net. + +FAMOUS SERMONS BY ENGLISH PREACHERS. From the VENERABLE BEDE to H.P. +LIDDON. Edited with Historical and Biographical Notes by Canon DOUGLAS +MACLEANE, M.A. In demy 8vo, cloth gilt. 6s. net. + + + + +FAMOUS REVIEWS + +SELECTED AND EDITED + +WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES + +BY + +R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON + + + + Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true, + But are not critics to their judgment too? + _Pope_. + + +LONDON + +1914 + + + +CONTENTS + +PREFACE + +OF CRITICISM AND THE CRITIC + +THE EDINBURGH REVIEW: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Edinburgh Review_ +(founded 1802) + +LORD JEFFREY ON-- [SOUTHEY'S "THALABA" + [SOUTHEY'S LAUREATE LAYS + [THOMAS MOORE + [WORDSWORTH'S "EXCURSION" + ["ENDYMION" + +LORD BROUGHAM ON BYRON + +SYDNEY SMITH ON HANNAH MORE + +MACAULAY ON-- [SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES + [CROKER'S "BOSWELL" + [W. E. GLADSTONE + [MADAME D'ARBLAY + +ANONYMOUS ON-- [WORDSWORTH + [MATURIN'S "MELMOTH" + +THE QUARTERLY REVIEW: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Quarterly Review_ +(founded 1809) + +GIFFORD ON-- [WEBER'S "FORD" + [KEATS + +CROKER ON-- [SYDNEY SMITH + [MACAULAY + +LOCKHART ON-- [THE AUTHOR OF "VATHEK" + [S. T. COLERIDGE + +SIR WALTER SCOTT ON JANE AUSTEN + +ARCHBISHOP WHATELY ON JANE AUSTEN + +W. E. GLADSTONE ON TENNYSON'S POEMS + +CANON WILBERFORCE ON--[DARWIN + [CARDINAL NEWMAN + +ANONYMOUS ON SCOTT'S--["WAVERLEY" + ["TALES OF MY LANDLORD" + +ANONYMOUS ON-- [LEIGH HUNT'S "RIMINI" + ["SHAKESPEARE HIMSELF AGAIN" + [MOXON'S SONNETS + ["VANITY FAIR" AND "JANE EYRE" + [GEORGE ELIOT + +BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _Blackwood's Magazine_ +(founded 1817) + +PROFESSOR WILSON ON--[POPE AND WORDSWORTH +(_Christopher North_) [LORD BYRON + [DR. JOHNSON + [CRUMBS FROM THE "NOCTES" + +ANONYMOUS ON-- [S. T. COLERIDGE + [THE COCKNEY SCHOOL I + [" " " III + [" " " IV + [SHELLEY'S "PROMETHEUS" + +THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Westminster Review_ +(founded 1824) + +J. S. MILL ON-- [TENNYSON'S POEMS + [MACAULAY'S "LAYS" + +JOHN STERLING ON CARLYLE + +FRASER'S MAGAZINE: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _Fraser's Magazine_ + +THACKERAY ON DICKENS'S CHRISTMAS STORIES + +CHARLES KINGSLEY ON THE LAKE POETS + +ANONYMOUS ON CHRISTMAS BOOKS, 1837 + +W. F. FOX: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From _The Monthly Repository_ +W. F. FOX ON BROWNING'S "PAULINE" + +DE QUINCEY: EDITOR'S NOTE + +From Tail's _Edinburgh Magazine_ + +DE QUINCEY ON POPE + + + + +PREFACE + +Although regular literary organs, and the critical columns of the press, +are both of comparatively recent origin, we find that almost from the +beginning our journalists aspired to be critics as well as newsmongers. +Under Charles II, Sir Roger L'Estrange issued his _Observator_ (1681), +which was a weekly review, not a chronicle; and John Dunton's _The +Athenian Mercury_ (1690), is best described as a sort of early "Notes +and Queries." Here, as elsewhere, Defoe developed this branch of +journalism, particularly in his _Review_ (1704), and in _Mist's Journal_ +(1714). And, again, as in all other departments, his methods were not +materially improved upon until Leigh Hunt, and his brother John, started +_The Examiner_ in 1808, soon after the rise of the Reviews. Addison and +Steele, of course, had treated literary topics in _The Spectator_ or +_The Tatler_; but the serious discussion of contemporary writers began +with the Whig _Edinburgh_ of 1802 and the Tory _Quarterly_ of 1809. + +By the end of George III's reign every daily paper had its column of +book-notices; while 1817 marks an epoch in the weekly press; when +William Jerdan started _The Observator_ (parent of our _Athenaeum_) in +order to furnish (for one shilling weekly) "a clear and instructive +picture of the moral and literary improvement of the time, and a +complete and authentic chronological literary record for reference." + +Though probably there is no form of literature more widely practised, +and less organised, than the review, it would be safe to say that every +example stands somewhere between a critical essay and a publisher's +advertisement. We need not, however, consider here the many influences +which may corrupt newspaper criticism to-day, nor concern ourselves with +those legitimate "notices of books" which only aim at "telling the +story" or otherwise offering guidance for an "order from the library." + +The question remains, on which we do not propose to dogmatise, whether +the ideal of a reviewer should be critical or explanatory: whether, in +other words, he should attempt final judgment or offer comment and +analysis from which we may each form our own opinion. Probably no hard +and fast line can be drawn between the review and the essay; yet a good +volume of criticism can seldom be gleaned from periodicals. For one +thing all journalism, whether consciously or unconsciously, must contain +an appeal to the moment. The reviewer is introducing new work to his +reader, the essayist, or critic proper, may nearly always assume some +familiarity with his subject. The one hazards prophecy; the other +discusses, and illumines, a judgment already formed, if not established. +It is obvious that such reviews as Macaulay's in the _Edinburgh_ were +often permanent contributions to critical history; while, on the other +hand, many ponderous effusions of the _Quarterly_ are only interesting +as a sign of the times. + +The fame of a review, however, does not always depend on merit. The +scandalous attacks on the Cockney school, for example, were neither good +literature nor honest criticism. We still pause in wonder before the +streams of virulent personal abuse and unbridled licence in temper which +disgrace the early pages of volumes we now associate with sound and +dignified, if somewhat conventional, utterances on the art of Literature +as viewed from the table-land of authority. And, as inevitably the most +famous reviews are those which attend the birth of genius, we must +include more respectable errors of judgment, if we find also several +remarkable appreciations which prove singular insight. + +Following the "early" reviews, whether distinguished for culpable +blindness, private hostility, or rare sympathy, we must depend for our +second main source of material upon that fortunate combination of +circumstances when one of the mighty has been invited to pass judgment +upon his peers. When Scott notices Jane Austen, Macaulay James Boswell, +Gladstone and John Stuart Mill Lord Tennyson, the article acquires a +double value from author and subject. Curiously enough, as it would seem +to us in these days of advertisement, many such treasures of criticism +were published anonymously; and accident has often aided research in the +discovery of their authorship. It is only too probable that more were +written than we have yet on record. + +In reviewing, as elsewhere, the growth of professionalism has tended to +level the quality of work. The mass of thoroughly competent criticism +issued to-day has raised enormously the general tone of the press; but +genuine men of letters are seldom employed to welcome, or stifle, a +newcomer; though Meredith, and more frequently Swinburne, have on +occasion elected to pronounce judgment upon the passing generation; as +Mrs. Meynell or Mr. G.K. Chesterton have sometimes said the right thing +about their contemporaries. The days when postcard notices from +Gladstone secured a record in sales are over; and, from whatever +combination of causes, we hear no more of famous reviews. + +R. BRIMLEY JOHNSON. + + +It is with regret that I have found it impossible to print more than a +few of the following reviews complete. The writing of those days was, in +almost every case, extremely prolix, and often irrelevant. It nearly +always makes heavy reading in the originals. The _principle_ of +selection adopted is to retain the most pithy, and attractive, portion +of each article: omitting quotations and the discussion of particular +passages. It therefore becomes necessary to remark--in justice to the +writers--that most of the criticisms here quoted were accompanied by +references to what was regarded by the reviewer as evidence supporting +them. Most of the authors, or books, noticed however, are sufficiently +well known for the reader to have no difficulty in judging for himself. + +R. B. J. + + + + +OF CRITICISM AND CRITIC + + +DR. JOHNSON + +There is a certain race of men, that either imagine it their duty, or +make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of +learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and +value themselves upon giving ignorance and envy the first notice of a +prey. + +To these men, who distinguish themselves by the appellation of Critics, +it is necessary for a new author to find some means of recommendation. +It is probable, that the most malignant of these persecutors might be +somewhat softened, and prevailed on, for a short time, to remit their +fury. Having for this purpose considered many expedients, I find in the +records of ancient times, that Argus was lulled by music, and Cerberus +quieted with a sop; and am, therefore, inclined to believe that modern +critics, who, if they have not the eyes, have the watchfulness of Argus, +and can bark as loud as Cerberus, though, perhaps, they cannot bite with +equal force, might be subdued by methods of the same kind. I have heard +that some have been pacified with claret and a supper, and others laid +asleep with the soft notes of flattery.--_The Rambler_. + + +CHRISTOPHER NORTH + +I care not one single curse for all the criticism that ever was canted +or decanted, or recanted. Neither does the world. The world takes a poet +as it finds him, and seats him above or below the salt. The world is as +obstinate as a million mules, and will not turn its head on one side or +another for all the shouting of the critical population that ever was +shouted. It is very possible that the world is a bad judge. Well, then-- +appeal to posterity, and be hanged to you--and posterity will affirm the +judgment, with costs.--_Noctes Ambrosianae, Sept_., 1825. + +Our current literature teems with thought and feeling,--with passion and +imagination. There was Gifford, and there are Jeffrey, and Southey ... +and twenty--forty--fifty--other crack contributors to the Reviews, +Magazines and Gazettes, who have said more tender, and true, and fine, +and deep things in the way of criticism, than ever was said before since +the reign of Cadmus, ten thousand times over,--not in long, dull, heavy, +formal, prosy theories--but flung off-hand, out of the glowing mint--a +coinage of the purest ore--and stamped with the ineffaceable impress of +genius.--_Noctes Ambrosianae_, April, 1829. + + +The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. +EDMUND BURKE. + + +We must not underrate him who uses wit for subsistence, and flies from +the ingratitude of the age even to a bookseller for redress. +OLIVER GOLDSMITH. + + +The critical faculty is a _rara avis_; almost as rare, indeed, as the +phoenix, which appears only once in five hundred years. ARTHUR +SCHOPENHAUER. + + +The Supreme Critic ... is ... that Unity, that Oversoul, within which +every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other. +R. W. EMERSON. + + +Criticism's best spiritual work which is to keep man from a +self-satisfaction which is retarding and vulgarising, to lead him +towards perfection, by making his mind dwell upon what is excellent in +itself, and the absolute beauty and fitness of things. +MATTHEW ARNOLD. + + +The whole history of criticism has been a triumph of authors over +critics. +R. G. MOULTON. + + +Our criticism is disabled by the unwillingness of the critic to learn +from an author, and his readiness to mistrust him. +D. H. HOWELLS. + + +We have too many small schoolmasters; yet not only do I not question in +literature the high utility of criticism, but I should be tempted to say +that the part it plays may be the supremely beneficent one when it +proceeds from deep sources, from the efficient combination of experience +and perception. In this light one sees the critic as the real helper of +mankind, a torch-bearing outrider, the interpreter _par excellence_. +HENRY JAMES. + + + + +FAMOUS REVIEWS + + * * * * * + +THE EDINBURGH REVIEW + +"A confederacy (the word _conspiracy_ may be libellous) to defend the +worst atrocities of the French, and to cry down every author to whom +England was dear and venerable. A better spirit now prevails in the +_Edinburgh Review_ from the generosity and genius of Macaulay. But in +the days when Brougham and his confederates were writers in it, more +falsehood and more malignity marked its pages than any other journal in +the language." + + +W.S. LANDOR. + +Landor is speaking, of course, with his usual impetuosity, particularly +moved by antipathy to Lord Brougham. A fairer estimate of the "bluff and +blue" exponent of Whig principles may be obtained from our brief +estimate of Jeffrey below. His was the informing spirit, at least in its +earliest days, and that spirit would brook no divided sway. + + +FRANCIS LORD JEFFREY +(1773-1850) + +Jeffrey was editor of the _Edinburgh Review_ from its foundation in +October 10th, 1802, till June, 1829; and continued to write for it until +June, 1848. He was more patronising in his abuse than either _Blackwood_ +or the _Quarterly_, and on the whole fairer and more dignified; though +he was considerably influenced by political bias. In fact, his +judgments--though versatile--were narrow, his most marked limitations +arising from blindness to the imaginative. + +The short, vivacious figure (so low that he might pass under your chin +without ever catching the eye even for a moment, says Lockhart), was far +more impressive when familiar than at first sight. Lord Cockburn praises +his legal abilities (whether as judge or advocate) almost without +qualification; but Wilson derides his appearance in the House:--"A cold +thin voice, doling out little, quaint, metaphysical sentences with the +air of a provincial lecturer on logic and _belles-lettres_. A few good +Whigs of the old school adjourned upstairs, the Tories began to converse +_de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_, the Radicals were either snoring +or grinning, and the great gun of the north ceased firing amidst such a +hubbub of inattention, that even I was not aware of the fact for several +minutes." + +He has been called "almost a lecturer in society," and it is clear that +his difficulty always was to cease talking. Men as different as Macaulay +and Charles Dickens have spoken with deep personal affection of his +memory. + +In one of Carlyle's inimitable "pen-portraits" he is described as "a +delicate, attractive, dainty little figure, as he merely walked about, +much more if he were speaking: uncommonly bright, black eyes, instinct +with vivacity, intelligence and kindly fire; roundish brow, delicate +oval face, full, rapid expression; figure light, nimble, pretty, though +so small, perhaps hardly five feet four in height.... His voice clear, +harmonious, and sonorous, had something of metallic in it, something +almost plangent ... a strange, swift, sharp-sounding, fitful modulation, +part of it pungent, _quasi latrant_, other parts of it cooing, bantery, +lovingly quizzical, which no charm of his fine ringing voice (_metallic_ +tenor, of sweet tone), and of his vivacious rapid looks and pretty +little attitudes and gestures, could altogether reconcile you to, but in +which he persisted through good report and bad." + + * * * * * + +Perhaps Jeffrey's most famous criticism was the "This will never do" on +Wordsworth; of which Southey wrote to Scott, "Jeffrey, I hear, has +written what his friends call a _crushing_ review of the Excursion. He +might as well seat himself on Skiddaw, and fancy that he crushed the +mountain." + +It is obvious, indeed, that the Lake poets had little respect for their +"superior" reviewers; whose opinions, on the other hand, were not +subject to influences from high places. It will be noticed that Jefferey +is even more severe on Southey's Laureate "Lays" than on his "Thalaba." + +The review on Moore, quoted below, was followed by formal arrangements +for a duel at Chalk Farm on 11th August, 1806; but the police had orders +to interrupt, and pistols were loaded with paper. Even the semblance of +animosity was not maintained, as we find Moore contributing to the +_Edinburgh_ before the end of the same year. + +We fear that the appreciation of Keats was partly influenced by +political considerations; since Leigh Hunt had so emphatically welcomed +him into the camp. It remains, however, a pleasing contrast to the +ferocious onslaught on _Endymion_ of Gifford printed below. + + +HENRY LORD BROUGHAM +(1779-1868) + +Brougham was intimately associated with Jeffrey in the foundation of the +_Edinburgh Review_: he is said to have written eighty articles in the +first twenty numbers, though like all his work, the criticism was spoilt +by egotism and vanity. The fact is that an over-brilliant versatility +injured his work. Combining "in his own person the characters of Solon, +Lycurgus, Demosthenes, Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Lord Chesterfield, +and a great many more," his restless genius accomplished nothing +substantial or sound. His writing was far less careful than his oratory. +A man from whom almost everything was expected, and who was always +before the eye of the public; he has been described as "the God of +Whiggish idolatry," and as "impossible" in society. Harriet Martineau is +unsparing in her criticism of his manners and language; and evidently he +was an inveterate swearer. His enthusiasm for noble causes was +infectious; only, as Coleridge happily expressed it, "because his heart +was placed in what should have been his head, you were never sure of +him--you always doubted his sincerity." + +In the Opposition and at the Bar this eloquent energy had full scope, +"but as Lord Chancellor his selfish disloyalty offended his colleagues +while," as O'Connell remarked, "If Brougham knew a little of Law, he +would know a little of everything." Unquestionably his obvious failings +obscured his real eminence, and even hinder us, to-day, from doing full +justice to his memory. + + * * * * * + +It was the following, somewhat heavy-handed, review which inspired the +_English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_, with all its "extraordinary powers +of malicious statement"--truly a Roland for his Oliver. + + +SYDNEY SMITH +(1771-1845) + +The third founder of the _Edinburgh_ and one of its most aggressive +reviewers, until March, 1827, Sydney Smith has been described as "most +provokingly and audaciously personal in his strictures.... He was too +complacent, too aboundingly self-satisfied, too buoyantly full of +spirits, to hate anybody; but he burlesques them, derides them, and +abuses them with the most exasperating effrontery--in a way that is +great fun to the reader, but exquisite torture to the victim." At the +same time, his wit was always governed by commonsense (its most +prevailing distinction); and, though almost unique among humorists for +his personal gaiety, "his best work was done in promoting practical +ends, and his wit in its airiest gambols never escaped his control." +There was, in fact, considerable independence--and even courage--in his +seriously inspired attacks on various abuses, and on every form of +affectation and cant. Though his manners and conversation were not +precisely those we generally associate with the Cloth, Sydney Smith +published several volumes of sermons, and always accepted the +responsibilities of his position as a clergyman with becoming industry. +Croker's veiled sarcasm in the _Quarterly_ (printed below) was no more +bitter, or truthful, than similar utterances on any Whig. + + * * * * * + +We know little to-day of-- + + The sacred dramas of Miss Hannah More + Where Moses and the little muses snore, + +but, in her own day, she was flattered in society and a real influence +among the serious-minded. She understood the poor and gave them +practical advice. Sydney Smith, of course, would be in sympathy with her +"good works," but could not resist his joke. + + +THOMAS BABINGTON LORD MACAULAY +(1800-1859) + +To quote one of his own favourite expressions, "every schoolboy knows" +the outlines of Macaulay's life and work. We have recited the Lays, +probably read some of the History, possibly even heard of his eloquent +and unmeasured attacks on those whose literary work incurred his +displeasure. We know that his memory was phenomenal, if his statements +were not always accurate. The biographers tell us further that no one +could be more simple in private life, or more devoted to his own family: +his nephews and nieces having no idea that their favourite "Uncle Tom" +was a great man. Criticism, of course, is by no means so unanimous. Mr. +Augustine Birrell has wittily remarked that his "style is ineffectual +for the purpose of telling the truth about anything"; and James Thomson +epitomised his political bias in a biting paragraph:--"Macaulay, +historiographer in chief to the Whigs, and the great prophet of Whiggery +which never had or will have a prophet, vehemently judged that a man who +could pass over from the celestial Whigs to the infernal Tories must be +a traitor false as Judas, an apostate black as the Devil." Always a boy +at heart, and singularly careless of his appearance, Macaulay was so +phenomenally successful in every direction that envy may account for +most personal criticism not inspired by recognised opponents. Those who +called him a bore were most probably over-sensitive about their own +inability to hold up against arguments, or opinions, they longed to +combat. + +He was a student at Lincoln's Inn when the brilliant article on the +translation of a newly-found treatise by Milton on _Christian Doctrine_ +appeared in the _Edinburgh_ (1825), and inaugurated a new power in +English prose. Macaulay himself declared that it was "overloaded with +gaudy and ungraceful argument"; but it secured his literary reputation +and determined much of his career. He became an influence on the +_Edinburgh_, probably somewhat modifying its whole tone, and generally +identified with its reputation. "The son of a Saint," says Christopher +North, "who seems himself to be something of a reviewer, is insidious as +the serpent, but fangless, as the glow worm"; and the Tory press were, +naturally, up in arms against the champion critic of their pet +prodigies. + + * * * * * + +_Southey_ received, as we must now admit, more than his fair share of +abuse from the Liberal press, for the comfortable conservatism of his +maturity; and Macaulay did not love the Laureate. We note that +_Blackwood's_ defended him with spirit, and Wilson's protracted, and +furious, attack on Macaulay for this particular review may be found in +the _Nodes Ambrosianae_, April, 1830. + +_Croker_, in all probability, deserved much of the scorn here poured +upon his editorial labour (though it _had_ merits which his critic +deliberately ignores); Wilson, again _(Noctes Ambrosianae,_ November, +1831), examines, and professes to confute, almost every criticism in the +review. Croker himself found a convenient occasion for revenge in his +review of Macaulay's History printed below. + +The interesting recognition of _Gladstone_ awakes pleasanter sentiments; +especially when we notice the return compliment (in the same +_Quarterly_, but twenty-seven years later than Croker's attack) of the +statesman's generous tribute. "Macaulay," says Gladstone, "was +singularly free of vices ... one point only we reserve, a certain tinge +of occasional vindictiveness. Was he envious? Never. Was he servile? No. +Was he insolent? No.... Was he idle? The question is ridiculous. Was he +false? No; but true as steel and transparent as crystal. Was he vain? We +hold that he was not. At every point in the ugly list he stands the +trial." + + * * * * * + +ANONYMOUS + +This earlier notice of Wordsworth is certainly in exact sympathy with +Jeffrey on the Excursion, and may very well have come from the same pen. +At any rate, it introduces the Edinburgh attitude towards the Lakers. + +The criticism of Maturin has all the tone of moral authority which +provoked many readers of the Review, and was, probably, in part +responsible for the less "measured" attitude adopted by the _Quarterly_. + + + + +LORD JEFFREY ON SOUTHEY'S "THALABA" + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, October, 1802] + +_Thalaba, the Destroyer: A Metrical Romance_. By ROBERT SOUTHEY. 2 vols. +12 mo. London. + +Poetry has this much, at least, in common with religion, that its +standards were fixed long ago, by certain inspired writers, whose +authority it is no longer lawful to call in question; and that many +profess to be entirely devoted to it, who have no _good works_ to +produce in support of their pretensions. The catholic poetical church, +too, has worked but few miracles since the first ages of its +establishment; and has been more prolific, for a long time, of Doctors, +than of Saints: it has had its corruptions and reformation also, and has +given birth to an infinite variety of heresies and errors, the followers +of which have hated and persecuted each other as cordially as other +bigots. + +The author who is now before us, belongs to a _sect_ of poets, that has +established itself in this country within these ten or twelve years, and +is looked upon, we believe, as one of its chief champions and apostles. +The peculiar doctrines of this sect, it would not, perhaps, be very easy +to explain; but, that they are _dissenters_ from the established systems +in poetry and criticism, is admitted, and proved indeed, by the whole +tenor of their compositions. Though they lay claim, we believe, to a +creed and a revelation of their own, there can be little doubt, that +their doctrines are of _German_ origin, and have been derived from some +of the great modern reformers in that country. Some of their leading +principles, indeed, are probably of an earlier date, and seem to have +been borrowed from the great apostle of Geneva. As Mr. Southey is the +first author, of this persuasion, that has yet been brought before us +for judgment, we cannot discharge our inquisitorial office +conscientiously, without premising a few words upon the nature and +tendency of the tenets he has helped to promulgate. + +The disciples of this school boast much of its originality, and seem to +value themselves very highly, for having broken loose from the bondage +of ancient authority, and re-asserted the independence of genius. +Originality, however, we are persuaded, is rarer than mere alteration; +and a man may change a good master for a bad one, without finding +himself at all nearer to independence. That our new poets have abandoned +the old models, may certainly be admitted; but we have not been able to +discover that they have yet created any models of their own; and are +very much inclined to call in question the worthiness of those to which +they have transferred their admiration. The productions of this school, +we conceive, are so far from being entitled to the praise of +originality, that they cannot be better characterised, than by an +enumeration of the sources from which their materials have been derived. +The greater part of them, we apprehend, will be found to be composed of +the following elements: (1) The antisocial principles, and distempered +sensibility of Rousseau--his discontent with the present constitution of +society--his paradoxical morality, and his perpetual hankerings after +some unattainable state of voluptuous virtue and perfection. (2) The +simplicity and energy (_horresco referens_) of Kotzebue and Schiller. +(3) The homeliness and harshness of some of Cowper's language and +versification, interchanged occasionally with the _innocence_ of Ambrose +Philips, or the quaintness of Quarles and Dr. Donne. From the diligent +study of these few originals, we have no doubt that an entire art of +poetry may be collected, by the assistance of which, the very _gentlest_ +of our readers may soon be qualified to compose a poem as correctly +versified as Thalaba, and to deal out sentiment and description, with +all the sweetness of Lamb, and all the magnificence of Coleridge. + +The authors, of whom we are now speaking, have, among them, +unquestionably, a very considerable portion of poetical talent, and +have, consequently, been enabled to seduce many into an admiration of +the false taste (as it appears to us) in which most of their productions +are composed. They constitute, at present, the most formidable +conspiracy that has lately been formed against sound judgment in matters +poetical; and are entitled to a larger share of our censorial notice, +than could be spared for an individual delinquent. We shall hope for the +indulgence of our readers, therefore, in taking this opportunity to +inquire a little more particularly into their merits, and to make a few +remarks upon those peculiarities which seem to be regarded by their +admirers as the surest proofs of their excellence. + +Their most distinguishing symbol, is undoubtedly an affectation of great +simplicity and familiarity of language. They disdain to make use of the +common poetical phraseology, or to ennoble their diction by a selection +of fine or dignified expressions. There would be too much _art_ in this, +for that great love of nature with which they are all of them inspired; +and their sentiments, they are determined shall be indebted, for their +effect, to nothing but their intrinsic tenderness or elevation. There is +something very noble and conscientious, we will confess, in this plan of +composition; but the misfortune is, that there are passages in all +poems, that can neither be pathetic nor sublime; and that, on these +occasions, a neglect of the embellishments of language is very apt to +produce absolute meanness and insipidity. The language of passion, +indeed, can scarcely be deficient in elevation; and when an author is +wanting in that particular, he may commonly be presumed to have failed +in the truth, as well as in the dignity of his expression. The case, +however, is extremely different with the subordinate parts of a +composition; with the narrative and description, that are necessary to +preserve its connection; and the explanation, that must frequently +prepare us for the great scenes and splendid passages. In these, all the +requisite ideas may be conveyed, with sufficient clearness, by the +meanest and most negligent expressions; and if magnificence or beauty is +ever to be observed in them, it must have been introduced from some +other motive than that of adapting the style to the subject. It is in +such passages, accordingly, that we are most frequently offended with +low and inelegant expressions; and that the language, which was intended +to be simple and natural, is found oftenest to degenerate into mere +slovenliness and vulgarity. It is in vain, too, to expect that the +meanness of those parts may be redeemed by the excellence of others. A +poet, who aims at all at sublimity or pathos, is like an actor in a high +tragic character, and must sustain his dignity throughout, or become +altogether ridiculous. We are apt enough to laugh at the mock-majesty of +those whom we know to be but common mortals in private; and cannot +permit Hamlet to make use of a single provincial intonation, although it +should only be in his conversation with the grave-diggers. + +The followers of simplicity are, therefore, at all times in danger of +occasional degradation; but the simplicity of this new school seems +intended to ensure it. _Their_ simplicity does not consist, by any +means, in the rejection of glaring or superfluous ornament--in the +substitution of elegance to splendour, or in that refinement of art +which seeks concealment in its own perfection. It consists, on the +contrary, in a very great degree, in the positive and _bona fide_ +rejection of art altogether, and in the bold use of those rude and +negligent expressions, which would be banished by a little +discrimination. One of their own authors, indeed, has very ingeniously +set forth (in a kind of manifesto that preceded one of their most +flagrant acts of hostility), that it was their capital object "to adapt +to the uses of poetry, the ordinary language of conversation among the +middling and lower orders of the people." What advantages are to be +gained by the success of this project, we confess ourselves unable to +conjecture. The language of the higher and more cultivated orders may +fairly be presumed to be better than that of their inferiors: at any +rate, it has all those associations in its favour, by means of which, a +style can ever appear beautiful or exalted, and is adapted to the +purposes of poetry, by having been long consecrated to its use. The +language of the vulgar, on the other hand, has all the opposite +associations to contend with; and must seem unfit for poetry (if there +were no other reason), merely because it has scarcely ever been employed +in it. A great genius may indeed overcome these disadvantages; but we +can scarcely conceive that he should court them. We may excuse a certain +homeliness of language in the productions of a ploughman or a milkwoman; +but we cannot bring ourselves to admire it in an author, who has had +occasion to indite odes to his college bell, and inscribe hymns to the +Penates. + +But the mischief of this new system is not confined to the depravation +of language only; it extends to the sentiments and emotions, and leads +to the debasement of all those feelings which poetry is designed to +communicate. It is absurd to suppose, that an author should make use of +the language of the vulgar, to express the sentiments of the refined. +His professed object, in employing that language, is to bring his +compositions nearer to the true standard of nature; and his intention to +copy the sentiments of the lower orders, is implied in his resolution to +make use of their style. Now, the different classes of society have each +of them a distinct character, as well as a separate idiom; and the names +of the various passions to which they are subject respectively, have a +signification that varies essentially according to the condition of the +persons to whom they are applied. The love, or grief, or indignation of +an enlightened and refined character, is not only expressed in a +different language, but is in itself a different emotion from the love, +or grief, or anger, of a clown, a tradesman, or a market-wench. The +things themselves are radically and obviously distinct; and the +representation of them is calculated to convey a very different train of +sympathies and sensations to the mind. The question, therefore, comes +simply to be--which of them is the most proper object for poetical +imitation? It is needless for us to answer a question, which the +practice of all the world has long ago decided irrevocably. The poor and +vulgar may interest us, in poetry, by their _situation_; but never, we +apprehend, by any sentiments that are peculiar to their condition, and +still less by any language that is characteristic of it. The truth is, +that it is impossible to copy their diction or their sentiments +correctly, in a serious composition; and this, not merely because +poverty makes men ridiculous, but because just taste and refined +sentiment are rarely to be met with among the uncultivated part of +mankind; and a language, fitted for their expression, can still more +rarely form any part of their "ordinary conversation." + +The low-bred heroes, and interesting rustics of poetry, have no sort of +affinity to the real vulgar of this world; they are imaginary beings, +whose characters and language are in contrast with their situation; and +please those who can be pleased with them, by the marvellous, and not by +the nature of such a combination. In serious poetry, a man of the +middling or lower order _must necessarily_ lay aside a great deal of his +ordinary language; he must avoid errors in grammar and orthography; and +steer clear of the cant of particular professions, and of every +impropriety that is ludicrous or disgusting: nay, he must speak in good +verse, and observe all the graces in prosody and collocation. After all +this, it may not be very easy to say how we are to find him out to be a +low man, or what marks can remain of the ordinary language of +conversation in the inferior orders of society. If there be any phrases +that are not used in good society, they will appear as blemishes in the +composition, no less palpably, than errors in syntax or quality; and, if +there be no such phrases, the style cannot be characteristic of that +condition of life, the language of which it professes to have adopted. +All approximation to that language, in the same manner, implies a +deviation from that purity and precision, which no one, we believe, ever +violated spontaneously. + +It has been argued, indeed (for men will argue in support of what they +do not venture to practise), that as the middling and lower orders of +society constitute by far the greater part of mankind, so, their +feelings and expressions should interest more extensively, and may be +taken, more fairly than any other, for the standards of what is natural +and true. To this it seems obvious to answer, that the arts that aim at +exciting admiration and delight, do not take their models from what is +ordinary, but from what is excellent; and that our interest in the +representation of any event, does not depend upon our familiarity with +the original, but on its intrinsic importance, and the celebrity of the +parties it concerns. The sculptor employs his art in delineating the +graces of Antinous or Apollo, and not in the representation of those +ordinary forms that belong to the crowd of his admirers. When a +chieftain perishes in battle, his followers mourn more for him, than for +thousands of their equals that may have fallen around him. + +After all, it must be admitted, that there is a class of persons (we are +afraid they cannot be called _readers_), to whom the representation of +vulgar manners, in vulgar language, will afford much entertainment. We +are afraid, however, that the ingenious writers who supply the hawkers +and ballad-singers, have very nearly monopolised that department, and +are probably better qualified to hit the taste of their customers, than +Mr. Southey, or any of his brethren, can yet pretend to be. To fit them +for the higher task of original composition, it would not be amiss if +they were to undertake a translation of Pope or Milton into the vulgar +tongue, for the benefit of those children of nature. + +There is another disagreeable effect of this affected simplicity, which, +though of less importance than those which have been already noticed, it +may yet be worth while to mention: This is, the extreme difficulty of +supporting the same low tone of expression throughout, and the +inequality that is consequently introduced into the texture of the +composition. To an author of reading and education, it is a style that +must always be assumed and unnatural, and one from which he will be +perpetually tempted to deviate. He will rise, therefore, every now and +then, above the level to which he has professedly degraded himself; and +make amends for that transgression, by a fresh effort of descension. His +composition, in short, will be like that of a person who is attempting +to speak in an obsolete or provincial dialect; he will betray himself by +expressions of occasional purity and elegance, and exert himself to +efface that impression, by passages of unnatural meanness or absurdity. + +In making these strictures on the perverted taste for simplicity, that +seems to distinguish our modern school of poetry, we have no particular +allusion to Mr. Southey, or the production now before us: On the +contrary, he appears to us, to be less addicted to this fault than most +of his fraternity; and if we were in want of examples to illustrate the +preceding observations, we should certainly look for them in the +effusions of that poet who commemorates, with so much effect, the +chattering of Harry Gill's teeth, tells the tale of the one-eyed +huntsman "who had a cheek like a cherry," and beautifully warns his +studious friend of the risk he ran of "growing double." + + * * * * * + +The _style_ of our modern poets, is that, no doubt, by which they are +most easily distinguished: but their genius has also an internal +character; and the peculiarities of their taste may be discovered, +without the assistance of their diction. Next after great familiarity of +language, there is nothing that appears to them so meritorious as +perpetual exaggeration of thought. There must be nothing moderate, +natural, or easy, about their sentiments. There must be a "qu'il +mourut," and a "let there be light," in every line; and all their +characters must be in agonies and ecstasies, from their entrance to +their exit. To those who are acquainted with their productions, it is +needless to speak of the fatigue that is produced by this unceasing +summons to admiration, or of the compassion which is excited by the +spectacle of these eternal strainings and distortions. Those authors +appear to forget, that a whole poem cannot be made up of striking +passages; and that the sensations produced by sublimity, are never so +powerful and entire, as when they are allowed to subside and revive, in +a slow and spontaneous succession. It is delightful, now and then, to +meet with a rugged mountain, or a roaring stream; but where there is no +funny slope, nor shaded plain, to relieve them--where all is beetling +cliff and yawning abyss, and the landscape presents nothing on every +side but prodigies and terrors--the head is apt to gow giddy, and the +heart to languish for the repose and security of a less elevated region. + +The effect even of genuine sublimity, therefore, is impaired by the +injudicious frequency of its exhibition, and the omission of those +intervals and breathing-places, at which the mind should be permitted to +recover from its perturbation or astonishment: but, where it has been +summoned upon a false alarm, and disturbed in the orderly course of its +attention, by an impotent attempt at elevation, the consequences are +still more disastrous. There is nothing so ridiculous (at least for a +poet) as to fail in great attempts. If the reader foresaw the failure, +he may receive some degree of mischievous satisfaction from its punctual +occurrence; if he did not, he will be vexed and disappointed; and, in +both cases, he will very speedily be disgusted and fatigued. It would be +going too far, certainly, to maintain, that our modern poets have never +succeeded in their persevering endeavours at elevation and emphasis; but +it is a melancholy fact, that their successes bear but a small +proportion to their miscarriages; and that the reader who has been +promised an energetic sentiment, or sublime allusion, must often be +contented with a very miserable substitute. Of the many contrivances +they employ to give the appearance of uncommon force and animation to a +very ordinary conception, the most usual is, to wrap it up in a veil of +mysterious and unintelligible language, which flows past with so much +solemnity, that it is difficult to believe it conveys nothing of any +value. Another device for improving the effect of a cold idea, is, to +embody it in a verse of unusual harshness and asperity. Compound words, +too, of a portentous sound and conformation, are very useful in giving +an air of energy and originality; and a few lines of scripture, written +out into verse from the original prose, have been found to have a very +happy effect upon those readers to whom they have the recommendation of +novelty. + +The qualities of style and imagery, however, form but a small part of +the characteristics by which a literary faction is to be distinguished. +The subject and object of their compositions, and the principles and +opinions they are calculated to support, constitute a far more important +criterion, and one to which it is usually altogether as easy to refer. +Some poets are sufficiently described as the flatterers of greatness and +power, and others as the champions of independence. One set of writers +is known by its antipathy to decency and religion; another, by its +methodistical cant and intolerance. Our new school of poetry has a moral +character also; though it may not be possible, perhaps, to delineate it +quite so concisely. + +A splenetic and idle discontent with the existing institutions of +society, seems to be at the bottom of all their serious and peculiar +sentiments. Instead of contemplating the wonders and the pleasures which +civilization has created for mankind, they are perpetually brooding over +the disorders by which its progress has been attended. They are filled +with horror and compassion at the sight of poor men spending their blood +in the quarrels of princes, and brutifying their sublime capabilities in +the drudgery of unremitting labour. For all sorts of vice and profligacy +in the lower orders of society, they have the same virtuous horror, and +the same tender compassion. While the existence of these offences +overpowers them with grief and confusion, they never permit themselves +to feel the smallest indignation or dislike towards the offenders. The +present vicious constitution of society alone is responsible for all +these enormities: the poor sinners are but the helpless victims or +instruments of its disorders, and could not possibly have avoided the +errors into which they have been betrayed. Though they can bear with +crimes, therefore, they cannot reconcile themselves to punishments; and +have an unconquerable antipathy to prisons, gibbets, and houses of +correction, as engines of oppression, and instruments of atrocious +injustice. While the plea of moral necessity is thus artfully brought +forward to convert all the excesses of the poor into innocent +misfortunes, no sort of indulgence is shown to the offences of the +powerful and rich. Their oppressions, and seductions, and debaucheries, +are the theme of many an angry verse; and the indignation and abhorrence +of the reader is relentlessly conjured up against those perturbators of +society, and scourges of mankind. + +It is not easy to say, whether the fundamental absurdity of this +doctrine, or the partiality of its application, be entitled to the +severest reprehension. If men are driven to commit crimes, through a +certain moral necessity; other men are compelled, by a similar +necessity, to hate and despise them for their commission. The +indignation of the sufferer is at least as natural as the guilt of him +who makes him suffer; and the good order of society would probably be as +well preserved, if our sympathies were sometimes called forth in behalf +of the former. At all events, the same apology ought certainly to be +admitted for the wealthy, as for the needy offender. They are subject +alike to the overruling influence of necessity, and equally affected by +the miserable condition of society. If it be natural for a poor man to +murder and rob, in order to make himself comfortable, it is no less +natural for a rich man to gormandise and domineer, in order to have the +full use of his riches. Wealth is just as valid an excuse for the one +class of vices, as indigence is for the other. There are many other +peculiarities of false sentiment in the productions of this class of +writers, that are sufficiently deserving of commemoration; but we have +already exceeded our limits in giving these general indications of their +character, and must now hasten back to the consideration of the singular +performance which has given occasion to all this discussion. + +The first thing that strikes the reader of Thalaba, is the singular +structure of the versification, which is a jumble of all the measures +that are known in English poetry (and a few more), without rhyme, and +without any sort of regularity in their arrangement. Blank odes have +been known in this country about as long as English sapphics and +dactylics; and both have been considered, we believe, as a species of +monsters, or exotics, that were not very likely to propagate, or thrive, +in so unpropitious a climate. Mr. Southey, however, has made a vigorous +effort for their naturalisation, and generously endangered his own +reputation in their behalf. The melancholy fate of his English sapphics, +we believe, is but too generally known; and we can scarcely predict a +more favourable issue to the present experiment. Every combination of +different measures is apt to perplex and disturb the reader who is not +familiar with it; and we are never reconciled to a stanza of a new +structure, till we have accustomed our ear to it by two or three +repetitions. This is the case, even where we have the assistance of +rhyme to direct us in our search after regularity, and where the +definite form and appearance of a stanza assures us that regularity is +to be found. Where both of these are wanting, it may be imagined that +our condition will be still more deplorable; and a compassionate author +might even excuse us, if we were unable to distinguish this kind of +verse from prose. In reading verse, in general, we are guided to the +discovery of its melody, by a sort of preconception of its cadence and +compass; without which, it might often fail to be suggested by the mere +articulation of the syllables. If there be any one, whose recollection +does not furnish him with evidence of this fact, he may put it to the +test of experiment, by desiring any of his illiterate acquaintances to +read off some of Mr. Southey's dactylics, or Sir Philip Sidney's +hexameters. It is the same thing with the more unusual measures of the +ancient authors. We have never known any one who fell in, at the first +trial, with the proper rhyme and cadence of the _pervigilium Veneris_, +or the choral lyrics of the Greek dramatists. The difficulty, however, +is virtually the same, as to every new combination; and it is an +unsurmountable difficulty, where such new combinations are not repeated +with any degree of uniformity, but are multiplied, through the whole +composition, with an unbounded licence of variation. Such, however, is +confessedly the case with the work before us; and it really seems +unnecessary to make any other remark on its versification. + +The author, however, entertains a different opinion of it. So far from +apprehending that it may cost his readers some trouble to convince +themselves that the greater part of the book is not mere prose, written +out into the form of verse, he is persuaded that its melody is more +obvious and perceptible than that of our vulgar measures. "One +advantage," says Mr. Southey, "this metre _assuredly_ possesses; the +dullest reader cannot distort it into discord: he may read it with a +_prose mouth_, but its flow and fall will still be perceptible." We are +afraid, there are duller readers in the world than Mr. Southey is aware +of. + + * * * * * + +The subject of this poem is almost as ill chosen as the diction; and the +conduct of the fable as disorderly as the versification. The corporation +of magicians, that inhabit "the Domdaniel caverns, under the roots of +the ocean," had discovered, that a terrible _destroyer_ was likely to +rise up against them from the seed of Hodeirah, a worthy Arab, with +eight fine children. Immediately the murder of all those innocents is +resolved on; and a sturdy assassin sent with instructions to destroy the +whole family (as Mr. Southey has it) "root and branch." The good man, +accordingly, and seven of his children, are dispatched; but a cloud +comes over the mother and the remaining child; and the poem opens with +the picture of the widow and her orphan wandering, by night, over the +desarts of Arabia. The old lady, indeed, might as well have fallen under +the dagger of the Domdanielite; for she dies, without doing anything for +her child, in the end of the first book; and little Thalaba is left +crying in the wilderness. Here he is picked up by a good old Arab, who +takes him home, and educates him like a pious mussulman; and he and the +old man's daughter fall in love with each other, according to the +invariable custom in all such cases. The magicians, in the meantime, are +hunting him over the face of the whole earth; and one of them gets near +enough to draw his dagger to stab him, when a providential _simoom_ lays +him dead on the sand. From the dead sorcerer's finger, Thalaba takes a +ring, inscribed with some unintelligible characters, which he is enabled +to interpret by the help of some other unintelligible characters that he +finds on the forehead of a locust; and soon after takes advantage of an +eclipse of the sun, to set out on his expedition against his father's +murderers, whom he understands (we do not very well know how) he has +been commissioned to exterminate. Though they are thus seeking him, and +he seeking them, it is amazing what difficulty they find in meeting: +they do meet, however, every now and then, and many sore evils does the +Destroyer suffer at their hands. By faith and fortitude, however, and +the occasional assistance of the magic implements he strips them of, he +is enabled to baffle and elude their malice, till he is conducted, at +last, to the Domdaniel cavern, where he finds them assembled, and pulls +down the roof of it upon their heads and his own; perishing, like +Samson, in the final destruction of his enemies. + +From this little sketch of the story, our readers will easily perceive, +that it consists altogether of the most wild and extravagant fictions, +and openly sets nature and probability at defiance. In its action, it is +not an imitation of anything; and excludes all rational criticism, as to +the choice and succession of its incidents. Tales of this sort may amuse +children, and interest, for a moment, by the prodigies they exhibit, and +the multitude of events they bring together: but the interest expires +with the novelty; and attention is frequently exhausted, even before +curiosity has been gratified. The pleasure afforded by performances of +this sort, is very much akin to that which may be derived from the +exhibition of a harlequin farce; where, instead of just imitations of +nature and human character, we are entertained with the transformation +of cauliflowers and beer-barrels, the apparition of ghosts and devils, +and all the other magic of the wooden sword. Those who can prefer this +eternal sorcery, to the just and modest representation of human actions +and passions, will probably take more delight in walking among the holly +griffins, and yew sphinxes of the city gardener, than in ranging among +the groves and lawns which have been laid out by a hand that feared to +violate nature, as much as it aspired to embellish her; and disdained +the easy art of startling by novelties, and surprising by impropriety. + +Supernatural beings, though easily enough raised, are known to be very +troublesome in the management, and have frequently occasioned much +perplexity to poets and other persons who have been rash enough to call +for their assistance. It is no very easy matter to preserve consistency +in the disposal of powers, with the limits of which we are so far from +being familiar; and when it is necessary to represent our spiritual +persons as ignorant, or suffering, we are very apt to forget the +knowledge and the powers with which we had formerly invested them. The +ancient poets had several unlucky rencounters of this sort with Destiny +and the other deities; and Milton himself is not a little hampered with +the material and immaterial qualities of his angels. Enchanters and +witches may, at first sight, appear more manageable; but Mr. Southey has +had difficulty enough with them; and cannot be said, after all, to have +kept his fable quite clear and intelligible. The stars had said, that +the Destroyer might be cut off in that hour when his father and brethren +were assassinated; yet he is saved by a special interposition of heaven. +Heaven itself, however, had destined him to extirpate the votaries of +Eblis; and yet, long before this work is done, a special message is sent +to him, declaring, that, if he chooses, the death-angel is ready to take +him away instead of the sorcerer's daughter. In the beginning of the +story, too, the magicians are quite at a loss where to look for him; and +Abdaldar only discovers him by accident, after a long search; yet, no +sooner does he leave the old Arab's tent, than Lobaba comes up to him, +disguised and prepared for his destruction. The witches have also a +decoy ready for him in the desart; yet he sups with Okba's daughter, +without any of the sorcerers being aware of it; and afterwards proceeds +to consult the simorg, without meeting with any obstacle or molestation. +The simoom kills Abdaldar, too, in spite of that ring which afterwards +protects Thalaba from lightning, and violence, and magic. The +Destroyer's arrow then falls blunted from Lobaba's breast, who is +knocked down, however, by a shower of sand of his own raising; and this +same arrow, which could make no impression on the sorcerer, kills the +magic bird of Aloadin, and pierces the rebellious _spirit_ that guarded +the Domdaniel door. The whole infernal band, indeed, is very feebly and +heavily pourtrayed. They are a set of stupid, undignified, miserable +wretches, quarrelling with each other, and trembling in the prospect of +inevitable destruction. None of them even appears to have obtained the +price of their self-sacrifice in worldly honours and advancement, except +Mohareb; and he, though assured by destiny that there was one death-blow +appointed for him and Thalaba, is yet represented, in the concluding +scene, as engaged with him in furious combat, and aiming many a deadly +blow at that life on which his own was dependent. If the innocent +characters in this poem were not delineated with more truth and feeling, +the notoriety of the author would scarcely have induced us to bestow so +much time on its examination. + +Though the tissue of adventures through which Thalaba is conducted in +the course of this production, be sufficiently various and +extraordinary, we must not set down any part of the incidents to the +credit of the author's invention. He has taken great pains, indeed, to +guard against such a supposition; and has been as scrupulously correct +in the citation of his authorities, as if he were the compiler of a true +history, and thought his reputation would be ruined by the imputation of +a single fiction. There is not a prodigy, accordingly, or a description, +for which he does not fairly produce his vouchers, and generally lays +before his readers the whole original passage from which his imitation +has been taken. In this way, it turns out, that the book is entirely +composed of scraps, borrowed from the oriental tale books, and travels +into the Mahometan countries, seasoned up for the English reader with +some fragments of our own ballads, and shreds of our older sermons. The +composition and harmony of the work, accordingly, is much like the +pattern of that patch-work drapery that is sometimes to be met with in +the mansions of the industrious, where a blue tree overshadows a +shell-fish, and a gigantic butterfly seems ready to swallow up Palemon +and Lavinia. The author has the merit merely of cutting out each of his +figures from the piece where its inventor had placed it, and stitching +them down together in these judicious combinations. + +It is impossible to peruse this poem, with the notes, without feeling +that it is the fruit of much reading, undertaken for the express purpose +of fabricating some such performance. The author has set out with a +resolution to make an oriental story, and a determination to find the +materials of it in the books to which he had access. Every incident, +therefore, and description--every superstitious usage, or singular +tradition, that appeared to him susceptible of poetical embellishment, +or capable of picturesque representation, he has set down for this +purpose, and adopted such a fable and plan of composition, as might +enable him to work up all his materials, and interweave every one of his +quotations, without any _extraordinary_ violation of unity or order. +When he had filled his common-place book, he began to write; and his +poem is little else than his common-place book versified. + +It may easily be imagined, that a poem constructed upon such a plan, +must be full of cumbrous and misplaced description, and overloaded with +a crowd of incidents equally unmeaning and ill assorted. The tedious +account of the palace of Shedad, in the first book--the description of +the Summer and Winter occupations of the Arabs, in the third--the +ill-told story of Haruth and Maruth--the greater part of the occurrences +in the island of Mohareb--the paradise of Aloadin, etc., etc.--are all +instances of disproportioned and injudicious ornaments, which never +could have presented themselves to an author who wrote from the +suggestions of his own fancy; and have evidently been introduced, from +the author's unwillingness to relinquish the corresponding passages in +D'Herbelot, Sale, Volney, etc., which appeared to him to have great +capabilities for poetry. + +This imitation, or admiration of Oriental imagery, however, does not +bring so much suspicion on his taste, as the affection he betrays for +some of his domestic models. The former has, for the most part, the +recommendation of novelty; and there is always a certain pleasure in +contemplating the _costume_ of a distant nation, and the luxuriant +landscape of an Asiatic climate. We cannot find the same apology, +however, for Mr. Southey's partiality to the drawling vulgarity of some +of our old English ditties. + + * * * * * + +From the extracts and observations which we have hitherto presented to +our readers, it will be natural for them to conclude, that our opinion +of this poem is very decidedly unfavourable; and that we are not +disposed to allow it any sort of merit. This, however, is by no means +the case. We think it written, indeed, in a very vicious taste, and +liable, upon the whole, to very formidable objections: But it would not +be doing justice to the genius of the author, if we were not to add, +that, it contains passages of very singular beauty and force, and +displays a richness of poetical conception, that would do honour to more +faultless compositions. There is little of human character in the poem, +indeed; because Thalaba is a solitary wanderer from the solitary tent of +his protector: But the home group, in which his infancy was spent, is +pleasingly delineated; and there is something irresistibly interesting +in the innocent love, and misfortunes, and fate of his Oneiza. The +catastrophe of her story is given, it appears to us, with great spirit +and effect, though the beauties are of that questionable kind, that +trespass on the border of impropriety, and partake more of the character +of dramatic, than of narrative poetry. After delivering her from the +polluted paradise of Aloadin, he prevails on her to marry him before his +mission is accomplished. She consents with great reluctance; and the +marriage feast, with its processions, songs, and ceremonies, is +described in some joyous stanzas. The book ends with these verses-- + + And now the marriage feast is spread, + And from the finished banquet now + The wedding guests are gone. + * * * * * + Who comes from the bridal chamber? + It is Azrael, the Angel of Death. + +The next book opens with Thalaba lying distracted upon her grave, in the +neighbourhood of which he had wandered, till "the sun, and the wind, +and the rain, had rusted his raven locks"; and there he is found by the +father of his bride, and visited by her ghost, and soothed and +encouraged to proceed upon his holy enterprise. He sets out on his +lonely way, and is entertained the first night by a venerable dervise: +As they are sitting at meal, a _bridal procession_ passes by, with +dance, and song, and merriment. The old dervise blessed them as they +passed; but Thalaba looked on, "and breathed a low deep groan, and hid +his face." These incidents are skilfully imagined, and are narrated in a +very impressive manner. + +Though the _witchery_ scenes are in general but poorly executed, and +possess little novelty to those who have read the Arabian Nights +Entertainments, there is, occasionally, some fine description, and +striking combination. We do not remember any poem, indeed, that +presents, throughout, a greater number of lively images, or could afford +so many subjects for the pencil. + + * * * * * + +All the productions of this author, it appears to us, bear very +distinctly the impression of an amiable mind, a cultivated fancy, and a +perverted taste. His genius seems naturally to delight in the +representation of domestic virtues and pleasures, and the brilliant +delineation of external nature. In both these departments, he is +frequently very successful; but he seems to want vigour for the loftier +flights of poetry. He is often puerile, diffuse, and artificial, and +seems to have but little acquaintance with those chaster and severer +graces, by whom the epic muse would be most suitably attended. His +faults are always aggravated, and often created, by his partiality for +the peculiar manner of that new school of poetry, of which he is a +faithful disciple, and to the glory of which he has sacrificed greater +talents and acquisitions, than can be boasted of by any of his +associates. + + + +ON SOUTHEY'S LAUREATE LAYS + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, June, 1816] + +_The Lay of the Laureate. Carmen Nuptiale_. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq., +Poet Laureate, &c., &c. 12mo. pp. 78. London, 1816. + + +A poet laureate, we take it, is naturally a ridiculous person: and has +scarcely any safe course to follow, in times like the present, but to +bear his faculties with exceeding meekness, and to keep as much as +possible in the shade. A stipendiary officer of the Royal household, +bound to produce two lyrical compositions ever year, in praise of his +Majesty's person and government, is undoubtedly an object which it is +difficult to contemplate with gravity; and which can only have been +retained in existence, from that love of antique pomp and establishment +which has embellished our Court with so many gold-sticks and white rods, +and such trains of beef-eaters and grooms of the stole--though it has +submitted to the suppression of the more sprightly appendages of a +king's fool, or a court jester. That the household poet should have +survived the other wits of the establishment, can only be explained by +the circumstance of his office being more easily converted into one of +mere pomp and ceremony, and coming thus to afford an antient and +well-sounding name for a moderate sinecure. For more than a century, +accordingly, it has existed on this footing; and its duties, like those +of the other personages to whom we have just alluded, have been +discharged with a decorous gravity and unobtrusive quietness, which has +provoked no derision, merely because it has attracted no notice. + +The present possessor, however, appears to have other notions on the +subject; and has very distinctly manifested his resolution not to rest +satisfied with the salary, sherry, and safe obscurity of his +predecessors, but to claim a real power and prerogative in the world of +letters, in virtue of his title and appointment. Now, in this, we +conceive, with all due humility, that there is a little mistake of fact, +and a little error of judgment. The laurel which the King gives, we are +credibly informed, has nothing at all in common with that which is +bestowed by the Muses; and the Prince Regent's warrant is absolutely of +no authority in the court of Apollo. If this be the case, however, it +follows, that a poet laureate has no sort of precedency among poets,-- +whatever may be his place among pages and clerks of the kitchen;--and +that he has no more pretensions as an author, than if his appointment +had been to the mastership of the stag-hounds. When he takes state upon +him with the public, therefore, in consequence of his office, he really +is guilty of as ludicrous a blunder as the worthy American _Consul_, in +one of the Hanse towns, who painted the Roman _fasces_ on the pannel of +his buggy, and insisted upon calling his foot-boy and clerk his +_lictors_. Except when he is in his official duty, therefore, the King's +house-poet would do well to keep the nature of his office out of sight; +and, when he is compelled to appear in it in public, should try to get +through with the business as quickly and quietly as possible. The brawny +drayman who enacts the Champion of England in the Lord Mayor's show, is +in some danger of being sneered at by the spectators, even when he paces +along with the timidity and sobriety that becomes his condition; but if +he were to take it into his head to make serious boast of his prowess, +and to call upon the city bards to celebrate his heroic acts, the very +apprentices could not restrain their laughter,--and "the humorous man" +would have but small chance of finishing his part in peace. + +Mr. Southey could not be ignorant of all this; and yet it appears that +he could not have known it all. He must have been conscious, we think, +of the ridicule attached to his office, and might have known that there +were only two ways of counteracting it,--either by sinking the office +altogether in his public appearances, or by writing such very good +verses in the discharge of it, as might defy ridicule, and render +neglect impossible. Instead of this, however, he has allowed himself to +write rather worse than any Laureate before him, and has betaken himself +to the luckless and vulgar expedient of endeavouring to face out the +thing by an air of prodigious confidence and assumption:--and has had +the usual fortune of such undertakers, by becoming only more +conspicuously ridiculous. The badness of his official productions indeed +is something really wonderful,--though not more so than the amazing +self-complacency and self-praise with which they are given to the world. +With the finest themes in the world for that sort of writing, they are +the dullest, tamest, and most tedious things ever poor critic was +condemned, or other people vainly invited, to read. They are a great +deal more wearisome, and rather more unmeaning and unnatural, than the +effusions of his predecessors, Messrs. Pye and Whitehead; and are +moreover disfigured with the most abominable egotism, conceit and +dogmatism, than we ever met with in any thing intended for the public +eye. They are filled, indeed, with praises of the author himself, and +his works, and his laurel, and his dispositions; notices of his various +virtues and studies; puffs of the productions he is preparing for the +press, and anticipations of the fame which he is to reap by their means, +from a less ungrateful age; and all this delivered with such an oracular +seriousness and assurance, that it is easy to see the worthy Laureate +thinks himself entitled to share in the prerogatives of that royalty +which he is bound to extol, and has resolved to make it + + --his great example as it is his theme. + +For, as sovereign Princes are permitted, in their manifestoes and +proclamations, to speak of their own gracious pleasure and royal wisdom, +without imputation of arrogance, so, our Laureate has persuaded himself +that he may address the subject world in the same lofty strains, and +that they will listen with as dutiful an awe to the authoritative +exposition of his own genius and glory. What might have been the success +of the experiment, if the execution had been as masterly as the design +is bold, we shall not trouble ourselves to conjecture; but the contrast +between the greatness of the praise and the badness of the poetry in +which it is conveyed, and to which it is partly applied, is abundantly +decisive of its result in the present instance, as well as in all the +others in which the ingenious author has adopted the same style. We took +some notice of the _Carmen Triumphale_, which stood at the head of the +series. But of the Odes which afterwards followed to the Prince Regent, +and the Sovereigns and Generals who came to visit him, we had the +charity to say nothing; and were willing indeed to hope, that the +lamentable failure of that attempt might admonish the author, at least +as effectually as any intimations of ours. Here, however, we have him +again, with a _Lay of the Laureate_, and a _Carmen Nuptiale_, if +possible still more boastful and more dull than any of his other +celebrations. It is necessary, therefore, to bring the case once more +before the Public, for the sake both of correction and example; and as +the work is not likely to find many readers, and is of a tenor which +would not be readily believed upon any general representation, we must +now beg leave to give a faithful analysis of its different parts, with a +few specimens of the taste and manner of its execution. + +Its object is to commemorate the late auspicious marriage of the +presumptive Heiress of the English crown with the young Prince of +Saxe-Cobourg; and consists of a Proem, a Dream, and an Epilogue--with a +L'envoy, and various annotations. The Proem, as was most fitting, is +entirely devoted to the praise of the Laureate himself; and contains an +account, which cannot fail to be very interesting, both to his Royal +auditors and to the world at large, of his early studies and +attainments--the excellence of his genius--the nobleness of his views-- +and the happiness that has been the result of these precious gifts. Then +there is mention made of his pleasure in being appointed Poet Laureate, +and of the rage and envy which that event excited in all the habitations +of the malignant. This is naturally followed up by a full account of all +his official productions, and some modest doubts whether his genius is +not too heroic and pathetic for the composition of an _Epithalamium,_-- +which doubts, however, are speedily and pleasingly resolved by the +recollection, that as Spenser made a hymn on his own marriage, so, there +can be nothing improper in Mr. Southey doing as much on that of the +Princess Charlotte. This is the general argument of the Proem. But the +reader must know a little more of the details. In his early youth, the +ingenious author says he aspired to the fame of a poet; and then Fancy +came to him, and showed him the glories of his future career, addressing +him in these encouraging words-- + + Thou whom rich Nature at thy happy birth + Blest in her bounty with the largest dower + That Heaven indulges to a child of earth! + +Being fully persuaded of the truth of her statements, we have then the +satisfaction of learning that he has lived a very happy life; and that, +though time has made his hair a little grey, it has only matured his +understanding; and that he is still as habitually cheerful as when he +was a boy. He then proceeds to inform us, that he sometimes does a +little in poetry still; but that, of late years, he spends most of his +time in writing histories--from which he has no doubt that he will one +day or another acquire great reputation. + + Thus in the ages which are past I live, + And those which are to come my sure reward will give.... + +We come next, of course, to the Dream; and nothing more stupid or heavy, +we will venture to say, ever arose out of sleep, or tended to sleep +again. The unhappy Laureate, it seems, just saw, upon shutting his eyes, +what he might have seen as well if he had been able to keep them open--a +great crowd of people and coaches in the street, with marriage favours +in their bosoms; church bells ringing merrily, and _feux-de-joie_ firing +in all directions. Eftsoons, says the dreaming poet, I came to a great +door, where there were guards placed to keep off the mob; but when they +saw my Laurel crown, they made way for me, and let me in!-- + + But I had entrance through that guarded door, + In honour to the Laureate crown I wore. + +When he gets in, he finds himself in a large hall, decorated with +trophies, and pictures, and statues, commemorating the triumphs of +British valour, from Aboukir to Waterloo. The room, moreover, was filled +with a great number of ladies and gentlemen very finely dressed; and in +two chairs, near the top, were seated the Princess Charlotte and Prince +Leopold. Hitherto, certainly, all is sufficiently plain and probable;-- +nor can the Muse who dictated this to the slumbering Laureate be accused +of any very extravagant or profuse invention. We come, now, however, to +allegory and learning in abundance. In the first place, we are told, +with infinite regard to the probability as well as the novelty of the +fiction, that in this drawing-room there were two great lions couching +at the feet of the Royal Pair;--the Prince's being very lean and in poor +condition, with the hair rubbed off his neck as if from a heavy collar-- +and the Princess's in full vigour, with a bushy mane, and littered with +torn French flags. Then there were two heavenly figures stationed on +each side of the throne, one called Honour, and the other Faith;--so +very like each other, that it was impossible not to suppose them brother +and sister. It turns out, however, that they were only second cousins; +or so at least we interpret the following precious piece of theogony. + + Akin they were,--yet not as thus it seemed, + For he of VALOUR was the eldest son, + From Arete in happy union sprung. + But her to Phronis Eusebeia bore, + She whom her mother Dice sent to earth; + What marvel then if thus their features wore + Resemblant lineaments of kindred birth? + Dice being child of Him who rules above, + VALOUR his earth-born son; so both derived from Jove. + p. 29. + +This, we think, is delicious; but there is still more goodly stuff +toward. The two heavenly cousins stand still without doing any thing; +but then there is a sound of sweet music, and a whole "heavenly company" +appear, led on by a majestic female, whom we discover, by the emblems on +our halfpence, to be no less a person than Britannia, who advances and +addresses a long discourse of flattery and admonition to the Royal +bride; which, for the most part, is as dull and commonplace as might be +expected from the occasion; though there are some passages in which the +author has reconciled his gratitude to his Patron, and his monitory duty +to his Daughter, with singular spirit and delicacy. After enjoining to +her the observance of all public duties, and the cultivation of all +domestic virtues, Britannia is made to sum up the whole sermon in this +emphatic precept-- + + Look to thy Sire, and in his steady way + --learn thou to tread. + +Now, considering that Mr. Southey was at all events incapable of +sacrificing truth to Court favour, it cannot but be regarded as a rare +felicity in his subject, that he could thus select a pattern of private +purity and public honour in the person of the actual Sovereign, without +incurring the least suspicion either of base adulation or lax +morality.... + +It is impossible to feel any serious or general contempt for a person of +Mr. Southey's genius;--and, in reviewing his other works, we hope we +have shown a proper sense of his many merits and accomplishments. But +his Laureate odes are utterly and intolerably bad; and, if he had never +written any thing else, must have ranked him below Colley Cibber in +genius, and above him in conceit and presumption. We have no toleration +for this sort of perversity, or prostitution of great gifts; and do not +think it necessary to qualify the expression of opinions which we have +formed with as much positiveness as deliberation.--We earnestly wish he +would resign his livery laurel to Lord Thurlow, and write no more odes +on Court galas. We can assure him too, most sincerely, that this wish is +not dictated in any degree by envy, or any other hostile or selfish +feeling. We are ourselves, it is but too well known, altogether without +pretensions to that high office--and really see no great charms either +in the salary or the connexion--and, for the glory of writing such +verses as we have now been reviewing, we do not believe that there is a +scribbler in the kingdom so vile as to think it a thing to be coveted. + + + + +ON THOMAS MOORE + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, July, 1806] + +_Epistles, Odes, and other Poems_. By THOMAS MOORE, Esq. 4to. pp. 350. +London, 1806. + + +A singular sweetness and melody of versification,--smooth, copious, and +familiar diction,--with some brilliancy of fancy, and some show of +classical erudition, might have raised Mr. Moore to an innocent +distinction among the song-writers and occasional poets of his day: But +he is indebted, we fear, for the celebrity he actually enjoys to +accomplishments of a different description; and may boast, if the boast +can please him, of being the most licentious of modern versifiers, and +the most poetical of those who, in our times, have devoted their talents +to the propagation of immorality. We regard his book, indeed, as a +public nuisance; and would willingly trample it down by one short +movement of contempt and indignation, had we not reason to apprehend, +that it was abetted by patrons who are entitled to a more respectful +remonstrance, and by admirers who may require a more extended exposition +of their dangers. + +There is nothing, it will be allowed, more indefensible than a +cold-blooded attempt to corrupt the purity of an innocent heart; and we +can scarcely conceive any being more truly despicable, than he who, +without the apology of unruly passion or tumultuous desires, sits down +to ransack the impure places of his memory for inflammatory images and +expressions, and commits them laboriously to writing, for the purpose of +insinuating pollution into the minds of unknown and unsuspecting +readers. + +This is almost a new crime among us. While France has to blush for so +many tomes of "Poesies Erotiques," we have little to answer for, but the +coarse indecencies of Rochester and Dryden; and these, though +sufficiently offensive to delicacy and good taste, can scarcely be +regarded as dangerous. There is an antidote to the poison they contain, +in the open and undisguised profligacy with which it is presented. If +they are wicked, they have the honesty at least to profess wickedness. +The mark of the beast is set visibly on their foreheads; and though they +have the boldness to recommend vice, they want the effrontery to make +her pass for virtue. In their grossest immoralities, too, they scarcely +ever seem to be perfectly in earnest; and appear neither to wish nor to +hope to make proselytes. They indulge their own vein of gross riot and +debauchery; but they do not seek to corrupt the principles of their +readers; and are contented to be reprobated as profligate, if they are +admired at the same time for wit and originality. + +The immorality of Mr. Moore is infinitely more insidious and malignant. +It seems to be his aim to impose corruption upon his readers, by +concealing it under the mask of refinement; to reconcile them +imperceptibly to the most vile and vulgar sensuality, by blending its +language with that of exalted feeling and tender emotion; and to steal +impurity into their hearts, by gently perverting the most simple and +generous of their affections. In the execution of this unworthy task, he +labours with a perseverance at once ludicrous and detestable. He may be +seen in every page running round the paltry circle of his seductions +with incredible zeal and anxiety, and stimulating his jaded fancy for +new images of impurity, with as much melancholy industry as ever outcast +of the muses hunted for epithets or metre. + +It is needless, we hope, to go deep into the inquiry, why certain +compositions have been reprobated as licentious, and their authors +ranked among the worst enemies of morality. The criterion by which their +delinquency may be determined, is fortunately very obvious: no scene can +be tolerated in description, which could not be contemplated in reality, +without a gross violation of propriety: no expression can be pardoned in +poetry to which delicacy could not listen in the prose of real life. + +No writer can transgress those limits, and be held guiltless; but there +are degrees of guiltiness, and circumstances of aggravation or apology, +which ought not to be disregarded. A poet of a luxuriant imagination may +give too warm a colouring to the representation of innocent endearments, +or be betrayed into indelicacies in delineating the allurements of some +fair seducer, while it is obviously his general intention to give +attraction to the picture of virtue, and to put the reader on his guard +against the assault of temptation. Mr. Moore has no such apology;--he +takes care to intimate to us, in every page that the raptures which he +celebrates do not spring from the excesses of an innocent love, or the +extravagance of a romantic attachment; but are the unhallowed fruits of +cheap and vulgar prostitution, the inspiration of casual amours, and the +chorus of habitual debauchery. He is at pains to let the world know that +he is still fonder of roving, than of loving; and that all the Caras and +the Fannys, with whom he holds dalliance in these pages, have had each a +long series of preceding lovers, as highly favoured as their present +poetical paramour: that they meet without any purpose of constancy, and +do not think it necessary to grace their connexion with any professions +of esteem or permanent attachment. The greater part of the book is +filled with serious and elaborate description of the ecstasies of such +an intercourse, and with passionate exhortations to snatch the joys, +which are thus abundantly poured forth from "the fertile fount of +sense." + +To us, indeed, the perpetual kissing, and twining, and panting of these +amorous persons, is rather ludicrous than seductive; and their eternal +sobbing and whining, raises no emotion in our bosoms, but those of +disgust and contempt. Even to younger men, we believe, the book will not +be very dangerous: nor is it upon their account that we feel the +indignation and alarm which we have already endeavoured to express. The +life and conversation of our sex, we are afraid is seldom so pure as to +leave them much to learn from publications of this description; and they +commonly know enough of the reality, to be aware of the absurd illusions +and exaggerations of such poetical voluptuaries. In them, therefore, +such a composition can work neither corruption nor deception; and it +will, in general, be despised and thrown aside, as a tissue of sickly +and fantastical conceits, equally remote from truth and respectability. +It is upon the other sex, that we conceive its effects may be most +pernicious; and it is chiefly as an insult upon their delicacy, and an +attack upon their purity, that we are disposed to resent its +publication. + +The reserve in which women are educated; the natural vivacity of their +imaginations; and the warmth of their sensibility, renders them +peculiarly liable to be captivated by the appearance of violent +emotions, and to be misled by the affectation of tenderness or +generosity. They easily receive any impression that is made under the +apparent sanction of these feelings; and allow themselves to be seduced +into any thing, which they can be persuaded is dictated by disinterested +attachment, and sincere and excessive love. It is easy to perceive how +dangerous it must be for such beings to hang over the pages of a book, +in which supernatural raptures, and transcendent passion, are +counterfeited in every page; in which, images of voluptuousness are +artfully blended with expressions of refined sentiment, and delicate +emotion; and the grossest sensuality is exhibited in conjunction with +the most gentle and generous affections. They who have not learned from +experience, the impossibility of such an union, are apt to be captivated +by its alluring exterior. They are seduced by their own ignorance and +sensibility; and become familiar with the demon, for the sake of the +radiant angel to whom he has been linked by the malignant artifice of +the poet. + +We have been induced to enter this strong protest, and to express +ourselves thus warmly against this and the former publications of this +author, both from what we hear of the circulation which they have +already obtained, and from our conviction that they are calculated, if +not strongly denounced to the public, to produce, at this moment, +peculiar and irremediable mischief. The style of composition, as we have +already hinted, is almost new in this country: it is less offensive than +the old fashion of obscenity; and for these reasons, perhaps, is less +likely to excite the suspicion of the moralist, or to become the object +of precaution to those who watch over the morals of the young and +inexperienced. We certainly have known it a permitted study, where +performances, infinitely less pernicious, were rigidly interdicted. + +There can be no time in which the purity of the female character can +fail to be of the first importance to every community; but it appears to +us, that it requires at this moment to be more carefully watched over +than at any other; and that the constitution of society has arrived +among us to a sort of crisis, the issue of which may be powerfully +influenced by our present neglect or solicitude. From the increasing +diffusion of opulence, enlightened or polite society is greatly +enlarged, and necessarily becomes more promiscuous and corruptible; and +women are now beginning to receive a more extended education, to venture +more freely and largely into the fields of literature, and to become +more of intellectual and independent creatures, than they have yet been +in these islands. In these circumstances, it seems to be of incalculable +importance, that no attaint should be given to the delicacy and purity +of their expanding minds; that their increasing knowledge should be of +good chiefly, and not of evil; that they should not consider modesty as +one of the prejudices from which they are now to be emancipated; nor +found any part of their new influence upon the licentiousness of which +Mr. Moore invites them to be partakers. The character and the morality +of women exercises already a mighty influence upon the happiness and the +respectability of the nation; and it is destined, we believe, to +exercise a still higher one: But if they should ever cease to be the +pure, the delicate, and timid creatures that they now are--if they +should cease to overawe profligacy, and to win and to shame men into +decency, fidelity, and love of unsullied virtue--it is easy to see that +this influence, which has hitherto been exerted to strengthen and refine +our society, will operate entirely to its corruption and debasement; +that domestic happiness and private honour will be extinguished, and +public spirit and national industry most probably annihilated along with +them. + +There is one other consideration which has helped to excite our +apprehension on occasion of this particular performance. Many of the +pieces are dedicated to persons of the first consideration in the +country, both for rank and accomplishments; and the author appears to +consider the greater part of them as his intimate friends, and undoubted +patrons and admirers. Now, this we will confess is to us a very alarming +consideration. By these channels, the book will easily pass into +circulation in those classes of society, which it is of most consequence +to keep free of contamination; and from which its reputation and its +influence will descend with the greatest effect to the great body of the +community. In this reading and opulent country, there are no fashions +which diffuse themselves so fast, as those of literature and immorality: +there is no palpable boundary between the _noblesse_ and the +_bourgeoisie_, as in old France, by which the corruption and +intelligence of the former can be prevented from spreading to the +latter. All the parts of the mass, act and react upon each other with a +powerful and unintermitted agency; and if the head be once infected, the +corruption will spread irresistibly through the whole body. It is doubly +necessary, therefore, to put the law in force against this delinquent, +since he has not only indicated a disposition to do mischief, but seems +unfortunately to have found an opportunity. + + + + +ON WORDSWORTH'S "THE +EXCURSION" + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, November, 1814] + +_The Excursion, being a portion of the Recluse, a Poem_. By WILLIAM +WORDSWORTH. 4to. pp. 447. London, 1814. + + +This will never do. It bears no doubt the stamp of the author's heart +and fancy; but unfortunately not half so visibly as that of his peculiar +system. His former poems were intended to recommend that system, and to +bespeak favour for it by their individual merit;--but this, we suspect, +must be recommended by the system--and can only expect to succeed where +it has been previously established. It is longer, weaker, and tamer, +than any of Mr. Wordsworth's other productions; with less boldness of +originality, and less even of that extreme simplicity and lowliness of +tone which wavered so prettily, in the Lyrical Ballads, between +silliness and pathos. We have imitations of Cowper, and even of Milton +here, engrafted on the natural drawl of the Lakers--and all diluted into +harmony by that profuse and irrepressible wordiness which deluges all +the blank verse of this school of poetry, and lubricates and weakens the +whole structure of their style. + +Though it fairly fills four hundred and twenty good quarto pages, +without note, vignette, or any sort of extraneous assistance, it is +stated in the title--with something of an imprudent candour--to be but +"a portion" of a larger work; and in the preface, where an attempt is +rather unsuccessfully made to explain the whole design, it is still more +rashly disclosed, that it is but "a part of the second part of a _long_ +and laborious work"--which is to consist of three parts. + +What Mr. Wordsworth's ideas of length are, we have no means of +accurately judging; but we cannot help suspecting that they are liberal, +to a degree that will alarm the weakness of most modern readers. As far +as we can gather from the preface, the entire poem--or one of them, for +we really are not sure whether there is to be one or two--is of a +biographical nature; and is to contain the history of the author's mind, +and of the origin and progress of his poetical powers, up to the period +when they were sufficiently matured to qualify him for the great work on +which he has been so long employed. Now, the quarto before us contains +an account of one of his youthful rambles in the vales of Cumberland, +and occupies precisely the period of three days; so that, by the use of +a very powerful _calculus_, some estimate may be formed of the probable +extent of the entire biography. + +This small specimen, however, and the statements with which it is +prefaced, have been sufficient to set our minds at rest in one +particular. The case of Mr. Wordsworth, we perceive, is now manifestly +hopeless; and we give him up as altogether incurable, and beyond the +power of criticism. We cannot indeed altogether omit taking precautions +now and then against the spreading of the malady;--but for himself, +though we shall watch the progress of his symptoms as a matter of +professional curiosity and instruction, we really think it right not to +harass him any longer with nauseous remedies,--but rather to throw in +cordials and lenitives, and wait in patience for the natural termination +of the disorder. In order to justify this desertion of our patient, +however, it is proper to state why we despair of the success of a more +active practice. + +A man who has been for twenty years at work on such matter as is now +before us, and who comes complacently forward with a whole quarto of it +after all the admonitions he has received, cannot reasonably be expected +to "change his hand, or check his pride," upon the suggestion of far +weightier monitors than we can pretend to be. Inveterate habit must now +have given a kind of sanctity to the errors of early taste; and the very +powers of which we lament the perversion, have probably become incapable +of any other application. The very quantity, too, that he has written, +and is at this moment working up for publication upon the old pattern, +makes it almost hopeless to look for any change of it. All this is so +much capital already sunk in the concern; which must be sacrificed if it +be abandoned: and no man likes to give up for lost the time and talent +and labour which he has embodied in any permanent production. We were +not previously aware of these obstacles to Mr. Wordsworth's conversion; +and, considering the peculiarities of his former writings merely as the +result of certain wanton and capricious experiments on public taste and +indulgence, conceived it to be our duty to discourage their repetition +by all the means in our power. We now see clearly, however, how the case +stands;--and, making up our minds, though with the most sincere pain and +reluctance, to consider him as finally lost to the good cause of poetry, +shall endeavour to be thankful for the occasional gleams of tenderness +and beauty which the natural force of his imagination and affections +must still shed over all his productions,--and to which we shall ever +turn with delight, in spite of the affectation and mysticism and +prolixity, with which they are so abundantly contrasted. + +Long habits of seclusion, and an excessive ambition of originality, can +alone account for the disproportion which seems to exist between this +author's taste and his genius; or for the devotion with which he has +sacrificed so many precious gifts at the shrine of those paltry idols +which he has set up for himself among his lakes and his mountains. +Solitary musings, amidst such scenes, might no doubt be expected to +nurse up the mind to the majesty of poetical conception,--(though it is +remarkable, that all the greater poets lived or had lived, in the full +current of society):--But the collision of equal minds,--the admonition +of prevailing impressions--seems necessary to reduce its redundancies, +and repress that tendency to extravagance or puerility, into which the +self-indulgence and self-admiration of genius is so apt to be betrayed, +when it is allowed to wanton, without awe or restraint, in the triumph +and delight of its own intoxication. That its flights should be graceful +and glorious in the eyes of men, it seems almost to be necessary that +they should be made in the consciousness that men's eyes are to behold +them,--and that the inward transport and vigour by which they are +inspired, should be tempered by an occasional reference to what will be +thought of them by those-ultimate dispensers of glory. An habitual and +general knowledge of the few settled and permanent maxims, which form +the canon of general taste in all large and polished societies--a +certain tact, which informs us at once that many things, which we still +love and are moved by in secret, must necessarily be despised as +childish, or derided as absurd, in all such societies--though it will +not stand in the place of genius, seems necessary to the success of its +exertions; and though it will never enable any one to produce the higher +beauties of art, can alone secure the talent which does produce them, +from errors that must render it useless. Those who have most of the +talent, however, commonly acquire this knowledge with the greatest +facility;--and if Mr. Wordsworth, instead of confining himself almost +entirely to the society of the dalesmen and cottagers, and little +children, who form the subjects of his book, had condescended to mingle +a little more with the people that were to read and judge of it, we +cannot help thinking, that its texture would have been considerably +improved: At least it appears to us to be absolutely impossible, that +any one who had lived or mixed familiarly with men of literature and +ordinary judgment in poetry (of course we exclude the coadjutors and +disciples of his own school), could ever have fallen into such gross +faults, or so long mistaken them for beauties. His first essays we +looked upon in a good degree as poetical paradoxes,--maintained +experimentally, in order to display talent, and court notoriety;--and so +maintained, with no more serious belief in their truth, than is usually +generated by an ingenious and animated defence of other paradoxes. But +when we find, that he has been for twenty years exclusively employed +upon articles of this very fabric, and that he has still enough of raw +material on hand to keep him so employed for twenty years to come, we +cannot refuse him the justice of believing that he is a sincere convert +to his own system, and must ascribe the peculiarities of his +composition, not to any transient affectation, or accidental caprice of +imagination, but to a settled perversity of taste or understanding, +which has been fostered, if not altogether created, by the circumstances +to which we have already alluded. + +The volume before us, if we were to describe it very shortly, we should +characterize as a tissue of moral and devotional ravings, in which +innumerable changes are rung upon a few very simple and familiar ideas: +--but with such an accompaniment of long words, long sentences, and +unwieldy phrases--such a hubbub of strained raptures and fantastical +sublimities, that it is often extremely difficult for the most skilful +and attentive student to obtain a glimpse of the author's meaning--and +altogether impossible for an ordinary reader to conjecture what he is +about. Moral and religious enthusiasm, though undoubtedly poetical +emotions, are at the same time but dangerous inspirers of poetry; +nothing being so apt to run into interminable dulness or mellifluous +extravagance, without giving the unfortunate author the slightest +intimation of his danger. His laudable zeal for the efficacy of his +preachments, he very naturally mistakes for the ardour of poetical +inspiration;--and, while dealing out the high words and glowing phrases +which are so readily supplied by themes of this description, can +scarcely avoid believing that he is eminently original and impressive:-- +All sorts of commonplace notions and expressions are sanctified in his +eyes, by the sublime ends for which they are employed; and the mystical +verbiage of the methodist pulpit is repeated, till the speaker +entertains no doubt that he is the elected organ of divine truth and +persuasion. But if such be the common hazards of seeking inspiration +from those potent fountains, it may easily be conceived what chance Mr. +Wordsworth had of escaping their enchantment,--with his natural +propensities to wordiness, and his unlucky habit of debasing pathos with +vulgarity. The fact accordingly is, that in this production he is more +obscure than a Pindaric poet of the seventeenth century; and more +verbose "than even himself of yore"; while the wilfulness with which he +persists in choosing his examples of intellectual dignity and tenderness +exclusively from the lowest ranks of society, will be sufficiently +apparent, from the circumstance of his having thought fit to make his +chief prolocutor in this poetical dialogue, and chief advocate of +Providence and Virtue, _an old Scotch Pedlar_--retired indeed from +business--but still rambling about in his former haunts, and gossiping +among his old customers, without his pack on his shoulders. The other +persons of the drama are, a retired military chaplain, who has grown +half an atheist and half a misanthrope--the wife of an unprosperous +weaver--a servant girl with her infant--a parish pauper, and one or two +other personages of equal rank and dignity. + +The character of the work is decidedly didactic; and more than nine-tenths +of it are occupied with a species of dialogue, or rather a series +of long sermons or harangues which pass between the pedlar, the author, +the old chaplain, and a worthy vicar, who entertains the whole party at +dinner on the last day of their excursion. The incidents which occur in +the course of it are as few and trifling as can be imagined;--and those +which the different speakers narrate in the course of their discourses, +are introduced rather to illustrate their arguments or opinions, than +for any interest they are supposed to possess of their own.--The +doctrine which the work is intended to enforce, we are by no means +certain that we have discovered. In so far as we can collect, however, +it seems to be neither more nor less than the old familiar one, that a +firm belief in the providence of a wise and beneficent Being must be our +great stay and support under all afflictions and perplexities upon +earth--and that there are indications of his power and goodness in all +the aspects of the visible universe, whether living or inanimate--every +part of which should therefore be regarded with love and reverence, as +exponents of those great attributes. We can testify, at least, that +these salutary and important truths are inculcated at far greater +length, and with more repetitions, than in any ten volumes of sermons +that we ever perused. It is also maintained, with equal conciseness and +originality, that there is frequently much good sense, as well as much +enjoyment, in the humbler conditions of life; and that, in spite of +great vices and abuses, there is a reasonable allowance both of +happiness and goodness in society at large. If there be any deeper or +more recondite doctrines in Mr. Wordsworth's book, we must confess that +they have escaped us;--and, convinced as we are of the truth and +soundness of those to which we have alluded, we cannot help thinking +that they might have been better enforced with less parade and +prolixity. His effusions on what may be called the physiognomy of +external nature, or its moral and theological expression, are eminently +fantastic, obscure, and affected.--It is quite time, however, that we +should give the reader a more particular account of this singular +performance. + +It opens with a picture of the author toiling across a bare common in a +hot summer day, and reaching at last a ruined hut surrounded with tall +trees, where he meets by appointment with a hale old man, with an +iron-pointed staff lying beside him. Then follows a retrospective account +of their first acquaintance--formed, it seems, when the author was at a +village school; and his aged friend occupied "one room,--the fifth part +of a house" in the neighbourhood. After this, we have the history of +this reverend person at no small length. He was born, we are happy to +find, in Scotland--among the hills of Athol; and his mother, after his +father's death, married the parish schoolmaster--so that he was taught +his letters betimes: But then, as it is here set forth with much +solemnity, + + + From his sixth year, the boy, of whom I speak, + In summer, tended cattle on the hills. + +And again, a few pages after, that there may be no risk of mistake as to +a point of such essential importance-- + + From early childhood, even, as hath been said, + From his _sixth year_, he had been sent abroad, + _In summer_, to tend herds: Such was his task! + +In the course of this occupation, it is next recorded, that he acquired +such a taste for rural scenery and open air, that when he was sent to +teach a school in a neighbouring village, he found it "a misery to him," +and determined to embrace the more romantic occupation of a Pedlar--or, +as Mr. Wordsworth more musically expresses it, + + A vagrant merchant bent beneath his load; + +--and in the course of his peregrinations had acquired a very large +acquaintance, which, after he had given up dealing, he frequently took a +summer ramble to visit. The author, on coming up to this interesting +personage, finds him sitting with his eyes half shut;--and, not being +quite sure whether he's asleep or awake, stands "some minutes space" in +silence beside him. "At length," says he, with his own delightful +simplicity-- + + At length I hailed him--_seeing that his hat + Was moist_ with water-drops, as if the brim + Had newly scooped a running stream!-- + --"'Tis," said I, "a burning day; + My lips are parched with thirst;--but you, I guess, + Have somewhere found relief." + +Upon this, the benevolent old man points him out a well in a corner, to +which the author repairs; and, after minutely describing its situation, +beyond a broken wall, and between two alders that "grew in a cold damp +nook," he thus faithfully chronicles the process of his return-- + + My thirst I slaked--and from the cheerless spot + Withdrawing, straightway to the shade returned, + Where sate the old man on the cottage bench. + +The Pedlar then gives an account of the last inhabitants of the deserted +cottage beside them. These were, a good industrious weaver and his wife +and children. They were very happy for a while; till sickness and want +of work came upon them; and then the father enlisted as a soldier, and +the wife pined in the lonely cottage--growing every year more careless +and desponding, as her anxiety and fears for her absent husband, of whom +no tidings ever reached her, accumulated. Her children died, and left +her cheerless and alone; and at last she died also; and the cottage fell +to decay. We must say, that there is very considerable pathos in the +telling of this simple story; and that they who can get over the +repugnance excited by the triteness of its incidents, and the lowness of +its objects, will not fail to be struck with the author's knowledge of +the human heart, and the power he possesses of stirring up its deepest +and gentlest sympathies. His prolixity, indeed, it is not so easy to get +over. This little story fills about twenty-five quarto pages; and +abounds, of course, with mawkish sentiment, and details of preposterous +minuteness. When the tale is told, the travellers take their staffs, and +end their first day's journey, without further adventure, at a little +inn. + +The Second book sets them forward betimes in the morning. They pass by a +Village Wake; and as they approach a more solitary part of the +mountains, the old man tells the author that he is taking him to see an +old friend of his, who had formerly been chaplain to a Highland +regiment--had lost a beloved wife--been roused from his dejection by the +first euthusiasm [Transcriber's note: sic] of the French Revolution--had +emigrated on its miscarriage to America--and returned disgusted to hide +himself in the retreat to which they were now ascending. That retreat is +then most tediously described--a smooth green valley in the heart of the +mountain, without trees, and with only one dwelling. Just as they get +sight of it from the ridge above, they see a funeral train proceeding +from the solitary abode, and hurry on with some apprehension for the +fate of the misanthrope--whom they find, however, in very tolerable +condition at the door, and learn that the funeral was that of an aged +pauper who had been boarded out by the parish in that cheap farm-house, +and had died in consequence of long exposure to heavy rain. The old +chaplain, or, as Mr. Wordsworth is pleased to call him, the Solitary, +tells this dull story at prodigious length; and after giving an inflated +description of an effect of mountain-mists in the evening sun, treats +his visitors with a rustic dinner--and they walk out to the fields at +the close of the second book. + +The Third makes no progress in the excursion. It is entirely filled with +moral and religious conversation and debate, and with a more ample +detail of the Solitary's past life, than had been given in the sketch of +his friend. The conversation is exceedingly dull and mystical; and the +Solitary's confessions insufferably diffuse. Yet there is very +considerable force of writing and tenderness of sentiment in this part +of the work. + +The Fourth book is also filled with dialogues ethical and theological; +and, with the exception of some brilliant and forcible expressions here +and there, consists of an exposition of truisms, more cloudy, wordy, and +inconceivably prolix, than any thing we ever met with. + +In the beginning of the Fifth book, they leave the solitary valley, +taking its pensive inhabitant along with them, and stray on to where the +landscape sinks down into milder features, till they arrive at a church, +which stands on a moderate elevation in the centre of a wide and fertile +vale. Here they meditate for a while among the monuments, till the vicar +comes out and joins them;--and recognizing the pedlar for an old +acquaintance, mixes graciously in the conversation, which proceeds in a +very edifying manner till the close of the book. + +The Sixth contains a choice obituary, or characteristic account of +several of the persons who lie buried before this groupe of moralizers; +--an unsuccessful lover, who finds consolation in natural history--a +miner, who worked on for twenty years, in despite of universal ridicule, +and at last found the vein he had expected--two political enemies +reconciled in old age to each other--an old female miser--a seduced +damsel--and two widowers, one who devoted himself to the education of +his daughters, and one who married a prudent middle-aged woman to take +care of them. + +In the beginning of the Eighth Book, the worthy vicar expresses, in the +words of Mr. Wordsworth's own epitome, "his apprehensions that he had +detained his auditors too long--invites them to his house--Solitary, +disinclined to comply, rallies the Wanderer, and somewhat playfully +draws a comparison between his itinerant profession and that of a +knight-errant--which leads to the Wanderer giving an account of changes +in the country, from the manufacturing spirit--Its favourable effects-- +The other side of the picture," etc., etc. After these very poetical +themes are exhausted, they all go into the house, where they are +introduced to the Vicar's wife and daughter; and while they sit chatting +in the parlour over a family dinner, his son and one of his companions +come in with a fine dish of trouts piled on a blue slate; and, after +being caressed by the company, are sent to dinner in the nursery.--This +ends the eighth book. + +The Ninth and last is chiefly occupied with the mystical discourses of +the Pedlar; who maintains, that the whole universe is animated by an +active principle, the noblest seat of which is in the human soul; and +moreover, that the final end of old age is to train and enable us + + To hear the mighty stream of _Tendency_ + Uttering, for elevation of our thought, + A clear sonorous voice, inaudible + To the vast multitude whose doom it is + To run the giddy round of vain delight-- + +with other matters as luminous and emphatic. The hostess at length +breaks off the harangue, by proposing that they should all make a little +excursion on the lake,--and they embark accordingly; and, after +navigating for some time along its shores, and drinking tea on a little +island, land at last on a remote promontory, from which they see the sun +go down,--and listen to a solemn and pious, but rather long prayer from +the Vicar. They then walk back to the parsonage door, where the author +and his friend propose to spend the evening;--but the Solitary prefers +walking back in the moonshine to his own valley, after promising to take +another ramble with them-- + + If time, with free consent, be yours to give, + And season favours. + +--And here the publication somewhat abruptly closes. + +Our abstract of the story has been so extremely concise, that it is more +than usually necessary for us to lay some specimens of the work itself +before our readers. Its grand staple, as we have already said, consists +of a kind of mystical morality: and the chief characteristics of the +style are, that it is prolix and very frequently unintelligible: and +though we are very sensible that no great gratification is to be +expected from the exhibition of those qualities, yet it is necessary to +give our readers a taste of them, both to justify the sentence we have +passed, and to satisfy them that it was really beyond our power to +present them with any abstract or intelligible account of those long +conversations which we have had so much occasion to notice in our brief +sketch of its contents. + + * * * * * + +There is no beauty, we think, it must be admitted, in such passages; and +so little either of interest or curiosity in the incidents they +disclose, that we can scarcely conceive that any man to whom they had +actually occurred, should take the trouble to recount them to his wife +and children by his idle fireside--but, that man or child should think +them worth writing down in blank verse, and printing in magnificent +quarto, we should certainly have supposed altogether impossible, had it +not been for the ample proofs which Mr. Wordsworth has afforded to the +contrary. + +Sometimes their silliness is enhanced by a paltry attempt at effect and +emphasis:--as in the following account of that very touching and +extraordinary occurrence of a lamb bleating among the mountains. The +poet would actually persuade us that he thought the mountains themselves +were bleating;--and that nothing could be so grand or impressive. +"List!" cries the old Pedlar, suddenly breaking off in the middle of one +of his daintiest ravings-- + + --"List!--I heard, + From yon huge breast of rock, a solemn bleat; + Sent forth as if it were the Mountain's voice! + As if the visible Mountain made the cry! + Again!"--The effect upon the soul was such + As he expressed; for, from the Mountain's heart + The solemn bleat appeared to come; there was + No other--and the region all around + Stood silent, empty of all shape of life. + --It was a lamb--left somewhere to itself! + +What we have now quoted will give the reader a notion of the taste and +spirit in which this volume is composed; and yet, if it had not +contained something a good deal better, we do not know how we should +have been justified in troubling him with any account of it. But the +truth is, that Mr. Wordsworth, with all his perversities, is a person of +great powers; and has frequently a force in his moral declamations, and +a tenderness in his pathetic narratives, which neither his prolixity nor +his affectation can altogether deprive of their effect. + + * * * * * + +Besides those more extended passages of interest or beauty, which we +have quoted, and omitted to quote, there are scattered up and down the +book, and in the midst of its most repulsive portions, a very great +number of single lines and images, that sparkle like gems in the desart, +and startle us with an intimation of the great poetic powers that lie +buried in the rubbish that has been heaped around them. It is difficult +to pick up these, after we have once passed them by; but we shall +endeavour to light upon one or two. The beneficial effect of intervals +of relaxation and pastime on youthful minds, is finely expressed, we +think, in a single line, when it is said to be-- + + Like vernal ground to Sabbath sunshine left. + +The following image of the bursting forth of a mountain-spring, seems to +us also to be conceived with great elegance and beauty. + + And a few steps may bring us to the spot, + Where haply crown'd with flowrets and green herbs; + The Mountain Infant to the Sun comes forth + Like human life from darkness.-- + +The ameliorating effects of song and music on the minds which most +delight in them, are likewise very poetically expressed. + + --And when the stream + Which overflowed the soul was passed away, + A consciousness remained that it had left, + Deposited upon the silent shore + Of Memory, images and precious thoughts, + That shall not die, and cannot be destroyed. + +Nor is any thing more elegant than the representation of the graceful +tranquillity occasionally put on by one of the author's favourites; who, +though gay and airy, in general-- + + Was graceful, when it pleased him, smooth and still + As the mute Swan that floats adown the stream, + Or on the waters of th' unruffled lake + Anchored her placid beauty. Not a leaf + That flutters on the bough more light than he, + And not a flower that droops in the green shade, + More winningly reserved.-- + +Nor are there wanting morsels of a sterner and more majestic beauty; as +when, assuming the weightier diction of Cowper, he says, in language +which the hearts of all readers of modern history must have responded-- + + --Earth is sick, + And Heaven is weary of the hollow words + Which States and Kingdoms utter when they speak + Of Truth and Justice. + +These examples, we perceive, are not very well chosen--but we have not +leisure to improve the selection; and, such as they are, they may serve +to give the reader a notion of the sort of merit which we meant to +illustrate by their citation.--When we look back to them, indeed, and to +the other passages which we have now extracted, we feel half inclined to +rescind the severe sentence which we passed on the work at the +beginning:--But when we look into the work itself, we perceive that it +cannot be rescinded. Nobody can be more disposed to do justice to the +great powers of Mr. Wordsworth than we are; and, from the first time +that he came before us, down to the present moment, we have uniformly +testified in their favour, and assigned indeed our high sense of their +value as the chief ground of the bitterness with which we resented their +perversion. That perversion, however, is now far more visible than their +original dignity; and while we collect the fragments, it is impossible +not to lament the ruins from which we are condemned to pick them. If any +one should doubt of the existence of such a perversion, or be disposed +to dispute about the instances we have hastily brought forward, we would +just beg leave to refer him to the general plan and the characters of +the poem now before us.--Why should Mr. Wordsworth have made his hero a +superannuated Pedlar? What but the most wretched and provoking +perversity of taste and judgment, could induce any one to place his +chosen advocate of wisdom and virtue in so absurd and fantastic a +condition? Did Mr. Wordsworth really imagine, that he favourite +doctrines were likely to gain any thing in point of effect or authority +by being put into the mouth of a person accustomed to higgle about tape, +or brass sleeve-buttons? Or is it not plain that, independent of the +ridicule and disgust which such a personification must give to many of +his readers, its adoption exposes his work throughout to the charge of +revolting incongruity, and utter disregard of probability or nature? +For, after he has thus wilfully debased his moral teacher by a low +occupation, is there one word that he puts into his mouth, or one +sentiment of which he makes him the organ, that has the most remote +reference to that occupation? Is there any thing in his learned, +abstracted, and logical harangues, that savours of the calling that is +ascribed to him? Are any of their materials such as a pedlar could +possibly have dealt in? Are the manners, the diction, the sentiments, in +any, the very smallest degree, accommodated to a person in that +condition? or are they not eminently and conspicuously such as could not +by possibility belong to it? A man who went about selling flannel and +pocket-handkerchiefs in this lofty diction, would soon frighten away all +his customers; and would infallibly pass either for a madman, or for +some learned and affected gentleman, who, in a frolic, had taken up a +character which he was peculiarly ill qualified for supporting. + +The absurdity in this case, we think, is palpable and glaring; but it is +exactly of the same nature with that which infects the whole substance +of the work--a puerile ambition of singularity engrafted on an unlucky +predilection for truisms; and an affected passion for simplicity and +humble life, most awkwardly combined with a taste for mystical +refinements, and all the gorgeousness of obscure phraseology. His taste +for simplicity is evinced, by sprinkling up and down his interminable +declamations, a few descriptions of baby-houses, and of old hats with +wet brims; and his amiable partiality for humble life, by assuring us, +that a wordy rhetorician, who talks about Thebes, and allegorizes all +the heathen mythology, was once a pedlar--and making him break in upon +his magnificent orations with two or three awkward notices of something +that he had seen when selling winter raiment about the country--or of +the changes in the state of society, which had almost annihilated his +former calling. + + + + +ON KEATS + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, August, 1820] + +1. _Endymion: A Poetic Romance_. By JOHN KEATS. 8vo. pp. 207. London, +1818. + +2. _Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St. Agnes, and other Poems._ By JOHN +KEATS, Author of _Endymion_. 12mo. pp. 200. London, 1820. + +We had never happened to see either of these volumes till very lately-- +and have been exceedingly struck with the genius they display, and the +spirit of poetry which breathes through all their extravagance. That +imitation of our older writers, and especially of our older dramatists, +to which we cannot help flattering ourselves that we have somewhat +contributed, has brought on, as it were, a second spring in our poetry; +--and few of its blossoms are either more profuse of sweetness or richer +in promise, than this which is now before us. Mr. Keats, we understand, +is still a very young man; and his whole works, indeed, bear evidence +enough of the fact. They are full of extravagance and irregularity, rash +attempts at originality, interminable wanderings, and excessive +obscurity. They manifestly require, therefore, all the indulgence that +can be claimed for a first attempt:--but we think it no less plain that +they deserve it; for they are flushed all over with the rich lights of +fancy, and so coloured and bestrewn with the flowers of poetry, that +even while perplexed and bewildered in their labyrinths, it is +impossible to resist the intoxication of their sweetness, or to shut our +hearts to the enchantments they so lavishly present. The models upon +which he has formed himself, in the Endymion, the earliest and by much +the most considerable of his poems, are obviously the Faithful +Shepherdess of Fletcher, and the Sad Shepherd of Ben Jonson;--the +exquisite metres and inspired diction of which he has copied with great +boldness and fidelity--and, like his great originals, has also contrived +to impart to the whole piece that true rural and poetical air which +breathes only in them and in Theocritus--which is at once homely and +majestic, luxurious and rude, and sets before us the genuine sights and +sounds and smells of the country, with all the magic and grace of +Elysium. His subject has the disadvantage of being mythological; and in +this respect, as well as on account of the raised and rapturous tone it +consequently assumes, his poetry may be better compared perhaps to the +Comus and the Arcades of Milton, of which, also, there are many traces +of imitation. The great distinction, however, between him and these +divine authors, is, that imagination in them is subordinate to reason +and judgment, while, with him, it is paramount and supreme--that their +ornaments and images are employed to embellish and recommend just +sentiments, engaging incidents, and natural characters, while his are +poured out without measure or restraint, and with no apparent design but +to unburden the breast of the author, and give vent to the overflowing +vein of his fancy. The thin and scanty tissue of his story is merely the +light framework on which his florid wreaths are suspended; and while his +imaginations go rambling and entangling themselves everywhere, like wild +honeysuckles, all idea of sober reason, and plan, and consistency, is +utterly forgotten, and is "strangled in their waste fertility." A great +part of the work, indeed, is written in the strangest and most +fantastical manner that can be imagined. It seems as if the author had +ventured everything that occurred to him in the shape of a glittering +image or striking expression--taken the first word that presented itself +to make up a rhyme, and then made that word the germ of a new cluster of +images--a hint for a new excursion of the fancy--and so wandered on, +equally forgetful whence he came, and heedless whither he was going, +till he had covered his pages with an interminable arabesque of +connected and incongruous figures, that multiplied as they extended, and +were only harmonized by the brightness of their tints, and the graces of +their forms. In this rash and headlong career he has of course many +lapses and failures. There is no work, accordingly, from which a +malicious critic could cull more matter for ridicule, or select more +obscure, unnatural, or absurd passages. But we do not take _that_ to be +our office;--and just beg leave, on the contrary, to say, that any one +who, on this account, would represent the whole poem as despicable, must +either have no notion of poetry, or no regard to truth. + +It is, in truth, at least as full of genius as of absurdity; and he who +does not find a great deal in it to admire and to give delight, cannot +in his heart see much beauty in the two exquisite dramas to which we +have already alluded, or find any great pleasure in some of the finest +creations of Milton and Shakespeare. There are very many such persons, +we verily believe, even among the reading and judicious part of the +community--correct scholars we have no doubt many of them, and, it may +be, very classical composers in prose and in verse--but utterly ignorant +of the true genius of English poetry, and incapable of estimating its +appropriate and most exquisite beauties. With that spirit we have no +hesitation in saying that Mr. K. is deeply imbued--and of those beauties +he has presented us with many striking examples. We are very much +inclined indeed to add, that we do not know any book which we would +sooner employ as a test to ascertain whether any one had in him a native +relish for poetry, and a genuine sensibility to its intrinsic charm. The +greater and more distinguished poets of our country have so much else in +them to gratify other tastes and propensities, that they are pretty sure +to captivate and amuse those to whom their poetry is but an hindrance +and obstruction, as well as those to whom it constitutes their chief +attraction. The interest of the stories they tell--the vivacity of the +characters they delineate--the weight and force of the maxims and +sentiments in which they abound--the very pathos and wit and humour they +display, which may all and each of them exist apart from their poetry +and independent of it, are quite sufficient to account for their +popularity, without referring much to that still higher gift, by which +they subdue to their enchantments those whose souls are attuned to the +finer impulses of poetry. It is only where those other recommendations +are wanting, or exist in a weaker degree, that the true force of the +attraction, exercised by the pure poetry with which they are so often +combined, can be fairly appreciated--where, without much incident or +many characters, and with little wit, wisdom, or arrangement, a number +of bright pictures are presented to the imagination, and a fine feeling +expressed of those mysterious relations by which visible external things +are assimilated with inward thoughts and emotions, and become the images +and exponents of all passions and affections. To an unpoetical reader +such passages always appear mere raving and absurdity--and to this +censure a very great part of the volume before us will certainly be +exposed, with this class of readers. Even in the judgment of a fitter +audience, however, it must, we fear, be admitted, that, besides the riot +and extravagance of his fancy, the scope and substance of Mr. K.'s +poetry is rather too dreary and abstracted to excite the strongest +interest, or to sustain the attention through a work of any great +compass or extent. He deals too much with shadowy and incomprehensible +beings, and is too constantly rapt into an extramundane Elysium, to +command a lasting interest with ordinary mortals--and must employ the +agency of more varied and coarser emotions, if he wishes to take rank +with the seducing poets of this or of former generations. There is +something very curious too, we think, in the way in which he, and Mr. +Barry Cornwall also, have dealt with the Pagan mythology, of which they +have made so much use in their poetry. Instead of presenting its +imaginary persons under the trite and vulgar traits that belong to them +in the ordinary systems, little more is borrowed from these than the +general conception of their conditions and relations; and an original +character and distinct individuality is bestowed upon them, which has +all the merit of invention, and all the grace and attraction of the +fictions on which it is engrafted. The antients, though they probably +did not stand in any great awe of their deities, have yet abstained very +much from any minute or dramatic representation of their feelings and +affections. In Hesiod and Homer, they are coarsely delineated by some of +their actions and adventures, and introduced to us merely as the agents +in those particular transactions; while in the Hymns, from those +ascribed to Orpheus and Homer, down to those of Callimachus, we have +little but pompous epithets and invocations, with a flattering +commemoration of their most famous exploits--and are never allowed to +enter into their bosoms, or follow out the train of their feelings, with +the presumption of our human sympathy. Except the love-song of the +Cyclops to his Sea Nymph in Theocritus--the Lamentation of Venus for +Adonis in Moschus--and the more recent Legend of Apuleius, we scarcely +recollect a passage in all the writings of antiquity in which the +passions of an immortal are fairly disclosed to the scrutiny and +observation of men. The author before us, however, and some of his +contemporaries, have dealt differently with the subject;--and, +sheltering the violence of the fiction under the ancient traditionary +fable, have created and imagined an entire new set of characters, and +brought closely and minutely before us the loves and sorrows and +perplexities of beings, with whose names and supernatural attributes we +had long been familiar, without any sense or feeling of their personal +character. We have more than doubts of the fitness of such personages to +maintain a permanent interest with the modern public;--but the way in +which they are here managed, certainly gives them the best chance that +now remains for them; and, at all events, it cannot be denied that the +effect is striking and graceful. + + * * * * * + +There is a fragment of a projected Epic, entitled "Hyperion," on the +expulsion of Saturn and the Titanian deities by Jupiter and his younger +adherents, of which we cannot advise the completion: For, though there +are passages of some force and grandeur, it is sufficiently obvious, +from the specimen before us, that the subject is too far removed from +all the sources of human interest, to be successfully treated by any +modern author. Mr. Keats has unquestionably a very beautiful +imagination, and a great familiarity with the finest diction of English +poetry; but he must learn not to misuse or misapply these advantages; +and neither to waste the good gifts of nature and study on intractable +themes, nor to luxuriate too recklessly on such as are more suitable. + + + + +LORD BROUGHAM ON BYRON + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1808] + +_Hours of Idleness: A series of Poems, Original and Translated._ By +GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON, a minor. Newark, 1807. + +The poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor +men are said to permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a +quantity of verse with so few deviations in either direction from that +exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no +more get above or below the level, than if they were so much stagnant +water. As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly +forward in pleading minority. We have it in the title-page, and on the +very back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of +his _style_. Much stress is laid upon it in the preface, and the poems +are connected with this general statement of his case, by particular +dates, substantiating the age at which each was written. Now, the law +upon the point of morality, we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea +available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a +supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought +against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court +a certain quantity of poetry; and if judgment were given against him, it +is highly probable that an exception would be taken, were he to deliver +_for poetry_, the contents of this volume. To this he might plead +_minority;_ but as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath +no right to sue, on that ground, for the price is in good current +praise, should the goods be unmarketable. This is our view of the law on +the point, and we dare to say, so will it be ruled. Perhaps, however, in +reality, all that he tells us about his youth, is rather with a view to +increase our wonder, than to soften our censures. He possibly means to +say, "See how a minor can write! This poem was actually composed by a +young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen!" But, alas, we +all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far +from hearing, with any surprise, that very poor verses were written by a +youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclusive, we +really believe this to be the most common of all occurrences; that it +happens in the life of nine men in ten who are educated in England; and +that the tenth man writes better verse than Lord Byron. + +His other plea of privilege, our author rather brings forward to wave +it. He certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family and +ancestors--sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while giving up +his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remember us of Dr. +Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit +should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration +only, that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review, +besides our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, +and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his opportunities, +which are great, to better account. + +With this view, we must beg leave seriously to assure him, that the mere +rhyming of the final syllable, even when accompanied by a certain number +of feet; nay, although (which does not always happen) those feet should +scan regularly, and have been all counted accurately upon the fingers-- +is not the whole art of poetry. We would entreat him to believe, that a +certain portion of liveliness, somewhat of fancy, is necessary to +constitute a poem; and that a poem in the present day, to be read, must +contain at least one thought, either in a little degree different from +the ideas of former writers, or differently expressed. We put it to his +candour, whether there is anything so deserving the name of poetry in +verses like the following, written in 1806, and whether, if a youth of +eighteen could say anything so uninteresting to his ancestors, a youth +of nineteen should publish it. + + Shades of heroes farewell! your descendant, departing + From the seat of his ancestors, bids you, adieu! etc., etc. + +Lord Byron should also have a care of attempting what the greatest poets +have done before him, for comparisons (as he must have had occasion to +see at his writing-master's) are odious. Gray's ode on Eton College, +should really have kept out the ten hobbling stanzas "on a distant view +of the village and school of Harrow." ... + +However, be this as it may, we fear his translations and imitations are +great favourites with Lord Byron. We have them of all kinds, from +Anacreon to Ossian; and, viewing them as school exercises, they may +pass. Only why print them after they have had their day and served their +turn?... + +It is a sort of privilege of poets to be egotists; but they should "use +it as not abusing it"; and particularly one who piques himself (though +indeed at the ripe age of nineteen) of being "an infant bard"--("The +artless Helicon I boast is youth";)--should either not know, or not seem +to know, so much about his own ancestry. Besides a poem on the family +seat of the Byrons, we have another on the self same subject, introduced +with an apology, "he certainly had no intention of inserting it"; but +really, "the particular request of some friends," etc., etc. It +concludes with five stanzas on himself, "the last and youngest of a +noble line." There is a good deal also about his maternal ancestors, in +a poem on Lachin-y-gair, a mountain where he spent part of his youth, +and might have learnt that a _pibroch_ is not a bagpipe, any more than a +duet means a fiddle.... + +But whatever judgment may be passed on the poems of this noble junior, +it seems we must take them as we find them, and be content; for they are +the last we shall ever have from him. He is at best, he says, but an +intruder into the groves of Parnassus; he never lived in a garret, like +thorough-bred poets; and "though he once roved a careless mountaineer in +the Highlands of Scotland," he has not of late enjoyed this advantage. +Moreover, he expects no profit from his publication; and whether it +succeeds or not, "it is highly improbable, from his situation and +pursuits hereafter," that he should again condescend to become an +author. Therefore, let us take what we can get and be thankful. What +right have we poor devils to be nice? We are well off to have got so +much from a man of this Lord's station, who does not live in a garret, +but "has the sway" of Newstead Abbey. Again we say, let us be thankful; +and, with honest Sancho, bid God bless the giver, nor look the gift +horse in the mouth. + + + + +SYDNEY SMITH ON HANNAH MOORE + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, April, 1809] + +_Caelebs in Search of a Wife; comprehending Observations on Domestic +Habits and Manners, Religion and Morals._ 2 vols. London, 1809. + + +This book is written, or supposed to be written (for we would speak +timidly of the mysteries of superior beings), by the celebrated Mrs. +Hannah Moore! We shall probably give great offence by such indiscretion; +but still we must be excused for treating it as a book merely human,--an +uninspired production,--the result of mortality left to itself, and +depending on its own limited resources. In taking up the subject in this +point of view, we solemnly disclaim the slightest intention of indulging +in any indecorous levity, or of wounding the religious feelings of a +large class of very respectable persons. It is the only method in which +we can possibly make this work a proper object of criticism. We have the +strongest possible doubts of the attributes usually ascribed to this +authoress; and we think it more simple and manly to say so at once, than +to admit nominally superlunary claims, which, in the progress of our +remarks, we should virtually deny. + +Caelebs wants a wife; and, after the death of his father, quits his +estate in Northumberland to see the world, and to seek for one of its +best productions, a woman, who may add materially to the happiness of +his future life. His first journey is to London, where, in the midst of +the gay society of the metropolis, of course, he does not find a wife; +and his next journey is to the family of Mr. Stanley, the head of the +Methodists, a serious people, where, of course, he does find a wife. The +exaltation, therefore, of what the authoress deems to be the religious, +and the depretiation of what she considers to be the worldly character, +and the influence of both upon matrimonial happiness, form the subject +of this novel--rather of this _dramatic sermon_. + +The machinery upon which the discourse is suspended, is of the slightest +and most inartificial texture, bearing every mark of haste, and +possessing not the slightest claim to merit. Events there are none; and +scarcely a character of any interest. The book is intended to convey +religious advice; and no more labour appears to have been bestowed upon +the story, than was merely sufficient to throw it out of the dry, +didactic form. Lucilla is totally uninteresting; so is Mr. Stanley; Dr. +Barlow still worse; and Caelebs a mere clod or dolt. Sir John and Lady +Belfield are rather more interesting--and for a very obvious reason, +they have some faults;--they put us in mind of men and women;--they seem +to belong to one common nature with ourselves. As we read, we seem to +think we might act as such people act, and therefore we attend; whereas +imitation is hopeless in the more perfect characters which Mrs. Moore +has set before us; and therefore, they inspire us with very little +interest. + +There are books however of all kinds; and those may not be unwisely +planned which set before us very pure models. They are less probable, +and therefore less amusing than ordinary stories; but they are more +amusing than plain, unfabled precept. Sir Charles Grandison is less +agreeable than Tom Jones; but it is more agreeable than Sherlock and +Tillotson; and teaches religion and morality to many who would not seek +it in the productions of these professional writers. + +But, making every allowance for the difficulty of the task which Mrs. +Moore has prescribed to herself, the book abounds with marks of +negligence and want of skill; with representations of life and manners +which are either false or trite. + +Temples to friendship and virtue must be totally laid aside, for many +years to come, in novels. Mr. Lane, of the Minerva Press, has given them +up long since; and we were quite surprised to find such a writer as Mrs. +Moore busied in moral brick and mortar. Such an idea, at first, was +merely juvenile; the second time a little nauseous; but the ten +thousandth time, it is quite intolerable. Caelebs, upon his first +arrival in London, dines out,--meets with a bad dinner,--supposes the +cause of that bad dinner to be the erudition of the ladies of the +house,--talks to them upon learned subjects, and finds them as dull and +ignorant as if they had piqued themselves upon all the mysteries of +housewifery. We humbly submit to Mrs. Moore, that this is not humorous, +but strained and unnatural. Philippics against frugivorous children +after dinner, are too common. Lady Melbury has been introduced into +every novel for these four years last past. Peace to her ashes!... + +The great object kept in view throughout the whole of this introduction, +is the enforcement of religious principle, and the condemnation of a +life lavished in dissipation and fashionable amusement. In the pursuit +of this object, it appears to us, that Mrs. Moore is much too severe +upon the ordinary amusements of mankind, many of which she does not +object to in this, or that degree; but altogether. Caelebs and Lucilla, +her _optimus_ and _optima_, never dance, and never go to the play. They +not only stay away from the comedies of Congreve and Farquhar, for which +they may easily enough be forgiven; but they never go to see Mrs. +Siddons in the Gamester, or in Jane Shore. The finest exhibition of +talent, and the most beautiful moral lessons, are interdicted, at the +theatre. There is something in the word _Playhouse_, which seems so +closely connected, in the minds of these people, with sin, and Satan,-- +that it stands in their vocabulary for every species of abomination. And +yet why? Where is every feeling more roused in favour of virtue, than at +a good play? Where is goodness so feelingly, so enthusiastically learnt? +What so solemn as to see the excellent passions of the human heart +called forth by a great actor, animated by a great poet? To hear Siddons +repeat what Shakespeare wrote! To behold the child, and his mother--the +noble, and the poor artisan,--the monarch, and his subjects--all ages +and all ranks convulsed with one common passion--wrung with one common +anguish, and, with loud sobs and cries, doing involuntary homage to the +God that made their hearts! What wretched infatuation to interdict such +amusements as these! What a blessing that mankind can be allured from +sensual gratification, and find relaxation and pleasure in such +pursuits! But the excellent Mr. Stanley is uniformly paltry and narrow, +--always trembling at the idea of being entertained, and thinking no +Christian safe who is not dull. As to the spectacles of impropriety +which are sometimes witnessed in parts of the theatre; such reasons +apply, in much stronger degree, to not driving along the Strand, or any +of the great public streets of London, after dark; and if the virtue of +well educated young persons is made of such very frail materials, their +best resource is a nunnery at once. It is a very bad rule, however, +never to quit the house for fear of catching cold. + +Mrs. Moore practically extends the same doctrine to cards and +assemblies. No cards--because cards are employed in gaming; no +assemblies--because many dissipated persons pass their lives in +assemblies. Carry this but a little further, and we must say,--no wine, +because of drunkenness; no meat, because of gluttony; no use, that there +may be no abuse! The fact is, that Mr. Stanley wants not only to be +religious, but to be at the head of the religious. These little +abstinences are the cockades by which the party are known,--the rallying +points for the evangelical faction. So natural is the love of power, +that it sometimes becomes the influencing motive with the sincere +advocates of that blessed religion, whose very characteristic excellence +is the humility which it inculcates. + +We observe that Mrs. Moore, in one part of her work, falls into the +common error about dress. She first blames ladies for exposing their +persons in the present style of dress; and then says, if they knew their +own interest,--if they were aware how much more alluring they were to +men when their charms are less displayed, they would make the desired +alteration from motives merely selfish. + + "Oh! if women in general knew what was their real interest! if they + could guess with what a charm even the _appearance_ of modesty + invests its possessor, they would dress decorously from mere + self-love, if not from principle. The designing would assume modesty + as an artifice; the coquet would adopt it as an allurement; the pure + as her appropriate attraction; and the voluptuous as the most + infallible art of seduction." I. 189. + +If there is any truth in this passage, nudity becomes a virtue; and no +decent woman, for the future, can be seen in garments. + +We have a few more of Mrs. Moore's opinions to notice.--It is not fair +to attack the religion of the times, because, in large and +indiscriminate parties, religion does not become the subject of +conversation. Conversation must and ought to grow out of materials on +which men can agree, not upon subjects which try the passions. But this +good lady wants to see men chatting together upon the Pelagian heresy-- +to hear, in the afternoon, the theological rumours of the day--and to +glean polemical tittle-tattle at a tea-table rout. All the disciples of +this school uniformly fall into the same mistake. They are perpetually +calling upon their votaries for religious thoughts and religious +conversation in every thing; inviting them to ride, walk, row, wrestle, +and dine out religiously;--forgetting that the being to whom this +impossible purity is recommended, is a being compelled to scramble for +his existence and support for ten hours out of the sixteen he is awake; +--forgetting that he must dig, beg, read, think, move, pay, receive, +praise, scold, command and obey;--forgetting, also, that if men +conversed as often upon religious subjects as they do upon the ordinary +occurrences of the world, that they would converse upon them with the +same familiarity, and want of respect,--that religion would then produce +feelings not more solemn or exalted than any other topics which +constitute at present the common furniture of human understandings. + +We are glad to find in this work, some strong compliments to the +efficacy of works,--some distinct admissions that it is necessary to be +honest and just, before we can be considered as religious. Such sort of +concessions are very gratifying to us; but how will they be received by +the children of the Tabernacle? It is quite clear, indeed, throughout +the whole of the work, that an apologetical explanation of certain +religious opinions is intended; and there is a considerable abatement of +that tone of insolence with which the improved Christians are apt to +treat the bungling specimens of piety to be met with in the more antient +churches. + +So much for the extravagances of this lady.--With equal sincerity, and +with greater pleasure, we bear testimony to her talents, her good sense, +and her real piety. There occurs every now and then in her productions, +very original, and very profound observations. Her advice is very often +characterised by the most amiable good sense, and conveyed in the most +brilliant and inviting style. If, instead of belonging to a trumpery +gospel faction, she had only watched over those great points of religion +in which the hearts of every sect of Christians are interested, she +would have been one of the most useful and valuable writers of her day. +As it is, every man would wish his wife and his children to read +_Caelebs_;--watching himself its effects;--separating the piety from +the puerility;--and showing that it is very possible to be a good +Christian, without degrading the human understanding to the trash and +folly of Methodism. + + + +MACAULAY ON SOUTHEY + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1830] + +SOUTHEY'S "COLLOQUIES" + +_Sir Thomas More; or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of +Society_. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq., LL.D., Poet Laureate. 2 vols. 8vo. +London, 1829. + + +It would be scarcely possible for a man of Mr. Southey's talents and +acquirements to write two volumes so large as those before us, which +should be wholly destitute of information and amusement. Yet we do not +remember to have read with so little satisfaction any equal quantity of +matter, written by any man of real abilities. We have, for some time +past, observed with great regret the strange infatuation which leads the +Poet Laureate to abandon those departments of literature in which he +might excel, and to lecture the public on sciences of which he has still +the very alphabet to learn. He has now, we think, done his worst. The +subject which he has at last undertaken to treat is one which demands +all the highest intellectual and moral qualities of a philosophical +statesman, an understanding at once comprehensive and acute, a heart at +once upright and charitable. Mr. Southey brings to the task two +faculties which were never, we believe, vouchsafed in measure so copious +to any human being, the faculty of believing without a reason, and the +faculty of hating without a provocation. + +It is, indeed, most extraordinary, that a mind like Mr. Southey's, a +mind richly endowed in many respects by nature, and highly cultivated by +study, a mind which has exercised considerable influence on the most +enlightened generation of the most enlightened people that ever existed, +should be utterly destitute of the power of discerning truth from +falsehood. Yet such is the fact. Government is to Mr. Southey one of the +fine arts. He judges of a theory, of a public measure, of a religion or +a political party, of a peace or a war, as men judge of a picture or a +statue, by the effect produced on his imagination. A chain of +associations is to him what a chain of reasoning is to other men; and +what he calls his opinions are in fact merely his tastes.... + +Now in the mind of Mr. Southey reason has no place at all, as either +leader or follower, as either sovereign or slave. He does not seem to +know what an argument is. He never uses arguments himself. He never +troubles himself to answer the arguments of his opponents. It has never +occurred to him, that a man ought to be able to give some better account +of the way in which he has arrived at his opinions than merely that it +is his will and pleasure to hold them. It has never occurred to him that +there is a difference between assertion and demonstration, that a rumour +does not always prove a fact, that a single fact, when proved, is hardly +foundation enough for a theory, that two contradictory propositions +cannot be undeniable truths, that to beg the question is not the way to +settle it, or that when an objection is raised, it ought to be met with +something more convincing than "scoundrel" and "blockhead." + +It would be absurd to read the works of such a writer for political +instruction. The utmost that can be expected from any system promulgated +by him is that it may be splendid and affecting, that it may suggest +sublime and pleasing images. His scheme of philosophy is a mere +day-dream, a poetical creation, like the Domdaniel cavern, the Swerga, +or Padalon; and indeed it bears no inconsiderable resemblance to those +gorgeous visions. Like them, it has something of invention, grandeur, +and brilliancy. But, like them, it is grotesque and extravagant, and +perpetually violates even that conventional probability which is +essential to the effect of works of art. + +The warmest admirers of Mr. Southey will scarcely, we think, deny that +his success has almost always borne an inverse proportion to the degree +in which his undertakings have required a logical head. His poems, taken +in the mass, stand far higher than his prose works. His official Odes, +indeed, among which the Vision of Judgement must be classed, are, for +the most part, worse than Pye's and as bad as Cibber's; nor do we think +him generally happy in short pieces. But his longer poems, though full +of faults, are nevertheless very extraordinary productions. We doubt +greatly whether they will be read fifty years hence; but that, if they +are read, they will be admired, we have no doubt whatever.... + +The extraordinary bitterness of spirit which Mr. Southey manifests +towards his opponents is, no doubt, in a great measure to be attributed +to the manner in which he forms his opinions. Differences of taste, it +has often been remarked, produce greater exasperation than differences +on points of science. But this is not all. A peculiar austerity marks +almost all Mr. Southey's judgments of men and actions. We are far from +blaming him for fixing on a high standard of morals and for applying +that standard to every case. But rigour ought to be accompanied by +discernment; and of discernment Mr. Southey seems to be utterly +destitute. His mode of judging is monkish. It is exactly what we should +expect from a stern old Benedictine, who had been preserved from many +ordinary frailties by the restraints of his situation. No man out of a +cloister ever wrote about love, for example, so coldly and at the same +time so grossly. His descriptions of it are just what we should hear +from a recluse who knew the passion only from the details of the +confessional. Almost all his heroes make love either like Seraphim or +like cattle. He seems to have no notion of any thing between the +Platonic passion of the Glendoveer who gazes with rapture on his +mistress's leprosy, and the brutal appetite of Arvalan and Roderick. In +Roderick, indeed, the two characters are united. He is first all clay, +and then all spirit. He goes forth a Tarquin, and comes back too +ethereal to be married. The only love scene, as far as we can recollect, +in Madoc, consists of the delicate attentions which a savage, who has +drunk too much of the Prince's excellent metheglin, offers to Goervyl. +It would be the labour of a week to find, in all the vast mass of Mr. +Southey's poetry, a single passage indicating any sympathy with those +feelings which have consecrated the shades of Vaucluse and the rocks of +Meillerie. + +Indeed, if we except some very pleasing images of paternal tenderness +and filial duty, there is scarcely any thing soft or humane in Mr. +Southey's poetry. What theologians call the spiritual sins are his +cardinal virtues, hatred, pride, and the insatiable thirst of vengeance. +These passions he disguises under the name of duties; he purifies them +from the alloy of vulgar interests; he ennobles them by uniting them +with energy, fortitude, and a severe sanctity of manners; and he then +holds them up to the admiration of mankind. This is the spirit of +Thalaba, of Ladurlad, of Adosinda, of Roderick after his conversion. It +is the spirit which, in all his writings, Mr. Southey appears to affect. +"I do well to be angry," seems to be the predominant feeling of his +mind. Almost the only mark of charity which he vouchsafes to his +opponents is to pray for their reformation; and this he does in terms +not unlike those in which we can imagine a Portuguese priest interceding +with Heaven for a Jew, delivered over to the secular arm after a +relapse. + +We have always heard, and fully believe, that Mr. Southey is a very +amiable and humane man; nor do we intend to apply to him personally any +of the remarks which we have made on the spirit of his writings. Such +are the caprices of human nature. Even Uncle Toby troubled himself very +little about the French grenadiers who fell on the glacis of Namur. And +Mr. Southey, when he takes up his pen, changes his nature as much as +Captain Shandy, when he girt on his sword. The only opponents to whom +the Laureate gives quarter are those in whom he finds something of his +own character reflected. He seems to have an instinctive antipathy for +calm, moderate men, for men who shun extremes, and who render reasons. +He treated Mr. Owen of Lanark, for example, with infinitely more respect +than he has shown to Mr. Hallam or to Dr. Lingard; and this for no +reason that we can discover, except that Mr. Owen is more unreasonably +and hopelessly in the wrong than any speculator of our time. + +Mr. Southey's political system is just what we might expect from a man +who regards politics, not as matter of science, but as matter of taste +and feeling. All his schemes of government have been inconsistent with +themselves. In his youth he was a republican; yet, as he tells us in his +preface to these Colloquies, he was even then opposed to the Catholic +Claims. He is now a violent Ultra-Tory. Yet, while he maintains, with +vehemence approaching to ferocity, all the sterner and harsher parts of +the Ultra-Tory theory of government, the baser and dirtier part of that +theory disgusts him. Exclusion, persecution, severe punishments for +libellers and demagogues, proscriptions, massacres, civil war, if +necessary, rather than any concession to a discontented people; these +are the measures which he seems inclined to recommend. A severe and +gloomy tyranny, crushing opposition, silencing remonstrance, drilling +the minds of the people into unreasoning obedience, has in it something +of grandeur which delights his imagination. But there is nothing fine in +the shabby tricks and jobs of office; and Mr. Southey, accordingly, has +no toleration for them. When a Jacobin, he did not perceive that his +system led logically, and would have led practically, to the removal of +religious distinctions. He now commits a similar error. He renounces the +abject and paltry part of the creed of his party, without perceiving +that it is also an essential part of that creed. He would have tyranny +and purity together; though the most superficial observation might have +shown him that there can be no tyranny without corruption. + +It is high time, however, that we should proceed to the consideration of +the work which is our more immediate subject, and which, indeed, +illustrates in almost every page our general remarks on Mr. Southey's +writings. In the preface, we are informed that the author, +notwithstanding some statements to the contrary, was always opposed to +the Catholic Claims. We fully believe this; both because we are sure +that Mr. Southey is incapable of publishing a deliberate falsehood, and +because his assertion is in itself probable. We should have expected +that, even in his wildest paroxysms of democratic enthusiasm, Mr. +Southey would have felt no wish to see a simple remedy applied to a +great practical evil. We should have expected that the only measure +which all the great statesmen of two generations have agreed with each +other in supporting would be the only measure which Mr. Southey would +have agreed with himself in opposing. He has passed from one extreme of +political opinion to another, as Satan in Milton went round the globe, +contriving constantly to "ride with darkness." Wherever the thickest +shadow of the night may at any moment chance to fall, there is Mr. +Southey. It is not every body who could have so dexterously avoided +blundering on the daylight in the course of a journey to the antipodes. + + * * * * * + +It is not by the intermeddling of Mr. Southey's idol, the omniscient and +omnipotent State, but by the prudence and energy of the people, that +England has hitherto been carried forward in civilisation; and it is to +the same prudence and the same energy that we now look with comfort and +good hope. Our rulers will best promote the improvement of the nation by +strictly confining themselves to their own legitimate duties, by leaving +capital to find its most lucrative course, commodities their fair price, +industry and intelligence their natural reward, idleness and folly their +natural punishment, by maintaining peace, by defending property, by +diminishing the price of law, and by observing strict economy in every +department of the state. Let the Government do this: the People will +assuredly do the rest. + + + + +ON CROKER'S "BOSWELL" + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, September, 1831] + +_The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Including a Journal of a Tour to the +Hebrides, by James Boswell, Esq. A new Edition, with numerous Additions +and Notes._ By JOHN WILSON CROKER, LL.D., F.R.S. 5 vols., 8vo. London, +1831. + +This work has greatly disappointed us. Whatever faults we may have been +prepared to find in it, we fully expected that it would be a valuable +addition to English literature; that it would contain many curious +facts, and many judicious remarks; that the style of the notes would be +neat, clear, and precise; and that the typographical execution would be, +as in new editions of classical works it ought to be, almost faultless. +We are sorry to be obliged to say that the merits of Mr. Croker's +performance are on a par with those of a certain leg of mutton on which +Dr. Johnson dined, while travelling from London to Oxford, and which he, +with characteristic energy, pronounced to be "as bad as bad could be, +ill fed, ill killed, ill kept, and ill dressed." This edition is ill +compiled, ill arranged, ill written, and ill printed. + +Nothing in the work has astonished us so much as the ignorance or +carelessness of Mr. Croker with respect to facts and dates. Many of his +blunders are such as we should be surprised to hear any well educated +gentleman commit, even in conversation. The notes absolutely swarm with +misstatements, into which the editor never would have fallen, if he had +taken the slightest pains to investigate the truth of his assertions, or +if he had even been well acquainted with the book on which he undertook +to comment. + +We will give a few instances-- + + * * * * * + +We will not multiply instances of this scandalous inaccuracy. It is +clear that a writer who, even when warned by the text on which he is +commenting, falls into such mistakes as these, is entitled to no +confidence whatever. Mr. Croker has committed an error of five years +with respect to the publication of Goldsmith's novel, an error of twelve +years with respect to the publication of part of Gibbon's History, an +error of twenty-one years with respect to an event in Johnson's life so +important as the taking of the doctoral degree. Two of these three +errors he has committed, while ostentatiously displaying his own +accuracy, and correcting what he represents as the loose assertions of +others. How can his readers take on trust his statements concerning the +births, marriages, divorces, and deaths of a crowd of people, whose +names are scarcely known to this generation? It is not likely that a +person who is ignorant of what almost everybody knows can know that of +which almost everybody is ignorant. We did not open this book with any +wish to find blemishes in it. We have made no curious researches. The +work itself, and a very common knowledge of literary and political +history, have enabled us to detect the mistakes which we have pointed +out, and many other mistakes of the same kind. We must say, and we say +it with regret, that we do not consider the authority of Mr. Croker, +unsupported by other evidence, as sufficient to justify any writer who +may follow him in relating a single anecdote or in assigning a date to a +single event. + +Mr. Croker shows almost as much ignorance and heedlessness in his +criticisms as in his statements concerning facts. Dr. Johnson said, very +reasonably as it appears to us, that some of the satires of Juvenal are +too gross for imitation. Mr. Croker, who, by the way, is angry with +Johnson for defending Prior's tales against the charge of indecency, +resents this aspersion on Juvenal, and indeed refuses to believe that +the doctor can have said anything so absurd. "He probably said--some +_passages_ of them--for there are none of Juvenal's satires to which the +same objection may be made as to one of Horace's, that it is +_altogether_ gross and licentious."[1] Surely Mr. Croker can never have +read the second and ninth satires of Juvenal. + +[1] I. 167. + +Indeed the decisions of this editor on points of classical learning, +though pronounced in a very authoritative tone, are generally such that, +if a schoolboy under our care were to utter them, our soul assuredly +should not spare for his crying. It is no disgrace to a gentleman who +has been engaged during near thirty years in political life that he has +forgotten his Greek and Latin. But he becomes justly ridiculous if, when +no longer able to construe a plain sentence, he affects to sit in +judgment on the most delicate questions of style and metre. From one +blunder, a blunder which no good scholar would have made, Mr. Croker was +saved, as he informs us, by Sir Robert Peel, who quoted a passage +exactly in point from Horace. We heartily wish that Sir Robert, whose +classical attainments are well known, had been more frequently +consulted. Unhappily he was not always at his friend's elbow; and we +have therefore a rich abundance of the strangest errors. Boswell has +preserved a poor epigram by Johnson, inscribed "Ad Lauram parituram." +Mr. Croker censures the poet for applying the word puella to a lady in +Laura's situation, and for talking of the beauty of Lucina. "Lucina," he +says, "was never famed for her beauty."[1] If Sir Robert Peel had seen +this note, he probably would have again refuted Mr. Croker's criticisms +by an Appeal to Horace. In the secular ode, Lucina is used as one of the +names of Diana, and the beauty of Diana is extolled by all the most +orthodox doctors of the ancient mythology, from Homer in his Odyssey, to +Claudian in his Rape of Proserpine. In another ode, Horace describes +Diana as the goddess who assists the "laborantes utero puellas." But we +are ashamed to detain our readers with this fourth-form learning. + + * * * * * + +A very large proportion of the two thousand five hundred notes which the +editor boasts of having added to those of Boswell and Malone consists of +the flattest and poorest reflections, reflections such as the least +intelligent reader is quite competent to make for himself, and such as +no intelligent reader would think it worth while to utter aloud. They +remind us of nothing so much as of those profound and interesting +annotations which are penciled by sempstresses and apothecaries' boys on +the dog-eared margins of novels borrowed from circulating libraries; +"How beautiful!" "Cursed Prosy!" "I don't like Sir Reginald Malcolm at +all." "I think Pelham is a sad dandy." Mr. Croker is perpetually +stopping us in our progress through the most delightful narrative in the +language, to observe that really Dr. Johnson was very rude, that he +talked more for victory than for truth, that his taste for port wine +with capillaire in it was very odd, that Boswell was impertinent, that +it was foolish in Mrs. Thrale to marry the music-master; and so forth. + +We cannot speak more favourably of the manner in which the notes are +written than of the matter of which they consist. We find in every page +words used in wrong senses, and constructions which violate the plainest +rules of grammar. We have the vulgarism of "mutual friend," for "common +friend." We have "fallacy" used as synonymous with "falsehood." We have +many such inextricable labyrinths of pronouns as that which follows: +"Lord Erskine was fond of this anecdote; he told it to the editor the +first time that he had the honour of being in his company." Lastly, we +have a plentiful supply of sentences resembling those which we subjoin. +"Markland, _who_, with Jortin and Thirlby, Johnson calls three +contemporaries of great eminence."[2] "Warburton himself did not feel, +as Mr. Boswell was disposed to think he did, kindly or gratefully _of_ +Johnson."[3] "It was _him_ that Horace Walpole called a man who never +made a bad figure but as an author."[4] One or two of these solecisms +should perhaps be attributed to the printer, who has certainly done his +best to fill both the text and the notes with all sorts of blunders. In +truth, he and the editor have between them made the book so bad, that we +do not well see how it could have been worse. + +[2] IV. 377. +[3] IV. 415. +[4] II. 461. + +When we turn from the commentary of Mr. Croker to the work of our old +friend Boswell, we find it not only worse printed than in any other +edition with which we are acquainted, but mangled in the most wanton +manner. Much that Boswell inserted in his narrative is, without the +shadow of a reason, degraded to the appendix. The editor has also taken +upon himself to alter or omit passages which he considers as indecorous. +This prudery is quite unintelligible to us. There is nothing immoral in +Boswell's book, nothing which tends to inflame the passions. He +sometimes uses plain words. But if this be a taint which requires +expurgation, it would be desirable to begin by expurgating the morning +and evening lessons. The delicate office which Mr. Croker has undertaken +he has performed in the most capricious manner. One strong, old-fashioned, +English word, familiar to all who read their Bibles, is +changed for a softer synonyme in some passages, and suffered to stand +unaltered in others. In one place a faint allusion made by Johnson to an +indelicate subject, an allusion so faint that, till Mr. Croker's note +pointed it out to us, we had never noticed it, and of which we are quite +sure that the meaning would never be discovered by any of those for +whose sake books are expurgated, is altogether omitted. In another +place, a coarse and stupid jest of Dr. Taylor on the subject, expressed +in the broadest language, almost the only passage, as far as we +remember, in all Boswell's book, which we should have been inclined to +leave out, is suffered to remain. + +We complain, however, much more of the additions than of the omissions. +We have half of Mrs. Thrale's book, scraps of Mr. Tyers, scraps of Mr. +Murphy, scraps of Mr. Cradock, long prosings of Sir John Hawkins, and +connecting observations by Mr. Croker himself, inserted into the midst +of Boswell's text. + + * * * * * + +The _Life of Johnson_ is assuredly a great, a very great work. Homer is +not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, Shakspeare is not more +decidedly the first of dramatists, Demosthenes is not more decidedly the +first of orators than Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no +second. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not +worth while to place them. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere. + +We are not sure that there is in the whole history of the human +intellect so strange a phenomenon as this book. Many of the greatest men +that ever lived have written biography. Boswell was one of the smallest +men that ever lived, and he has beaten them all. He was, if we are to +give any credit to his own account or to the united testimony of all who +knew him, a man of the meanest and feeblest intellect. Johnson described +him as a fellow who had missed his only chance of immortality by not +having been alive when the _Dunciad_ was written. Beauclerk used his +name as a proverbial expression for a bore. He was the laughing-stock of +the whole of that brilliant society which has owed to him the greater +part of its fame. He was always laying himself at the feet of some +eminent man, and begging to be spit upon and trampled upon. He was +always earning some ridiculous nickname, and then "binding it as a crown +unto him," not merely in metaphor, but literally. He exhibited himself, +at the Shakespeare Jubilee, to all the crowd which filled +Stratford-on-Avon, with a placard round his hat bearing the inscription +of +Corsica Boswell. In his Tour, he proclaimed to all the world that at +Edinburgh he was known by the appellation of Paoli Boswell. Servile and +impertinent, shallow and pedantic, a bigot and a sot, bloated with +family pride, and eternally blustering about the dignity of a born +gentleman, yet stooping to be a talebearer, an eavesdropper, a common +butt in the taverns of London, so curious to know everybody who was +talked about, that, Tory and High Churchman as he was, he manoeuvred, we +have been told, for an introduction to _Tom Paine_, so vain of the most +childish distinctions, that when he had been to court he drove to the +office where his book was printing without changing his clothes, and +summoned all the printer's devils to admire his new ruffles and sword; +such was this man, and such he was content and proud to be. Everything +which another man would have hidden, everything the publication of which +would have made another man hang himself, was matter of gay and +clamorous exultation to his weak and diseased mind. What silly things he +said, what bitter retorts he provoked, how at one place he was troubled +with evil presentiments which came to nothing, how at another place, on +waking from a drunken doze, he read the prayerbook and took a hair of +the dog that had bitten him, how he went to see men hanged and came away +maudlin, how he added five hundred pounds to the fortune of one of his +babies because she was not scared at Johnson's ugly face, how he was +frightened out of his wits at sea, and how the sailors quieted him as +they would have quieted a child, how tipsy he was at Lady Cork's one +evening and how much his merriment annoyed the ladies, how impertinent +he was to the Duchess of Argyle and with what stately contempt she put +down his impertinence, how Colonel Macleod sneered to his face at his +impudent obtrusiveness, how his father and the very wife of his bosom +laughed and fretted at his fooleries; all these things he proclaimed to +all the world, as if they had been subjects for pride and ostentatious +rejoicing. All the caprices of his temper, all the illusions of his +vanity, all his hypochondriac whimsies, all his castles in the air, he +displayed with a cool self-complacency, a perfect unconsciousness that +he was making a fool of himself, to which it is impossible to find a +parallel in the whole history of mankind. He has used many people ill; +but assuredly he has used nobody so ill as himself. + +That such a man should have written one of the best books in the world +is strange enough. But this is not all. Many persons who have conducted +themselves foolishly in active life, and whose conversation has +indicated no superior powers of mind, have left us valuable works. +Goldsmith was very justly described by one of his contemporaries as an +inspired idiot, and by another as a being + + Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll. + +La Fontaine was in society a mere simpleton. His blunders +would not come in amiss among the stories of Hierocles. But +these men attained literary eminence in spite of their weaknesses. +Boswell attained it by reason of his weaknesses. If he had not been a +great fool, he would never have been a great writer. Without all the +qualities which made him the jest and the torment of those among whom he +lived, without the officiousness, the inquisitiveness, the effrontery, +the toad-eating, the insensibility to all reproof, he never could have +produced so excellent a book. He was a slave, proud of his servitude, a +Paul Pry, convinced that his own curiosity and garrulity were virtues, +an unsafe companion who never scrupled to repay the most liberal +hospitality by the basest violation of confidence, a man without +delicacy, without shame, without sense enough to know when he was +hurting the feelings of others or when he was exposing himself to +derision; and because he was all this, he has, in an important +department of literature, immeasurably surpassed such writers as +Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, and his own idol Johnson. + +Of the talents which ordinarily raise men to eminence as writers, +Boswell had absolutely none. There is not in all his books a single +remark of his own on literature, politics, religion, or society, which +is not either common-place or absurd. His dissertations on hereditary +gentility, on the slave-trade, and on the entailing of landed estates, +may serve as examples. To say that these passages are sophistical would +be to pay them an extravagant compliment. They have no pretence to +argument, or even to meaning. He has reported innumerable observations +made by himself in the course of conversation. + +Of those observations we do not remember one which is above the +intellectual capacity of a boy of fifteen. He has printed many of his +own letters, and in these letters he is always ranting or twaddling. +Logic, eloquence, wit, taste, all those things which are generally +considered as making a book valuable, were utterly wanting to him. He +had, indeed, a quick observation and a retentive memory. These +qualities, if he had been a man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of +themselves have sufficed to make him conspicuous; but because he was a +dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb, they have made him immortal. + +Those parts of his book which, considered abstractedly, are most utterly +worthless, are delightful when we read them as illustrations of the +character of the writer. Bad in themselves, they are good dramatically, +like the nonsense of Justice Shallow, the clipped English of Dr. Caius, +or the misplaced consonants of Fluellen. Of all confessors, Boswell is +the most candid. + + * * * * * + +Johnson came among [the distinguished writers of his age] the solitary +specimen of a past age, the last survivor of the genuine race of Grub +Street hacks; the last of that generation of authors whose abject misery +and whose dissolute manners had furnished inexhaustible matter to the +satirical genius of Pope. From nature he had received an uncouth figure, +a diseased constitution, and an irritable temper. The manner in which +the earlier years of his manhood had been passed had given to his +demeanour, and even to his moral character, some peculiarities appalling +to the civilised beings who were the companions of his old age. The +perverse irregularity of his hours, the slovenliness of his person, his +fits of strenuous exertion, interrupted by long intervals of +sluggishness, his strange abstinence, and his equally strange voracity, +his active benevolence, contrasted with the constant rudeness and the +occasional ferocity of his manners in society, made him, in the opinion +of those with whom he lived during the last twenty years of his life, a +complete original. An original he was, undoubtedly, in some respects. +But if we possessed full information concerning those who shared his +early hardships, we should probably find that what we call his +singularities of manner were, for the most part, failings which he had +in common with the class to which he belonged. He ate at Streatham Park +as he had been used to eat behind the screen at St. John's Gate, when he +was ashamed to show his ragged clothes. He ate as it was natural that a +man should eat, who, during a great part of his life, had passed the +morning in doubt whether he should have food for the afternoon. The +habits of his early life had accustomed him to bear privation with +fortitude, but not to taste pleasure with moderation. He could fast; +but, when he did not fast, he tore his dinner like a famished wolf, with +the veins swelling on his forehead, and the perspiration running down +his cheeks. He scarcely ever took wine. But when he drank it, he drank +it greedily and in large tumblers. These were, in fact, mitigated +symptoms of that same moral disease which raged with such deadly +malignity in his friends Savage and Boyse. The roughness and violence +which he showed in society were to be expected from a man whose temper, +not naturally gentle, had been long tried by the bitterest calamities, +by the want of meat, of fire, and of clothes, by the importunity of +creditors, by the insolence of booksellers, by the derision of fools, by +the insincerity of patrons, by that bread which is the bitterest of all +food, by those stairs which are the most toilsome of all paths, by that +deferred hope which makes the heart sick. Through all these things the +ill-dressed, coarse, ungainly pedant had struggled manfully up to +eminence and command. It was natural that, in the exercise of his power, +he should be "eo immitior, quia toleraverat," that, though his heart was +undoubtedly generous and humane, his demeanour in society should be +harsh and despotic. For severe distress he had sympathy, and not only +sympathy, but munificent relief. But for the suffering which a harsh +word inflicts upon a delicate mind he had no pity; for it was a kind of +suffering which he could scarcely conceive. He would carry home on his +shoulders a sick and starving girl from the streets. He turned his house +into a place of refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could +find no other asylum; nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude +weary out his benevolence. But the pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him +ridiculous; and he scarcely felt sufficient compassion even for the +pangs of wounded affection. He had seen and felt so much of sharp +misery, that he was not affected by paltry vexations; and he seemed to +think that everybody ought to be as much hardened to those vexations as +himself. He was angry with Boswell for complaining of a +head-ache, with Mrs. Thrale for grumbling about the dust on the road, or +the smell of the kitchen. These were, in his phrase, "foppish +lamentations," which people ought to be ashamed to utter in a world so +full of sin and sorrow. Goldsmith crying because the Good-natured Man +had failed, inspired him with no pity. Though his own health was not +good, he detested and despised valetudinarians. Pecuniary losses, unless +they reduced the loser absolutely to beggary, moved him very little. +People whose hearts had been softened by prosperity might weep, he said, +for such events; but all that could be expected of a plain man was not +to laugh. He was not much moved even by the spectacle of Lady Tavistock +dying of a broken heart for the loss of her lord. Such grief he +considered as a luxury reserved for the idle and the wealthy. A +washer-woman, left a widow with nine small children, would not have +sobbed herself to death. + +A person who troubled himself so little about small or sentimental +grievances was not likely to be very attentive to the feelings of others +in the ordinary intercourse of society. He could not understand how a +sarcasm or a reprimand could make any man really unhappy. "My dear +doctor," said he to Goldsmith, "what harm does it do to a man to call +him Holofernes?" "Pooh, ma'am," he exclaimed to Mrs. Carter, "who is the +worse for being talked of uncharitably?" Politeness has been well +defined as benevolence in small things. Johnson was impolite, not +because he wanted benevolence, but because small things appeared smaller +to him than to people who had never known what it was to live for +fourpence halfpenny a day. + +The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the union of great +powers with low prejudices. If we judged of him by the best parts of his +mind, we should place him almost as high as he was placed by the +idolatry of Boswell; if by the worst parts of his mind, we should place +him even below Boswell himself. Where he was not under the influence of +some strange scruple, or some domineering passion, which prevented him +from boldly and fairly investigating a subject, he was a wary and acute +reasoner, a little too much inclined to scepticism, and a little too +fond of paradox. No man was less likely to be imposed upon by fallacies +in argument, or by exaggerated statements of facts. But, if while he was +beating down sophisms and exposing false testimony, some childish +prejudices, such as would excite laughter in a well managed nursery, +came across him, he was smitten as if by enchantment. His mind dwindled +away under the spell from gigantic elevation to dwarfish littleness. +Those who had lately been admiring its amplitude and its force were now +as much astonished at its strange narrowness and feebleness as the +fisherman in the Arabian tale, when he saw the Genie, whose stature had +overshadowed the whole sea-coast, and whose might seemed equal to a +contest with armies, contract himself to the dimensions of his small +prison, and lie there the helpless slave of the charm of Solomon. + + * * * * * + +The characteristic faults of his style are so familiar to all our +readers, and have been so often burlesqued, that it is almost +superfluous to point them out. It is well-known that he made less use +than any other eminent writer of those strong plain words, Anglo-Saxon +or Norman-French, of which the roots lie in the inmost depths of our +language; and that he felt a vicious partiality for terms which, long +after our own speech had been fixed, were borrowed from the Greek and +Latin, and which, therefore, even when lawfully naturalised must be +considered as born aliens, not entitled to rank with the king's English. +His constant practice of padding out a sentence with useless epithets, +till it became as stiff as the best of an exquisite, his antithetical +forms of expression, constantly employed even where there is no +opposition in the ideas expressed, his big words wasted on little +things, his harsh inversions, so widely different from those graceful +and easy inversions which give variety, spirit, and sweetness to the +expression of our great old writers, all these peculiarities have been +imitated by his admirers and parodied by his assailants, till the public +has become sick of the subject. + +Goldsmith said to him, very wittily, and very justly, "If you were to +write a fable about little fishes, doctor, you would make the little +fishes talk like whales." No man surely ever had so little talent for +personation as Johnson. Whether he wrote in the character of a +disappointed legacy-hunter or an empty town fop, of a crazy virtuoso or +a flippant coquette, he wrote in the same pompous and unbending style. +His speech, like Sir Piercy Shafton's Euphuistic eloquence, bewrayed him +under every disguise. Euphelia and Rhodoclea talk as finely as Imlac the +poet, or Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia. The gay Cornelia describes her +reception at the country-house of her relations, in such terms as these: +"I was surprised, after the civilities of my first reception, to find, +instead of the leisure and tranquillity which a rural life always +promises, and, if well conducted, might always afford, a confused +wildness of care, and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every +face was clouded, and every motion agitated." The gentle Tranquilla +informs us, that she "had not passed the earlier part of life without +the flattery of courtship, and the joys of triumph; but had danced the +round of gaiety amidst the murmurs of envy and the gratulations of +applause, had been attended from pleasure to pleasure by the great, the +sprightly, and the vain, and had seen her regard solicited by the +obsequiousness of gallantry, the gaiety of wit, and the timidity of +love." Surely Sir John Falstaff himself did not wear his petticoats with +a worse grace. The reader may well cry out, with honest Sir Hugh Evans, +"I like not when a 'oman has a great peard: I spy a great peard under +her muffler."[5] + +[5] It is proper to observe that this passage bears a very close + resemblance to a passage in the _Rambler_ (No. 20). The resemblance + may possibly be the effect of unconscious plagiarism. + +We had something more to say. But our article is already too long; and +we must close it. We would fain part in good humour from the hero, from +the biographer, and even from the editor, who, ill as he has performed +his task, has at least this claim to our gratitude, that he has induced +us to read Boswell's book again. As we close it, the club-room is before +us, and the table on which stands the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons +for Johnson. There are assembled those heads which live for ever on the +canvas of Reynolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall thin +form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk and the beaming smile of +Garrick, Gibbon tapping his snuff-box and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in +his ear. In the foreground is that strange figure which is as familiar +to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up, the +gigantic body, the huge massy face, seamed with the scars of disease, +the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the +scorched foretop, the dirty hands, the nails bitten and paired to the +quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving with convulsive twitches; we see +the heavy form rolling; we hear it puffing; and then comes the "Why, +sir!" and the "What then, sir?" and the "No, Sir!" and the "You don't +see your way through the question, sir!" + +What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man! To be +regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion. To +receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius +have in general received from posterity! To be more intimately known to +posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries! That kind of +fame which is commonly the most transient is, in his case, the most +durable. The reputation of those writings, which he probably expected to +be immortal, is every day fading; while those peculiarities of manner +and that careless table-talk the memory of which, he probably thought, +would die with him, are likely to be remembered as long as the English +language is spoken in any quarter of the globe. + + + + +ON W. E. GLADSTONE + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, April, 1839] + +_The State in its Relations with the Church_. By W. E. GLADSTONE, Esq., +Student of Christ Church, and M.P. for Newark. 8vo. Second Edition. +London, 1839. + +The author of this volume is a young man of unblemished character, and +of distinguished parliamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern +and unbending Tories who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader +whose experience and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose +cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor. It would not be at all +strange if Mr. Gladstone were one of the most unpopular men in England. +But we believe that we do him no more than justice when we say that his +abilities and his demeanour have obtained for him the respect and good +will of all parties. His first appearance in the character of an author +is therefore an interesting event; and it is natural that the gentle +wishes of the public should go with him to his trial. + +We are much pleased, without any reference to the soundness or +unsoundness of Mr. Gladstone's theories, to see a grave and elaborate +treatise on an important part of the Philosophy of Government proceed +from the pen of a young man who is rising to eminence in the House of +Commons. There is little danger that people engaged in the conflicts of +active life will be too much addicted to general speculation. The +opposite vice is that which most easily besets them. The times and tides +of business and debate tarry for no man. A politician must often talk +and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill informed +respecting a question; all his notions about it may be vague and +inaccurate; but speak he must; and if he is a man of ability, of tact, +and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, +it is possible to speak successfully. He finds that there is a great +difference between the effect of written words, which are perused and +reperused in the stillness of the closet, and the effect of spoken words +which, set off by the graces of utterance and gesture, vibrate for a +single moment on the ear. He finds that he may blunder without much +chance of being detected, that he may reason sophistically, and escape +unrefuted. He finds that, even on knotty questions of trade and +legislation, he can, without reading ten pages, or thinking ten minutes, +draw forth loud plaudits, and sit down with the credit of having made an +excellent speech.... The tendency of institutions like those of England +is to encourage readiness in public men, at the expense both of fulness +and of exactness. The keenest and most vigorous minds of every +generation, minds often admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, +are habitually employed in producing arguments such as no man of sense +would ever put into a treatise intended for publication, arguments which +are just good enough to be used once, when aided by fluent delivery and +pointed language. The habit of discussing questions in this way +necessarily reacts on the intellects of our ablest men, particularly of +those who are introduced into parliament at a very early age, before +their minds have expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate is +developed in such men to a degree which, to the multitude, seems as +marvellous as the performance of an Italian _Improvisatore._ + +But they are fortunate indeed if they retain unimpaired the faculties +which are required for close reasoning or for enlarged speculation. +Indeed we should sooner expect a great original work on political +science, such a work, for example, as the Wealth of Nations, from an +apothecary in a country town, or from a minister in the Hebrides, than +from a statesman who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a +distinguished debater in the House of Commons. + +We therefore hail with pleasure, though assuredly not with unmixed +pleasure, the appearance of this work. That a young politician should, +in the intervals afforded by his parliamentary avocations, have +constructed and propounded, with much study and mental toil, an original +theory on a great problem in politics, is a circumstance which, +abstracted from all consideration of the soundness or unsoundness of his +opinions, must be considered as highly creditable to him. We certainly +cannot wish that Mr. Gladstone's doctrines may become fashionable among +public men. But we heartily wish that his laudable desire to penetrate +beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, by long and intent +meditation, at the knowledge of great general laws, were much more +fashionable than we at all expect it to become. + +Mr. Gladstone seems to us to be, in many respects, exceedingly well +qualified for philosophical investigation. His mind is of large grasp; +nor is he deficient in dialectical skill. But he does not give his +intellect fair play. There is no want of light, but a great want of what +Bacon would have called dry light. Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is +refracted and distorted by a false medium of passions and prejudices. +His style bears a remarkable analogy to his mode of thinking, and indeed +exercises great influence on his mode of thinking. His rhetoric, though +often good of its kind, darkens and perplexes the logic which it should +illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, with a barren imagination +and a scanty vocabulary, would have saved him from almost all his +mistakes. He has one gift most dangerous to a speculator, a vast command +of a kind of language, grave and majestic, but of vague and uncertain +import; of a kind of language which affects us much in the same way in +which the lofty diction of the Chorus of Clouds affected the +simple-hearted Athenian. + + [Greek: o gae tou phthegmatos, os hieron, kai semnon, kai teratodes.] + +When propositions have been established, and nothing remains but to +amplify and decorate them, this dim magnificence may be in place. But if +it is admitted into a demonstration, it is very much worse than absolute +nonsense; just as that transparent haze, through which the sailor sees +capes and mountains of false sizes and in false bearings, is more +dangerous than utter darkness. Now, Mr. Gladstone is fond of employing +the phraseology of which we speak in those parts of his works which +require the utmost perspicuity and precision of which human language is +capable; and in this way he deludes first himself, and then his readers. +The foundations of his theory which ought to be buttresses of adamant, +are made out of the flimsy materials which are fit only for perorations. +This fault is one which no subsequent care or industry can correct. The +more strictly Mr. Gladstone reasons on his premises, the more absurd are +the conclusions which he brings out; and, when at last his good sense +and good nature recoil from the horrible practical inferences to which +this theory leads, he is reduced sometimes to take refuge in arguments +inconsistent with his fundamental doctrines, and sometimes to escape +from the legitimate consequences of his false principles, under cover of +equally false history. + +It would be unjust not to say that this book, though not a good book, +shows more talent than many good books. It abounds with eloquent and +ingenious passages. It bears the signs of much patient thought. It is +written throughout with excellent taste and excellent temper; nor does +it, so far as we have observed, contain one expression unworthy of a +gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. But the doctrines which are put +forth in it appear to us, after full and calm consideration, to be +false, to be in the highest degree pernicious, and to be such as, if +followed out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would +inevitably produce the dissolution of society; and for this opinion we +shall proceed to give our reasons with that freedom which the importance +of the subject requires, and which Mr. Gladstone, both by precept and by +example, invites us to use, but, we hope, without rudeness, and, we are +sure, without malevolence. + +Before we enter on an examination of this theory, we wish to guard +ourselves against one misconception. It is possible that some persons +who have read Mr. Gladstone's book carelessly, and others who have +merely heard in conversation, or seen in a newspaper, that the member +for Newark has written in defence of the Church of England against the +supporters of the voluntary system, may imagine that we are writing in +defence of the voluntary system, and that we desire the abolition of the +Established Church. This is not the case. It would be as unjust to +accuse us of attacking the Church, because we attack Mr. Gladstone's +doctrines, as it would be to accuse Locke of wishing for anarchy, +because he refuted Filmer's patriarchal theory of government, or to +accuse Blackstone of recommending the confiscation of ecclesiastical +property, because he denied that the right of the rector to tithe was +derived from the Levitical law. It is to be observed, that Mr. Gladstone +rests his case on entirely new grounds, and does not differ more widely +from us than from some of those who have hitherto been considered as the +most illustrious champions of the Church. He is not content with the +Ecclesiastical Polity, and rejoices that the latter part of that +celebrated work "does not carry with it the weight of Hooker's plenary +authority." He is not content with Bishop Warburton's Alliance of Church +and State. "The propositions of that work generally," he says, "are to +be received with qualification"; and he agrees with Bolingbroke in +thinking that Warburton's whole theory rests on a fiction. He is still +less satisfied with Paley's defence of the Church, which he pronounces +to be "tainted by the original vice of false ethical principles," and +"full of the seeds of evil." He conceives that Dr. Chalmers has taken a +partial view of the subject, and "put forth much questionable matter." +In truth, on almost every point on which we are opposed to Mr. +Gladstone, we have on our side the authority of some divine, eminent as +a defender of existing establishments. + +Mr. Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great fundamental +proposition, that the propagation of religious truth is one of the +principal ends of government, as government. If Mr. Gladstone has not +proved this proposition, his system vanishes at once. + +We are desirous, before we enter on the discussion of this important +question, to point out clearly a distinction which, though very obvious, +seems to be overlooked by many excellent people. In their opinion, to +say that the ends of government are temporal and not spiritual is +tantamount to saying that the temporal welfare of man is of more +importance than his spiritual welfare. But this is an entire mistake. +The question is not whether spiritual interests be or be not superior in +importance to temporal interests; but whether the machinery which +happens at any moment to be employed for the purpose of protecting +certain temporal interests of a society be necessarily such a machinery +as is fitted to promote the spiritual interests of that society. Without +a division of labour the world could not go on. It is of very much more +importance that men should have food than that they should have +pianofortes. Yet it by no means follows that every pianoforte-maker +ought to add the business of a baker to his own; for, if he did so, we +should have both much worse music and much worse bread. It is of much +more importance that the knowledge of religious truth should be wisely +diffused than that the art of sculpture should flourish among us. Yet it +by no means follows that the Royal Academy ought to unite with its +present functions those of the Society for Promoting Christian +Knowledge, to distribute theological tracts, to send forth missionaries, +to turn out Nollekens for being a Catholic, Bacon for being a methodist, +and Flaxman for being a Swedenborgian. For the effect of such folly +would be that we should have the worst possible Academy of Arts, and the +worst possible Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. The +community, it is plain, would be thrown into universal confusion, if it +were supposed to be the duty of every association which is formed for +one good object to promote every other good object. + +As to some of the ends of civil government, all people are agreed. That +it is designed to protect our persons and our property; that it is +designed to compel us to satisfy our wants, not by rapine, but by +industry; that it is designed to compel us to decide our differences, +not by the strong hand, but by arbitration; that it is designed to +direct our whole force, as that of one man, against any other society +which may offer us injury; these are propositions which will hardly be +disputed. + +Now these are matters in which man, without any reference to any higher +being, or to any future state, is very deeply interested. Every human +being, be he idolater, Mahometan, Jew, Papist, Socinian, Deist, or +Atheist, naturally loves life, shrinks from pain, desires comforts which +can be enjoyed only in communities where property is secure. To be +murdered, to be tortured, to be robbed, to be sold into slavery, these +are evidently evils from which men of every religion, and men of no +religion, wish to be protected; and therefore it will hardly be disputed +that men of every religion, and of no religion, have thus far a common +interest in being well governed. + +But the hopes and fears of man are not limited to this short life and to +this visible world. He finds himself surrounded by the signs of a power +and wisdom higher than his own; and, in all ages and nations, men of all +orders of intellect, from Bacon and Newton, down to the rudest tribes of +cannibals, have believed in the existence of some superior mind. Thus +far the voice of mankind is almost unanimous. But whether there be one +God, or many, what may be God's natural and what His mortal attributes, +in what relation His creatures stand to Him, whether He have ever +disclosed Himself to us by any other revelation than that which is +written in all the parts of the glorious and well ordered world which He +has made, whether His revelation be contained in any permanent record, +how that record should be interpreted, and whether it have pleased Him +to appoint any unerring interpreter on earth, these are questions +respecting which there exists the widest diversity of opinion, and +respecting some of which a large part of our race has, ever since the +dawn of regular history, been deplorably in error. + +Now here are two great objects: one is the protection of the persons and +estates of citizens from injury; the other is the propagation of +religious truth. No two objects more entirely distinct can well be +imagined. The former belongs wholly to the visible and tangible world in +which we live; the latter belongs to that higher world which is beyond +the reach of our senses. The former belongs to this life; the latter to +that which is to come. Men who are perfectly agreed as to the importance +of the former object, and as to the way of obtaining it, differ as +widely as possible respecting the latter object. We must, therefore, +pause before we admit that the persons, be they who they may, who are +trusted with power for promotion of the former object, ought always to +use that power for the promotion of the latter object. + + * * * * * + +The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone has fallen into an error very common +among men of less talents than his own. It is not unusual for a person +who is eager to prove a particular proposition to assume a _major_ of +huge extent, which includes that particular proposition, without ever +reflecting that it includes a great deal more. The fatal facility with +which Mr. Gladstone multiplies expressions stately and sonorous, but of +indeterminate meaning, eminently qualifies him to practise this sleight +on himself and on his readers. He lays down broad general doctrines +about power, when the only power of which he is thinking is the power of +governments, and about conjoint action when the only conjoint action of +which he is thinking is the conjoint action of citizens in a state. He +first resolves on his conclusion. He then makes a _major_ of most +comprehensive dimensions, and having satisfied himself that it contains +his conclusion, never troubles himself about what else it may contain: +and as soon as we examine it we find that it contains an infinite number +of conclusions, every one of which is a monstrous absurdity. + +It is perfectly true that it would be a very good thing if all the +members of all the associations in the world were men of sound religious +views. We have no doubt that a good Christian will be under the guidance +of Christian principles, in his conduct as director of a canal company +or steward of a charity dinner. If he were, to recur to a case which we +have before put, a member of a stage-coach company, he would, in that +capacity, remember that "a righteous man regardeth the life of his +beast." But it does not follow that every association of men must, +therefore, as such association, profess a religion. It is evident that +many great and useful objects can be attained in this world only by +co-operation. It is equally evident that there cannot be efficient +co-operation, if men proceed on the principle that they must not +co-operate for one object unless they agree about other objects. Nothing +seems to us more beautiful or admirable in our social system than the +facility with which thousands of people, who perhaps agree only on a +single point, can combine their energies for the purpose of carrying that +single point. We see daily instances of this. Two men, one of them +obstinately prejudiced against missions, the other president of a +missionary society, sit together at the board of a hospital, and +heartily concur in measures for the health and comfort of the patients. +Two men, one of whom is a zealous supporter and the other a zealous +opponent of the system pursued in Lancaster's schools, meet at the +Mendicity Society, and act together with the utmost cordiality. The +general rule we take to be undoubtedly this, that it is lawful and +expedient for men to unite in an association for the promotion of a good +object, though they may differ with respect to other objects of still +higher importance. + + * * * * * + +If, indeed, the magistrate would content himself with laying his +opinions and reasons before the people, and would leave the people, +uncorrupted by hope or fear, to judge for themselves, we should see +little reason to apprehend that his interference in favour of error +would be seriously prejudicial to the interests of truth. Nor do we, as +will hereafter be seen, object to his taking this course, when it is +compatible with the efficient discharge of his more especial duties. But +this will not satisfy Mr. Gladstone. He would have the magistrate resort +to means which have a great tendency to make malcontents, to make +hypocrites, to make careless nominal conformists, but no tendency +whatever to produce honest and rational conviction. It seems to us quite +clear that an inquirer who has no wish except to know the truth is more +likely to arrive at the truth than an inquirer who knows that, if he +decides one way, he shall be rewarded, and that, if he decides the other +way, he shall be punished. Now, Mr. Gladstone would have governments +propagate their opinions by excluding all dissenters from all civil +offices. That is to say, he would have governments propagate their +opinions by a process which has no reference whatever to the truth or +falsehood of those opinions, by arbitrarily uniting certain worldly +advantages with one set of doctrines, and certain worldly inconveniences +with another set. It is of the very nature of argument to serve the +interests of truth; but if rewards and punishments serve the interests +of truth, it is by mere accident. It is very much easier to find +arguments for the divine authority of the Gospel than for the divine +authority of the Koran. But it is just as easy to bribe or rack a Jew +into Mahometanism as into Christianity. + +From racks, indeed, and from all penalties directed against the persons, +the property, and the liberty of heretics, the humane spirit of Mr. +Gladstone shrinks with horror. He only maintains that conformity to the +religion of the state ought to be an indispensable qualification for +office; and he would, unless we have greatly misunderstood him, think it +his duty, if he had the power, to revive the Test Act, to enforce it +rigorously, and to extend it to important classes who were formerly +exempt from its operation. + +This is indeed a legitimate consequence of his principles. But why stop +here? Why not roast dissenters at slow fires? All the general reasonings +on which this theory rests evidently leads to sanguinary persecution. If +the propagation of religious truth be a principal end of government, as +government; if it be the duty of government to employ for that end its +constitutional power; if the constitutional power of governments +extends, as it most unquestionably does, to the making of laws for the +burning of heretics; if burning be, as it most assuredly is, in many +cases, a most effectual mode of suppressing opinions; why should we not +burn? If the relation in which government ought to stand to the people +be, as Mr. Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation, we are irresistibly +led to the conclusion that persecution is justifiable. For the right of +propagating opinions by punishment is one which belongs to parents as +clearly as the right to give instruction. A boy is compelled to attend +family worship: he is forbidden to read irreligious books: if he will +not learn his catechism, he is sent to bed without his supper: if he +plays truant at church-time a task is set him. If he should display the +precocity of his talents by expressing impious opinions before his +brothers and sisters, we should not much blame his father for cutting +short the controversy with a horse-whip. All the reasons which lead us +to think that parents are peculiarly fitted to conduct the education of +their children, and that education is the principal end of a parental +relation, lead us also to think that parents ought to be allowed to use +punishment, if necessary, for the purpose of forcing children, who are +incapable of judging for themselves, to receive religious instruction +and to attend religious worship. Why, then, is this prerogative of +punishment, so eminently paternal, to be withheld from a paternal +government? It seems to us, also, to be the height of absurdity to +employ civil disabilities for the propagation of an opinion, and then to +shrink from employing other punishments for the same purpose. For +nothing can be clearer than that, if you punish at all, you ought to +punish enough. The pain caused by punishment is pure unmixed evil, and +never ought to be inflicted, except for the sake of some good. It is +mere foolish cruelty to provide penalties which torment the criminal +without preventing the crime. Now it is possible, by sanguinary +persecution unrelentingly inflicted, to suppress opinions. In this way +the Albigenses were put down. In this way the Lollards were put down. In +this way the fair promise of the Reformation was blighted in Italy and +Spain. But we may safely defy Mr. Gladstone to point out a single +instance in which the system which he recommends has succeeded. + + * * * * * + +But we must proceed in our examination of his theory. Having, as he +conceives, proved that it is the duty of every government to profess +some religion or other, right or wrong, and to establish that religion, +he then comes to the question what religion a government ought to +prefer; and he decides this question in favour of the form of +Christianity established in England. The Church of England is, according +to him, the pure Catholic Church of Christ, which possesses the +apostolical succession of ministers, and within whose pale is to be +found that unity which is essential to truth. For her decisions he +claims a degree of reverence far beyond what she has ever, in any of her +formularies, claimed for herself; far beyond what the moderate school of +Bossuet demands for the Pope; and scarcely short of what that school +would ascribe to Pope and General Council together. To separate from her +communion is schism. To reject her traditions or interpretations of +Scripture is sinful presumption. + +Mr. Gladstone pronounces the right of private judgment, as it is +generally understood throughout Protestant Europe, to be a monstrous +abuse. He declares himself favourable, indeed, to the exercise of +private judgment, after a fashion of his own. We have, according to him, +a right to judge all the doctrines of the Church of England to be sound, +but not to judge any of them to be unsound. He has no objection, he +assures us, to active inquiry into religious questions. On the contrary, +he thinks such inquiry highly desirable, as long as it does not lead to +diversity of opinion; which is much the same thing as if he were to +recommend the use of fire that will not burn down houses, or of brandy +that will not make men drunk. He conceives it to be perfectly possible +for mankind to exercise their intellects vigorously and freely on +theological subjects, and yet to come to exactly the same conclusions +with each other and with the Church of England. And for this opinion he +gives, as far as we have been able to discover, no reason whatever, +except that everybody who vigorously and freely exercises his +understanding on Euclid's Theorems assents to them. "The activity of +private judgment," he truly observes, "and the unity and strength of +conviction in mathematics vary directly as each other." On this +unquestionable fact he constructs a somewhat questionable argument. +Everybody who freely inquires agrees, he says, with Euclid. But the +Church is as much in the right as Euclid. Why, then, should not every +free inquirer agree with the Church? We could put many similar +questions. Either the affirmative or the negative of the proposition +that King Charles wrote the _Icon Basilike_ is as true as that two sides +of a triangle are greater than the third side. Why, then, do Dr. +Wordsworth and Mr. Hallam agree in thinking two sides of a triangle +greater than the third side, and yet differ about the genuineness of the +_Icon Basilike?_ The state of the exact sciences proves, says Mr. +Gladstone, that, as respects religion, "the association of these two +ideas, activity of inquiry, and variety of conclusion, is a fallacious +one." We might just as well turn the argument the other way, and infer +from the variety of religious opinions that there must necessarily be +hostile mathematical sects, some affirming, and some denying, that the +square of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the sides. But we +do not think either the one analogy or the other of the smallest value. +Our way of ascertaining the tendency of free inquiry is simply to open +our eyes and look at the world in which we live; and there we see that +free inquiry on mathematical subjects produces unity, and that free +inquiry on moral subjects produces discrepancy. There would undoubtedly +be less discrepancy if inquirers were more diligent and candid. But +discrepancy there will be among the most diligent and candid, as long as +the constitution of the human mind, and the nature of moral evidence, +continue unchanged. That we have not freedom and unity together is a +very sad thing; and so it is that we have not wings. But we are just as +likely to see the one defect removed as the other. It is not only in +religion that this discrepancy is found. It is the same with all matters +which depend on moral evidence, with judicial questions, for example, +and with political questions. All the judges will work a sum in the rule +of three on the same principle, and bring out the same conclusion. But +it does not follow that, however honest and laborious they may be, they +will all be of one mind on the Douglas case. So it is vain to hope that +there may be a free constitution under which every representative will +be unanimously elected, and every law unanimously passed; and it would +be ridiculous for a statesman to stand wondering and bemoaning himself +because people who agree in thinking that two and two make four cannot +agree about the new poor law, or the administration of Canada. + +There are two intelligible and consistent courses which may be followed +with respect to the exercise of private judgment; the course of the +Romanist, who interdicts private judgment because of its inevitable +inconveniences; and the course of the Protestant, who permits private +judgment in spite of its inevitable inconveniences. Both are more +reasonable than Mr. Gladstone, who would have private judgment without +its inevitable inconveniences. The Romanist produces repose by means of +stupefaction. The Protestant encourages activity, though he knows that +where there is much activity there will be some aberration. Mr. +Gladstone wishes for the unity of the fifteenth century with the active +and searching spirit of the sixteenth. He might as well wish to be in +two places at once. + + * * * * * + +We have done; and nothing remains but that we part from Mr. Gladstone +with the courtesy of antagonists who bear no malice. We dissent from his +opinions, but we admire his talents; we respect his integrity and +benevolence; and we hope that he will not suffer political avocations so +entirely to engross him, as to leave him no leisure for literature and +philosophy. + + + + +ON MADAME D'ARBLAY + + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1843] + +ART. IX.--_Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay_. 5 vols. 8vo. London, +1842. + +Though the world saw and heard little of Madame D'Arblay during the last +forty years of her life, and though that little did not add to her fame, +there were thousands, we believe, who felt a singular emotion when they +learned that she was no longer among us. The news of her death carried +the minds of men back at one leap, clear over two generations, to the +time when her first literary triumphs were won. All those whom we have +been accustomed to revere as intellectual patriarchs, seemed children +when compared with her; for Burke had sate up all night to read her +writings, and Johnson had pronounced her superior to Fielding, when +Rogers was still a schoolboy, and Southey still in petticoats. Yet more +strange did it seem that we should just have lost one whose name had +been widely celebrated before any body had heard of some illustrious men +who, twenty, thirty, or forty years ago, were, after a long and splendid +career, borne with honour to the grave. Yet so it was. Frances Burney +was at the height of fame and popularity before Cowper had published his +first volume, before Person had gone up to college, before Pitt had +taken his seat in the House of Commons, before the voice of Erskine had +been once heard in Westminster Hall. Since the appearance of her first +work, sixty-two years had passed; and this interval had been crowded, +not only with political, but also with intellectual revolutions. +Thousands of reputations had, during that period, sprung up, bloomed, +withered, and disappeared. New kinds of composition had come into +fashion, had gone out of fashion, had been derided, had been forgotten. +The fooleries of Della Crusca, and the fooleries of Kotzebue, had for a +time bewitched the multitude, but had left no trace behind them; nor had +misdirected genius been able to save from decay the once flourishing +school of Godwin, of Darwin, and of Radcliffe. Many books, written for +temporary effect, had run through six or seven editions, and had then +been gathered to the novels of Afra Behn, and the epic poems of Sir +Richard Blackmore. Yet the early works of Madame D'Arblay, in spite of +the lapse of years, in spite of the change of manners, in spite of the +popularity deservedly obtained by some of her rivals, continued to hold +a high place in the public esteem. She lived to be a classic. Time set +on her fame, before she went hence, that seal which is seldom set except +on the fame of the departed. Like Sir Condy Rackrent in the tale, she +survived her own wake, and overheard the judgment of posterity. + +Having always felt a warm and sincere, though not a blind admiration for +her talents, we rejoiced to learn that her Diary was about to be made +public. Our hopes, it is true, were not unmixed with fears. We could not +forget the fate of the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, which were published ten +years ago. The unfortunate book contained much that was curious and +interesting. Yet it was received with a cry of disgust, and was speedily +consigned to oblivion. The truth is, that it deserved its doom. It was +written in Madame D'Arblay's later style--the worst style that has ever +been known among men. No genius, no information, could have saved from +proscription a book so written. We, therefore, open the Diary with no +small anxiety, trembling lest we should light upon some of that peculiar +rhetoric which deforms almost every page of the Memoirs, and which it is +impossible to read without a sensation made up of mirth, shame and +loathing. We soon, however, discovered to our great delight that this +Diary was kept before Madame D'Arblay became eloquent. It is, for the +most part, written in her earliest and best manner; in true woman's +English, clear, natural, and lively. The two works are lying side by +side before us, and we never turn from the Memoirs to the Diary without +a sense of relief. The difference is as great as the difference between +the atmosphere of a perfumer's shop, fetid with lavender water and +jasmine soap, and the air of a heath on a fine morning in May. Both +works ought to be consulted by every person who wishes to be well +acquainted with the history of our literature and our manners. But to +read the Diary is a pleasure; to read the Memoirs will always be a task. + + * * * * * + +The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her +twenty-fifth year, well deserves to be recorded. When her education had +proceeded no further than the horn-book, she lost her mother, and +thenceforward she educated herself. Her father appears to have been as +bad a father as a very honest, affectionate, and sweet-tempered man can +well be. He loved his daughter dearly; but it never seems to have +occurred to him that a parent has other duties to perform to children +than that of fondling them. It would indeed have been impossible for him +to superintend their education himself. His professional engagements +occupied him all day. At seven in the morning he began to attend his +pupils, and, when London was full, was sometimes employed in teaching +till eleven at night. He was often forced to carry in his pocket a tin +box of sandwiches, and a bottle of wine and water, on which he dined in +a hackney-coach while hurrying from one scholar to another. Two of his +daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris; but he imagined that Frances +would run some risk of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she +were educated in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home. +No governess, no teacher of any art or of any language, was provided for +her. But one of her sisters showed her how to write; and, before she was +fourteen, she began to find pleasure in reading. + +It was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed, +when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very +small. When at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with the +most celebrated works of Voltaire and Moliere; and, what seems still +more extraordinary, had never heard or seen a line of Churchill, who, +when she was a girl, was the most popular of living poets. It is +particularly deserving of observation, that she appears to have been by +no means a novel-reader. Her father's library was large; and he had +admitted into it so many books which rigid moralists generally exclude, +that he felt uneasy, as he afterwards owned, when Johnson began to +examine the shelves. But in the whole collection there was only a single +novel, Fielding's Amelia. + +An education, however, which to most girls would have been useless, but +which suited Fanny's mind better than elaborate culture, was in constant +progress during her passage from childhood to womanhood. The great book +of human nature was turned over before her. Her father's social position +was very peculiar. He belonged in fortune and station to the middle +class. His daughters seem to have been suffered to mix freely with those +whom butlers and waiting-maids call vulgar. We are told that they were +in the habit of playing with the children of a wig-maker who lived in +the adjoining house. Yet few nobles could assemble in the most stately +mansions of Grosvenor Square or St. James's Square, a society so various +and so brilliant as was sometimes to be found in Dr. Burney's cabin. His +mind, though not very powerful or capacious, was restlessly active; and, +in the intervals of his professional pursuits, he had contrived to lay +up much miscellaneous information. His attainments, the suavity of his +temper, and the gentle simplicity of his manners, had obtained for him +ready admission to the first literary circles. While he was still at +Lynn, he had won Johnson's heart by sounding with honest zeal the +praises of the English Dictionary. In London the two friends met +frequently, and agreed most harmoniously. One tie, indeed, was wanting +to their mutual attachment. Burney loved his own art passionately; and +Johnson just knew the bell of St. Clement's church from the organ. They +had, however, many topics in common; and on winter nights their +conversations were sometimes prolonged till the fire had gone out, and +the candles had burned away to the wicks. Burney's admiration of the +powers which had produced Rasselas and The Rambler, bordered on +idolatry. He gave a singular proof of this at his first visit to +Johnson's ill-furnished garret. The master of the apartment was not at +home. The enthusiastic visitor looked about for some relique which he +might carry away; but he could see nothing lighter than the chairs and +the fire-irons. At last he discovered an old broom, tore some bristles +from the stump, wrapped them in silver paper, and departed as happy as +Louis IX when the holy nail of St. Denis was found. Johnson, on the +other hand, condescended to growl out that Burney was an honest fellow, +a man whom it was impossible not to like. + +Garrick, too, was a frequent visitor in Poland Street and St. Martin's +Lane. That wonderful actor loved the society of children, partly from +good-nature, and partly from vanity. The ecstasies of mirth and terror +which his gestures and play of countenance never failed to produce in a +nursery, flattered him quite as much as the applause of mature critics. +He often exhibited all his powers of mimicry for the amusement of the +little Burneys, awed them by shuddering and crouching as if he saw a +ghost, scared them by raving like a maniac in St. Lukes', and then at +once became an auctioneer, a chimney-sweeper, or an old woman, and made +them laugh till the tears ran down their cheeks. + +But it would be tedious to recount the names of all the men of letters +and artists whom Frances Burney had an opportunity of seeing and +hearing. Colman, Twining, Harris, Baretti, Hawkesworth, Reynolds, Barry, +were among those who occasionally surrounded the tea-table and +supper-tray at her father's modest dwelling. This was not all. The +distinction which Dr. Burney had acquired as a musician, and as the +historian of music, attracted to his house the most eminent musical +performers of that age. The greatest Italian singers who visited England +regarded him as the dispenser of fame in their art, and exerted +themselves to obtain his suffrage. Pachierotti became his intimate +friend. The rapacious Agujari, who sang for nobody else under fifty +pounds an air, sang her best for Dr. Burney without a fee; and in the +company of Dr. Burney even the haughty and eccentric Gabrielli +constrained herself to behave with civility. It was thus in his power to +give, with scarcely any expense, concerts equal to those of the +aristocracy. On such occasions the quiet street in which he lived was +blocked up by coroneted chariots, and his little drawing-room was +crowded with peers, peeresses, ministers, and ambassadors. On one +evening, of which we happen to have a full account, there were present +Lord Mulgrave, Lord Bruce, Lord and Lady Edgecumbe, Lord Barrington from +the War-Office, Lord Sandwich from the Admiralty, Lord Ashburnham, with +his gold key dangling from his pocket, and the French Ambassador, M. De +Guignes, renowned for his fine person and for his success in gallantry. +But the great show of the night was the Russian Ambassador, Count +Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a blaze with jewels, and in +whose demeanour the untamed ferocity of the Scythian might be discerned +through a thin varnish of French politeness. As he stalked about the +small parlour, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the girls whispered +to each other, with mingled admiration and horror, that he was the +favoured lover of his august mistress; that he had borne the chief part +in the revolution to which she owed her throne; and that his huge hands, +now glittering with diamond rings, had given the last squeeze to the +windpipe of her unfortunate husband. + +With such illustrious guests as these were mingled all the most +remarkable specimens of the race of lions--a kind of game which is +hunted in London every spring with more than Meltonian ardour and +perseverance. Bruce, who had washed down steaks cut from living oxen +with water from the fountains of the Nile, came to swagger and talk +about his travels. Omai lisped broken English, and made all the +assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love-songs, +such as those with which Oberea charmed her Opano. + +With the literary and fashionable society which occasionally met under +Dr. Burney's roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was +not a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts. She +was shy almost to awkwardness, and scarcely ever joined in the +conversation. The slightest remark from a stranger disconcerted her; and +even the old friends of her father who tried to draw her out could +seldom extract more than a Yes or a No. Her figure was small, her face +not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore suffered to withdraw +quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to observe all that +passed. Her nearest relations were aware that she had good sense, but +seem not to have suspected, that under her demure and bashful deportment +were concealed a fertile invention and a keen sense of the ridiculous. +She had not, it is true, an eye for the fine shades of character. But +every marked peculiarity instantly caught her notice and remained +engraven on her imagination. Thus, while still a girl, she had laid up +such a store of materials for fiction as few of those who mix much in +the world are able to accumulate during a long life. She had watched and +listened to people of every class, from princes and great officers of +state down to artists living in garrets, and poets familiar with +subterranean cook-shops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed in +review before her, English, French, German, Italian, lords and fiddlers, +deans of cathedrals and managers of theatres, travellers leading about +newly caught savages, and singing women escorted by deputy-husbands. + +So strong was the impression made on the mind of Frances by the society +which she was in the habit of seeing and hearing, that she began to +write little fictitious narratives as soon as she could use her pen with +ease, which, as we have said, was not very early. Her sisters were +amused by her stories. But Dr. Burney knew nothing of their existence; +and in another quarter her literary propensities met with serious +discouragement. When she was fifteen, her father took a second wife. The +new Mrs. Burney soon found out that her daughter-in-law was fond of +scribbling, and delivered several good-natured lectures on the subject. +The advice no doubt was well-meant, and might have been given by the +most judicious friend; for at that time, from causes to which we may +hereafter advert, nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young lady +than to be known as a novel-writer. Frances yielded, relinquished her +favourite pursuit, and made a bonfire of all her manuscripts.[1] + +[1] There is some difficulty here as to the chronology. "This + sacrifice," says the editor of the Diary, "was made in the young + authoress's fifteenth year." This could not be; for the sacrifice + was the effect, according to the editor's own showing, of the + remonstrances of the second Mrs. Burney; and Frances was in her + sixteenth year when her father's second marriage took place. + +She now hemmed and stitched from breakfast to dinner with scrupulous +regularity. But the dinners of that time were early; and the afternoon +was her own. Though she had given up novel-writing, she was still fond +of using her pen. She began to keep a diary, and she corresponded +largely with a person who seems to have had the chief share in the +formation of her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old friend of her +father. His name, well known, near a century ago, in the most splendid +circles of London, has long been forgotten. + +Crisp was an old and very intimate friend of the Burneys. To them alone +was confided the name of the desolate old hall in which he hid himself +like a wild beast in a den. For them were reserved such remains of his +humanity as had survived the failure of his play. Frances Burney he +regarded as his daughter. He called her his Fannikin, and she in return +called him her dear Daddy. In truth, he seems to have done much more +than her real father for the development of her intellect; for though he +was a bad poet, he was a scholar, a thinker, and an excellent +counsellor. He was particularly fond of Dr. Burney's concerts. They had, +indeed, been commenced at his suggestion, and when he visited London he +constantly attended them. But when he grew old, and when gout, brought +on partly by mental irritation, confined him to his retreat, he was +desirous of having a glimpse of that gay and brilliant world from which +he was exiled, and he pressed Fannikin to send him full accounts of her +father's evening parties. A few of her letters to him have been +published; and it is impossible to read them without discerning in them +all the powers which afterwards produced Evelina and Cecilia, the +quickness in catching every odd peculiarity of character and manner, the +skill in grouping, the humour, often richly comic, sometimes even +farcical. + +Fanny's propensity to novel-writing had for a time been kept down. It +now rose up stronger than ever. The heroes and heroines of the tales +which had perished in the flames, were still present to the eye of her +mind. One favourite story, in particular, haunted her imagination. It +was about a certain Caroline Evelyn, a beautiful damsel who made an +unfortunate love match, and died, leaving an infant daughter. Frances +began to imagine to herself the various scenes, tragic and comic, +through which the poor motherless girl, highly connected on one side, +meanly connected on the other, might have to pass. A crowd of unreal +beings, good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded the pretty, timid, +young orphan; a coarse sea-captain; an ugly insolent fop, blazing in a +superb court-dress; another fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on +Snow Hill, and tricked out in second-hand finery for the Hampstead ball; +an old woman, all wrinkles and rouge, flirting her fan with the air of a +Miss of seventeen, and screaming in a dialect made up of vulgar French +and vulgar English; a poet lean and ragged, with a broad Scotch accent. +By degrees these shadows acquired stronger and stronger consistence: the +impulse which urged Frances to write became irresistible; and the result +was the history of Evelina. + +Then came, naturally enough, a wish, mingled with many fears, to appear +before the public; for, timid as Frances was, and bashful, and +altogether unaccustomed to hear her own praises, it is clear that she +wanted neither a strong passion for distinction, nor a just confidence +in her own powers. Her scheme was to become, if possible, a candidate +for fame without running any risk of disgrace. She had no money to bear +the expense of printing. It was therefore necessary that some bookseller +should be induced to take the risk; and such a bookseller was not +readily found. Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he +were trusted with the name of the author. A publisher in Fleet Street, +named Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some correspondence took place +between this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and +desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange +Coffee-House. But, before the bargain was finally struck, Fanny thought +it her duty to obtain her father's consent. She told him that she had +written a book, that she wished to have his permission to publish +[Transcriber's note: "published" in original] it anonymously, but that +she hoped that he would not insist upon seeing it. What followed may +serve to illustrate what we meant when we said that Dr. Burney was as +bad a father as so good-hearted a man could possibly be. It never seems +to have crossed his mind that Fanny was about to take a step on which +the whole happiness of her life might depend, a step which might raise +her to an honourable eminence, or cover her with ridicule and contempt. +Several people had already been trusted, and strict concealment was +therefore not to be expected. On so grave an occasion, it was surely his +duty to give his best counsel to his daughter, to win her confidence, to +prevent her from exposing herself if her book were a bad one, and, if it +were a good one, to see that the terms which she made with the publisher +were likely to be beneficial to her. Instead of this, he only stared, +burst out a laughing, kissed her, gave her leave to do as she liked, and +never even asked the name of her work. The contract with Lowndes was +speedily concluded. Twenty pounds were given for the copyright, and were +accepted by Fanny with delight. Her father's inexcusable neglect of his +duty, happily caused her no worse evil than the loss of twelve or +fifteen hundred pounds. + +After many delays Evelina appeared in January 1778. Poor Fanny was sick +with terror, and durst hardly stir out of doors. Some days passed before +any thing was heard of the book. It had, indeed, nothing but its own +merits to push it into public favour. Its author was unknown. The house +by which it was published, was not, we believe, held in high estimation. +No body of partisans had been engaged to applaud. The better class of +readers expected little from a novel about a young lady's entrance into +the world. There was, indeed, at that time a disposition among the most +respectable people to condemn novels generally; nor was this disposition +by any means without excuse; for works of that sort were then almost +always silly, and very frequently wicked. + +Soon, however, the first faint accents of praise began to be heard. The +keepers of the circulating libraries reported that every body was asking +for Evelina, and that some person had guessed Anstey to be the Author. +Then came a favourable notice in the London Review; then another still +more favourable in the Monthly. And now the book found its way to tables +which had seldom been polluted by marble-covered volumes. Scholars and +statesmen who contemptuously abandoned the crowd of romances to Miss +Lydia Languish and Miss Sukey Saunter, were not ashamed to own that they +could not tear themselves away from Evelina. Fine carriages and rich +liveries, not often seen east of Temple Bar, were attracted to the +publisher's shop in Fleet Street. Lowndes was daily questioned about the +author; but was himself as much in the dark as any of the questioners. +The mystery, however, could not remain a mystery long. It was known to +brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins: and they were far too proud and +too happy to be discreet. Dr. Burney wept over the book in rapture. +Daddy Crisp shook his fist at his Fannikin in affectionate anger at not +having been admitted to her confidence. The truth was whispered to Mrs. +Thrale; and then it began to spread fast. + +The book had been admired while it was ascribed to men of letters long +conversant with the world, and accustomed to composition. But when it +was known that a reserved, silent young woman had produced the best work +of fiction that had appeared since the death of Smollett, the +acclamations were redoubled. What she had done was, indeed, +extraordinary. But, as usual, various reports improved the story till it +became miraculous. Evelina, it was said, was the work of a girl of +seventeen. Incredible as this tale was, it continued to be repeated down +to our own time. Frances was too honest to confirm it. Probably she was +too much a woman to contradict it; and it was long before any of her +detractors thought of this mode of annoyance. Yet there was no want of +low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her first +appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the asp +George Steevens and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, +occur to them to search the parish-register of Lynn, in order that they +might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly +chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose +spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a +worthless edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our +readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books. + +But we must return to our story. The triumph was complete. The timid and +obscure girl found herself on the highest pinnacle of fame. Great men, +on whom she had gazed at a distance with humble reverence, addressed her +with admiration, tempered by the tenderness due to her sex and age. +Burke, Windham, Gibbon, Reynolds, Sheridan, were among her most ardent +eulogists. Cumberland acknowledged her merit, after his fashion, by +biting his lips and wriggling in his chair whenever her name was +mentioned. But it was at Streatham that she tasted, in the highest +perfection, the sweets of flattery, mingled with the sweets of +friendship. Mrs. Thrale, then at the height of prosperity and +popularity--with gay spirits, quick wit, showy though superficial +acquirements, pleasing though not refined manners, a singularly amiable +temper, and a loving heart--felt towards Fanny as towards a younger +sister. With the Thrales Johnson was domesticated. He was an old friend +of Dr. Burney; but he had probably taken little notice of Dr. Burney's +daughters, and Fanny, we imagine, had never in her life dared to speak +to him, unless to ask whether he wanted a nineteenth or a twentieth cup +of tea. He was charmed by her tale, and preferred it to the novels of +Fielding, to whom, indeed, he had always been grossly unjust. He did +not, indeed, carry his partiality so far as to place Evelina by the side +of Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison; yet he said that his favourite +had done enough to have made even Richardson feel uneasy. With Johnson's +cordial approbation of the book was mingled a fondness, half gallant +half paternal, for the writer; and his fondness his age and character +entitled him to show without restraint. He began by putting her hand to +his lips. But soon he clasped her in his huge arms, and implored her to +be a good girl. She was his pet, his dear love, his dear little Burney, +his little character-monger. At one time, he broke forth in praise of +the good taste of her caps. At another time, he insisted on teaching her +Latin. That, with all his coarseness and irritability, he was a man of +sterling benevolence, has long been acknowledged. But how gentle and +endearing his deportment could be, was not known till the Recollections +of Madame D'Arblay were published. + +We have mentioned a few of the most eminent of those who paid their +homage to the author of Evelina. The crowd of inferior admirers would +require a catalogue as long as that in the second book of the Iliad. In +that catalogue would be Mrs. Cholmondeley, the sayer of odd things, and +Seward, much given to yawning, and Baretti, who slew the man in the +Haymarket, and Paoli, talking broken English, and Langton, taller by the +head than any other member of the club, and Lady Millar, who kept a vase +wherein fools were wont to put bad verses, and Jerningham, who wrote +verses fit to be put into the vase of Lady Millar, and Dr. Franklin-- +not, as some have dreamed, the great Pennsylvanian Dr. Franklin, who +could not then have paid his respects to Miss Burney without much risk +of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, but Dr. Franklin the less-- + + [Greek: _Aias + meion, outi tosos ge osos Telamonios Aias, + alla polu meion._] + +It would not have been surprising if such success had turned even a +strong head, and corrupted even a generous and affectionate nature. But, +in the Diary, we can find no trace of any feeling inconsistent with a +truly modest and amiable disposition. There is, indeed, abundant proof +that Frances enjoyed, with an intense, though a troubled, joy, the +honours which her genius had won; but it is equally clear that her +happiness sprang from the happiness of her father, her sister, and her +dear Daddy Crisp. While flattered by the great, the opulent, and the +learned, while followed along the Steyne at Brighton and the Pantiles at +Tunbridge Wells by the gaze of admiring crowds, her heart seems to have +been still with the little domestic circle in St. Martin's Street. If +she recorded with minute diligence all the compliments, delicate and +coarse, which she heard wherever she turned, she recorded them for the +eyes of two or three persons who had loved her from infancy, who had +loved her in obscurity, and to whom her fame gave the purest and most +exquisite delight. Nothing can be more unjust than to confound these +outpourings of a kind heart, sure of perfect sympathy, with the egotism +of a blue-stocking, who prates to all who come near her about her own +novel or her own volume of sonnets. + +It was natural that the triumphant issue of Miss Burney's first venture +should tempt her to try a second. Evelina, though it had raised her +fame, had added nothing to her fortune. Some of her friends urged her to +write for the stage. Johnson promised to give her his advice as to the +composition. Murphy, who was supposed to understand the temper of the +pit as well as any man of his time, undertook to instruct her as to +stage-effect. Sheridan declared that he would accept a play from her +without even reading it. Thus encouraged she wrote a comedy named The +Witlings. Fortunately it was never acted or printed. We can, we think, +easily perceive from the little which is said on the subject in the +Diary, that The Witlings would have been damned, and that Murphy and +Sheridan thought so, though they were too polite to say so. Happily +Frances had a friend who was not afraid to give her pain. Crisp, wiser +for her than he had been for himself, read the manuscript in his lonely +retreat, and manfully told her that she had failed, that to remove +blemishes here and there would be useless, that the piece had abundance +of wit but no interest, that it was bad as a whole, that it would remind +every reader of the _Femmes Savantes_, which, strange to say, she had +never read, and that she could not sustain so close a comparison with +Moliere. This opinion, in which Dr. Burney concurred, was sent to +Frances in what she called a "hissing, groaning, cat-calling epistle." +But she had too much sense not to know that it was better to be hissed +and cat-called by her Daddy than by a whole sea of heads in the pit of +Drury-Lane Theatre; and she had too good a heart not to be grateful for +so rare an act of friendship. She returned an answer which shows how +well she deserved to have a judicious, faithful, and affectionate +adviser. "I intend," she wrote, "to console myself for your censure by +this greatest proof I have ever received of the sincerity, candour, and, +let me add, esteem, of my dear daddy. And as I happen to love myself +rather more than my play, this consolation is not a very trifling one. +This, however, seriously I do believe, that when my two daddies put +their heads together to concert that hissing, groaning, cat-calling +epistle they sent me, they felt as sorry for poor little Miss Bayes as +she could possibly do for herself. You see I do not attempt to repay +your frankness with the air of pretended carelessness. But, though +somewhat disconcerted just now, I will promise not to let my vexation +live out another day. Adieu, my dear daddy! I won't be mortified, and I +won't be _downed_; but I will be proud to find I have, out of my own +family, as well as in it, a friend who loves me well enough to speak +plain truth to me." + +Frances now turned from her dramatic schemes to an undertaking far +better suited to her talents. She determined to write a new tale, on a +plan excellently contrived for the display of the powers in which her +superiority to other writers lay. It was in truth a grand and various +picture-gallery, which presented to the eye a long series of men and +women, each marked by some strong peculiar feature. There were avarice +and prodigality, the pride of blood and the pride of money, morbid +restlessness and morbid apathy, frivolous garrulity, supercilious +silence, a Democritus to laugh at every thing, and a Heraclitus to +lament over every thing. The work proceeded fast, and in twelve months +was completed. It wanted something of the simplicity which had been +among the most attractive charms of Evelina; but it furnished ample +proof that the four years which had elapsed since Evelina appeared, had +not been unprofitably spent. Those who saw Cecilia in manuscript +pronounced it the best novel of the age. Mrs. Thrale laughed and wept +over it. Crisp was even vehement in applause, and offered to insure the +rapid and complete success of the book for half a crown. What Miss +Burney received for the copyright is not mentioned in the Diary; but we +have observed several expressions from which we infer that the sum was +considerable. That the sale would be great nobody could doubt; and +Frances now had shrewd and experienced advisers, who would not suffer +her to wrong herself. We have been told that the publishers gave her two +thousand pounds, and we have no doubt that they might have given a still +larger sum without being losers. + +Cecilia was published in the summer of 1782. The curiosity of the town +was intense. We have been informed by persons who remember those days, +that no romance of Sir Walter Scott was more impatiently awaited, or +more eagerly snatched from the counters of the booksellers. High as +public expectation was, it was amply satisfied; and Cecilia was placed, +by general acclamation, among the classical novels of England. + +Miss Burney was now thirty. Her youth had been singularly prosperous; +but clouds soon began to gather over that clear and radiant dawn. Events +deeply painful to a heart so kind as that of Frances, followed each +other in rapid succession. She was first called upon to attend the +death-bed of her best friend, Samuel Crisp. When she returned to St. +Martin's Street, after performing this melancholy duty, she was appalled +by hearing that Johnson had been struck with paralysis; and, not many +months later, she parted from him for the last time with solemn +tenderness. He wished to look on her once more; and on the day before +his death she long remained in tears on the stairs leading to his +bedroom, in the hope that she might be called in to receive his +blessing. But he was then sinking fast, and, though he sent her an +affectionate message, was unable to see her. But this was not the worst. +There are separations far more cruel than those which are made by death. +Frances might weep with proud affection for Crisp and Johnson. She had +to blush as well as to weep for Mrs. Thrale. + +Life, however, still smiled upon her. Domestic happiness, friendship, +independence, leisure, letters, all these things were hers; and she +flung them all away. + + * * * * * + +Then the prison was opened, and Frances was free once more. Johnson, as +Burke observed, might have added a striking page to his poem on the +Vanity of Human Wishes, if he had lived to see his little Burney as she +went into the palace and as she came out of it. + +The pleasures, so long untasted, of liberty, of friendship, of domestic +affection, were almost too acute for her shattered frame. But happy days +and tranquil nights soon restored the health which the Queen's toilette +and Madame Schwellenberg's card-table had impaired. Kind and anxious +faces surrounded the invalid. Conversation the most polished and +brilliant revived her spirits. Travelling was recommended to her; and +she rambled by easy journeys from cathedral to cathedral, and from +watering-place to watering-place. She crossed the New Forest, and +visited Stonehenge and Wilton, the cliffs of Lyme, and the beautiful +valley of Sidmouth. Thence she journeyed by Powderham Castle, and by the +ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, to Bath, and from Bath, when the winter was +approaching, returned well and cheerful to London. There she visited her +old dungeon, and found her successor already far on the way to the +grave, and kept to strict duty, from morning till midnight, with a +sprained ankle and a nervous fever. + +At this time England swarmed with French exiles driven from their +country by the Revolution. A colony of these refugees settled at Juniper +Hall in Surrey, not far from Norbury Park, where Mr. Lock, an intimate +friend of the Burney family, resided. Frances visited Norbury, and was +introduced to the strangers. She had strong prejudices against them; for +her Toryism was far beyond, we do not say that of Mr. Pitt, but that of +Mr. Reeves; and the inmates of Juniper Hall were all attached to the +constitution of 1791, and were therefore more detested by the Royalists +of the first emigration than Petion or Marat. But such a woman as Miss +Burney could no longer resist the fascination of that remarkable +society. She had lived with Johnson and Windham, with Mrs. Montague and +Mrs. Thrale. Yet she was forced to own that she had never heard +conversation before. The most animated eloquence, the keenest +observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were united +to charm her. For Madame de Stael was there, and M. de Talleyrand. There +too was M. de Narbonne, a noble representative of French aristocracy; +and with M. de Narbonne was his friend and follower General D'Arblay, an +honourable and amiable man, with a handsome person, frank soldier-like +manners, and some taste for letters. + +The prejudices which Frances had conceived against the constitutional +royalists of France rapidly vanished. She listened with rapture to +Talleyrand and Madame de Stael, joining with M. D'Arblay in execrating +the Jacobins, and in weeping for the unhappy Bourbons, took French +lessons from him, fell in love with him, and married him on no better +provision [Transcriber's note: "pro-provision" in original] than a +precarious annuity of one hundred pounds. + + * * * * * + +We now turn from the life of Madame D'Arblay to her writings. There can, +we apprehend, be little difference of opinion as to the nature of her +merit, whatever differences may exist as to its degree. She was +emphatically what Johnson called her, a character-monger. It was in the +exhibition of human passions and whims that her strength lay; and in +this department of art she had, we think, very distinguished skill. + +Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of +dialogue, stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of nature, +endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity. The characters of which he +has given us an impression, as vivid as that which we receive from the +characters of our own associates, are to be reckoned by scores. Yet in +all these scores hardly one character is to be found which deviates +widely from the common standard, and which we should call very eccentric +if we met it in real life. The silly notion that every man has one +ruling passion, and that this clue, once known, unravels all the +mysteries of his conduct, finds no countenance in the plays of +Shakespeare. There man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions, +which contend for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn. What is +Hamlet's ruling passion? Or Othello's? Or Harry the Fifth's? Or +Wolsey's? Or Lear's? Or Shylock's? Or Benedick's? Or Macbeth's? Or that +of Cassius? Or that of Falconbridge? But we might go on for ever. Take a +single example--Shylock. Is he so eager for money as to be indifferent +to revenge? Or so eager for revenge as to be indifferent to money? Or so +bent on both together as to be indifferent to the honour of his nation +and the law of Moses? All his propensities are mingled with each other; +so that, in trying to apportion to each its proper part, we find the +same difficulty which constantly meets us in real life. A superficial +critic may say, that hatred is Shylock's ruling passion. But how many +passions have amalgamated to form that hatred? It is partly the result +of wounded pride: Antonio has called him dog. It is partly the result of +covetousness: Antonio has hindered him of half a million; and, when +Antonio is gone, there will be no limit to the gains of usury. It is +partly the result of national and religious feeling: Antonio has spit on +the Jewish gaberdine; and the oath of revenge has been sworn by the +Jewish Sabbath. We might go through all the characters which we have +mentioned, and through fifty more in the same way; for it is the +constant manner of Shakespeare to represent the human mind as lying, not +under the absolute dominion of one despotic propensity, but under a +mixed government, in which a hundred powers balance each other. +Admirable as he was in all parts of his art, we most admire him for +this, that, while he has left us a greater number of striking portraits +than all other dramatists put together, he has scarcely left us a single +caricature. + +Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers who, +in the point which we have noticed, have approached nearest to the +manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane +Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a +multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such +as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from +each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. There +are, for example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to +find in any parsonage in the kingdom, Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry +Tilney, Mr. Edmund Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They are all specimens of the +upper part of the middle class. They have all been liberally educated. +They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They +are all young. They are all in love. Not one of them has any hobbyhorse, +to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we +read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid +likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to +Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, +than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend +brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate, that they +elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we +know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have +contributed. + +A line must be drawn, we conceive, between artists of this class, and +those poets and novelists whose skill lies in the exhibiting of what Ben +Jonson called humours. The words of Ben are so much to the purpose, that +we will quote them-- + + When some one peculiar quality + Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw + All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, + In their confluxions all to run one way, + This may be truly said to be a humour. + +There are undoubtedly persons, in whom humours such as Ben describes +have attained a complete ascendency. The avarice of Elwes, the insane +desire of Sir Egerton Brydges for a barony to which he had no more right +than to the crown of Spain, the malevolence which long meditation on +imaginary wrongs generated in the gloomy mind of Bellingham, are +instances. The feeling which animated Clarkson and other virtuous men +against the slave-trade and slavery, is an instance of a more honourable +kind. + +Seeing that such humours exist, we cannot deny that they are proper +subjects for the imitations of art. But we conceive that the imitation +of such humours, however skilful and amusing, is not an achievement of +the highest order; and, as such humours are rare in real life, they +ought, we conceive, to be sparingly introduced into works which profess +to be pictures of real life. Nevertheless, a writer may show so much +genius in the exhibition of these humours, as to be fairly entitled to a +distinguished and permanent rank among classics. The chief seats of all, +however, the places on the dais and under the canopy, are reserved for +the few who have excelled in the difficult art of portraying characters +in which no single feature is extravagantly overcharged. + +If we have expounded the law soundly, we can have no difficulty in +applying it to the particular case before us. Madame D'Arblay has left +us scarcely any thing but humours. Almost every one of her men and women +has some one propensity developed to a morbid degree. In Cecilia, for +example, Mr. Delvile never opens his lips without some allusion to his +own birth and station; or Mr. Briggs, without some allusion to the +hoarding of money; or Mr. Hobson, without betraying the self-indulgence +and self-importance of a purse-proud upstart; or Mr. Simkins, without +uttering some sneaking remark for the purpose of currying favour with +his customers; or Mr. Meadows, without expressing apathy and weariness +of life; or Mr. Albany, without declaiming about the vices of the rich +and the misery of the poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some indelicate +eulogy on her son; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her +husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport +all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly +prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of +Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well. + +We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame D'Arblay a place in the +highest rank of art; but we cannot deny that, in the rank to which she +belonged, she had few equals, and scarcely any superior. The variety of +humours which is to be found in her novels is immense; and though the +talk of each person separately is monotonous, the general effect is not +monotony, but a very lively and agreeable diversity. Her plots are +rudely constructed and improbable, if we consider them in themselves. +But they are admirably framed for the purpose of exhibiting striking +groups of eccentric characters, each governed by his own peculiar whim, +each talking his own peculiar jargon, and each bringing out by +opposition the oddities of all the rest. We will give one example out of +many which occur to us. All probability is violated in order to bring +Mr. Delvile, Mr. Briggs, Mr. Hobson, and Mr. Albany into a room +together. But when we have them there, we soon forget probability in the +exquisitely ludicrous effect which is produced by the conflict of four +old fools, each raging with a monomania of his own, each talking a +dialect of his own, and each inflaming all the others anew every time he +opens his mouth. + +Yet one word more. It is not only on account of the intrinsic merit of +Madame D'Arblay's early works that she is entitled to honourable +mention. Her appearance is an important epoch in our literary history. +Evelina was the first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a +picture of life and manners, that lived or deserved to live. The Female +Quixote is no exception. That work has undoubtedly great merit, when +considered as a wild satirical harlequinade; but, if we consider it as a +picture of life and manners, we must pronounce it more absurd than any +of the romances which it was designed to ridicule. + +Indeed, most of the popular novels which preceded Evelina, were such as +no lady would have written; and many of them were such as no lady could +without confusion own that she had read. The very name of novel was held +in horror among religious people. In decent families which did not +profess extraordinary sanctity, there was a strong feeling against all +such works. Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three years before Evelina +appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of sober fathers and +husbands, when he pronounced the circulating library an evergreen tree +of diabolical knowledge. This feeling, on the part of the grave and +reflecting, increased the evil from which it had sprung. The novelist, +having little character to lose, and having few readers among serious +people, took without scruple liberties which in our generation seem +almost incredible. + +Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the +English drama; and she did it in a better way. She first showed that a +tale might be written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life +of London might be exhibited with great force, and with broad comic +humour, and which yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with +rigid morality, or even with virgin delicacy. She took away the reproach +which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition. She +vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share in a fair and noble +province of letters. Several accomplished women have followed in her +track. At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no +small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is +more honourably distinguished by fine observation, by grace, by delicate +wit, by pure moral feeling. Several among the successors of Madame +D'Arblay have equalled her; two, we think, have surpassed her. But the +fact that she has been surpassed, gives her an additional claim to our +respect and gratitude; for in truth we owe to her, not only Evelina, +Cecilia, and Camilla, but also Mansfield Park and the Absentee. + + + + +ANONYMOUS ON WORDSWORTH + + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, October, 1807] + +_Poems_, in Two Volumes. By W. WORDSWORTH. London, 1807. + +This author is known to belong to a certain brotherhood of poets, who +have haunted for some years about the lakes of Cumberland; and is +generally looked upon, we believe, as the purest model of the +excellences and peculiarities of the school which they have been +labouring to establish. Of the general merits of that school, we have +had occasion to express our opinion pretty fully, in more places than +one, and even to make some allusion to the former publications of the +writer now before us. We are glad, however, to have found an opportunity +of attending somewhat more particularly to his pretentions. + +The Lyrical Ballads were unquestionably popular; and, we have no +hesitation in saying, deservedly popular: for in spite of their +occasional vulgarity, affectation, and silliness, they were undoubtedly +characterised by a strong spirit of originality, of pathos, and natural +feeling; and recommended to all good minds by the clear impression which +they bore of the amiable disposition and virtuous principles of the +author. By the help of these qualities, they were enabled, not only to +recommend themselves to the indulgence of many judicious readers, but +even to beget among a pretty numerous class of persons, a sort of +admiration of the very defects by which they were attended. It was on +this account chiefly, that we thought it necessary to set ourselves +against the alarming innovation. Childishness, conceit, and affectation, +are not of themselves very popular or attractive; and though mere +novelty has sometimes been found sufficient to give them a temporary +currency, we should have had no fear of their prevailing to any +dangerous extent, if they had been graced with no more seductive +accompaniments. It was precisely because the perverseness and bad taste +of this new school was combined with a great deal of genius and of +laudable feeling, that we were afraid of their spreading and gaining +ground among us, and that we entered into the discussion with a degree +of zeal and animosity which some might think unreasonable towards +authors, to whom so much merit had been conceded. There were times and +moods, indeed, in which we were led to suspect ourselves of +unjustifiable severity, and to doubt, whether a sense of public duty had +not carried us rather too far in reprobation of errors, that seemed to +be atoned for, by excellences of no vulgar description. At other times +the magnitude of these errors--the disgusting absurdities into which +they led their feebler admirers, and the derision and contempt which +they drew from the more fastidious, even upon the merits with which they +were associated, made us wonder more than ever at the perversity by +which they were retained, and regret that we had not declared ourselves +against them with still more formidable and decided hostility. + +In this temper of mind, we read the _annonce_ of Mr. Wordsworth's +publication with a good deal of interest and expectation, and opened his +volumes with greater anxiety, than he or his admirers will probably give +us credit for. We have been greatly disappointed certainly as to the +quality of the poetry; but we doubt whether the publication has afforded +so much satisfaction to any other of his readers:--it has freed us from +all doubt or hesitation as to the justice of our former censures, and +has brought the matter to a test, which we cannot help hoping may be +convincing to the author himself. + +Mr. Wordsworth, we think, has now brought the question, as to the merit +of his new school of poetry, to a very fair and decisive issue. The +volumes before us are much more strongly marked by its peculiarities +than any former publication of the fraternity. In our apprehension, they +are, on this very account, infinitely less interesting or meritorious; +but it belongs to the public, and not to us, to decide upon their merit, +and we will confess, that so strong is our conviction of their obvious +inferiority, and the grounds of it, that we are willing for once to +waive our right of appealing to posterity, and to take the judgment of +the present generation of readers, and even of Mr. Wordsworth's former +admirers, as conclusive on this occasion. If these volumes, which have +all the benefit of the author's former popularity, turn out to be nearly +as popular as the lyrical ballads--if they sell nearly to the same +extent--or are quoted and imitated among half as many individuals, we +shall admit that Mr. Wordsworth has come much nearer the truth in his +judgment of what constitutes the charm of poetry, than we had previously +imagined--and shall institute a more serious and respectful inquiry into +his principles of composition than we have yet thought necessary. On the +other hand,--if this little work, selected from the compositions of five +maturer years, and written avowedly for the purpose of exalting a +system, which has already excited a good deal of attention, should be +generally rejected by those whose prepossessions were in its favour, +there is room to hope, not only that the system itself will meet with no +more encouragement, but even that the author will be persuaded to +abandon a plan of writing, which defrauds his industry and talents of +their natural reward. + +Putting ourselves thus upon our country, we certainly look for a verdict +against this publication; and have little doubt indeed of the result, +upon a fair consideration of the evidence contained in these volumes. To +accelerate that result, and to give a general view of the evidence, to +those into whose hands the record may not have already fallen, we must +now make a few observations and extracts. + +We shall not resume any of the particular discussions by which we +formerly attempted to ascertain the value of the improvements which this +new school has effected in poetry: but shall lay the grounds of our +opposition, for this time, a little more broadly. The end of poetry, we +take it, is to please--and the same, we think, is strictly applicable to +every metrical composition from which we receive pleasure, without any +laborious exercise of the understanding. Their pleasure may, in general, +be analysed into three parts--that which we receive from the excitement +of Passion or emotion--that which is derived from the play of +Imagination, or the easy exercise of Reason--and that which depends on +the character and qualities of the Diction. The two first are the vital +and primary springs of poetical delight, and can scarcely require +explanation to anyone. The last has been alternately over-rated and +undervalued by the possessors of the poetical art, and is in such low +estimation with the author now before us and his associates, that it is +necessary to say a few words in explanation of it. + +One great beauty of diction exists only for those who have some degree +of scholarship or critical skill. This is what depends on the exquisite +_propriety_ of the words employed, and the delicacy with which they are +adapted to the meaning which is to be expressed. Many of the finest +passages in Virgil and Pope derive their principal charm from the fine +propriety of their diction. Another source of beauty, which extends only +to the more instructed class of readers, is that which consists in the +judicious or happy application of expressions which have been sanctified +by the use of famous writers, or which bear the stamp of a simple or +venerable antiquity. There are other beauties of diction, however, which +are perceptible by all--the beauties of sweet sounds and pleasant +associations. The melody of words and verses is indifferent to no reader +of poetry; but the chief recommendation of poetical language is +certainly derived from those general associations, which give it a +character of dignity or elegance, sublimity or tenderness. Everyone +knows that there are low and mean expressions, as well as lofty and +grave ones; and that some words bear the impression of coarseness and +vulgarity, as clearly as others do of refinement and affection. We do +not mean, of course, to say anything in defiance of the hackneyed +commonplace of ordinary versemen. Whatever might have been the original +character of these unlucky phrases, they are now associated with nothing +but ideas of schoolboy imbecility and vulgar affectation. But what we do +maintain is, that much of the most popular poetry in the world owes its +celebrity chiefly to the beauty of its diction; and that no poetry can +be long or generally acceptable, the language of which is coarse, +inelegant, or infantine. + +From this great source of pleasure, we think the readers of Mr. +Wordsworth are in great measure cut off. His diction has nowhere any +pretensions to elegance or dignity; and he has scarcely ever +condescended to give the grace of correctness or melody to his +versification. If it were merely slovenly or neglected, however, all +this might be endured. Strong sense and powerful feeling will ennoble +any expressions; or, at least, no one who is capable of estimating these +higher merits, will be disposed to mark these little defects. But, in +good truth, no man, now-a-days, composes verses for publication, with a +slovenly neglect of their language. It is a fine and laborious +manufacture, which can scarcely ever be made in a hurry; and the faults +which it has, may, for the most part, be set down to bad taste or +incapacity, rather than to carelessness or oversight. With Mr. +Wordsworth and his friends it is plain that their peculiarities of +diction are things of choice, and not of accident. They write as they +do, upon principle and system; and it evidently costs them much pains to +keep _down_ to the standard which they have proffered themselves. They +are to the full as much mannerists, too, as the poetasters who ring +changes on the commonplaces of magazine versification; and all the +difference between them is that they borrow their phrases from a +different and a scantier _gradus ad Parnassum_. If they were, indeed, to +discard all imitation and set phraseology, and bring in no words merely +for show or for metre,--as much, perhaps, might be gained in freedom and +originality, as would infallibly be lost in allusion and authority; but, +in point of fact, the new poets are just as much borrowers as the old; +only that, instead of borrowing from the more popular passages of their +illustrious predecessors, they have preferred furnishing themselves from +vulgar ballads and plebian nurseries. + +Their peculiarities of diction alone, are enough, perhaps, to render +them ridiculous; but the author before us really seems anxious to court +this literary martyrdom by a device still more infallible,--we mean that +of connecting his most lofty, tender, or impassioned conceptions, with +objects and incidents which the greater part of his readers will +probably persist in thinking low, silly, or uninteresting. Whether this +is done from affectation and conceit alone, or whether it may not arise, +in some measure, from the self-illusion of a mind of extraordinary +sensibility, habituated to solitary meditation, we cannot undertake to +determine. It is possible enough, we allow, that the sights of a +friend's garden-spade, of a sparrow's-nest, or a man gathering leeches, +might really have suggested to such a mind a train of powerful +impressions and interesting reflections; but it is certain, that, to +most minds, such associations will always appear forced, strained, and +unnatural; and that the composition in which it is attempted to exhibit +them, will always have the air of parody, or ludicrous and affected +singularity. All the world laughs at Eligiac stanzas to a sucking pig--a +Hymn on Washing-day, Sonnets to one's grandmother--or Pindarics on +gooseberry-pie; and yet, we are afraid, it will not be quite easy to +persuade Mr. Wordsworth, that the same ridicule must infallibly attach +to most of the pathetic pieces in these volumes. To satisfy our readers, +however, as to the justice of this and our other anticipations, we shall +proceed without further preface, to lay before them a short view of +their contents. + +The first is a kind of ode "to the Daisy,--" very flat, feeble, and +affected; and in diction as artificial, and as much encumbered with +heavy expletives as the theme of an unpractised schoolboy.... + +The scope of the piece is to say, that the flower is found everywhere; +and that it has suggested many pleasant thoughts to the author--some +chime of fancy, "_wrong or right_"--some feeling of devotion _more or +less_--and other elegancies of the same stamp.... + +The next is called "Louisa," and begins in this dashing and affected +manner. + + I met Louisa in the shade; + And, having seen that lovely maid, + _Why should I fear to say_ + That she is ruddy, fleet and strong; + _And down the rocks can leap along_, + Like rivulets in May? I. 7. + +Does Mr. Wordsworth really imagine that this is more natural or engaging +than the ditties of our common song-writers?... + +By and by, we have a piece of namby-pamby "to the Small Celandine," +which we should almost have taken for a professed imitation of one of +Mr. Phillips's prettyisms.... + +Further on, we find an "Ode to Duty," in which the lofty vein is very +unsuccessfully attempted. This is the concluding stanza. + + Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear + The Godhead's most benignant grace; + Nor know we anything so fair + As is the smile upon thy face; + Flowers laugh before thee on their beds; + And fragrance in thy footing treads; + Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong; + And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh and strong. I. 73. + + +The two last lines seem to be utterly without meaning; at least we have +no sort of conception in what sense _Duty_ can be said to keep the old +skies _fresh_, and the stars from wrong. + +The next piece, entitled "The Beggars," may be taken, in fancy, as a +touchstone of Mr. Wordsworth's merit. There is something about it that +convinces us it is a favourite of the author's; though to us, we will +confess, it appears to be a very paragon of silliness and +affectation.... "Alice Fell" is a performance of the same order.... If +the printing of such trash as this be not felt as an insult on the +public taste, we are afraid it cannot be insulted. + +After this follows the longest and most elaborate poem in the volume, +under the title of "Resolution and Independence." The poet roving about +on a common one fine morning, falls into pensive musings on the fate of +the sons of song, which he sums up in this fine distich. + + We poets in our youth begin in gladness; + But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness. I, p. 92. + +In the midst of his meditations-- + + I saw a man before me unawares, + The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.... + +The very interesting account, which he is lucky enough at last to +comprehend, fills the poet with comfort and admiration; and, quite glad +to find the old man so cheerful, he resolves to take a lesson of +contentedness from him; and the poem ends with this pious ejaculation-- + + "God," said I, "be my help and stay secure; + I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor." I, p. 97. + +We defy the bitterest enemy of Mr. Wordsworth to produce anything at all +parallel to this from any collection of English poetry, or even from the +specimens of his friend Mr. Southey.... + +The first poems in the second volume were written during a tour in +Scotland. The first is a very dull one about Rob Roy, but the title that +attracted us most was "An Address to the Sons of Burns," after visiting +their father's grave. Never was anything, however, more miserable.... +The next is a very tedious, affected performance, called "The Yarrow +Unvisited." ... After this we come to some ineffable compositions, which +the poet has entitled, "Moods of my own Mind." ... We have then a +rapturous mystical ode to the Cuckoo; in which the author, striving +after force and originality, produces nothing but absurdity ... after +this there is an address to a butterfly.... We come next to a long story +of a "Blind Highland Boy," who lived near an arm of the sea, and had +taken a most unnatural desire to venture on that perilous element. His +mother did all she could to prevent him; but one morning, when the good +woman was out of the way, he got into a vessel of his own, and pushed +out from the shore. + + In such a vessel ne'er before + Did human creature leave the shore. II, p. 72. + +And then we are told, that if the sea should get rough, "a beehive would +be ship as safe." "But say, what was it?" a poetical interlocutor is +made to exclaim most naturally; and here followeth the answer, upon +which all the pathos and interest of the story depend. + + A HOUSEHOLD TUB, like one of those + Which women use to wash their clothes!! II, p. 72. + +This, it will be admitted, is carrying the matter as far as it will go; +nor is there anything,--down to the wiping of shoes or the evisceration +of chickens, which may not be introduced in poetry, if this is +tolerated.... + +Afterwards come some stanzas about an echo repeating a cuckoo's +voice.... Then we have Elegiac stanzas "to the spade of a friend," +beginning-- + + Spade! with which Wilkinson hath till'd his lands. + +But too dull to be quoted any further. + +After this there is a minstrel's song, on the Restoration of Lord +Clifford the Shepherd, which is in a very different strain of poetry; +and then the volume is wound up with an "Ode," with no other title but +the motto _Paulo majora canamus_. This is, beyond all doubt, the most +illegible and unintelligible part of the publication. We can pretend to +no analysis or explanation of it.... + +We have thus gone through this publication, with a view to enable our +readers to determine, whether the author of these verses which have now +been exhibited, is entitled to claim the honours of an improver or +restorer of our poetry, and to found a new school to supersede or +new-model all our maxims on the subject. If we were to stop here, we do +not think that Mr. Wordsworth, or his admirers, would have any reason to +complain; for what we have now quoted is undeniably the most peculiar +and characteristic part of his publication, and must be defended and +applauded if the merit or originality of his system is to be seriously +maintained. In our opinion, however, the demerit of that system cannot +be fairly appreciated, until it be shown, that the author of the bad +verses which we have already extracted, can write good verses when he +pleases; and that, in point of fact, he does always write good verses, +when, by any account, he is led to abandon his system, and to transgress +the laws of that school which he would fain establish on the ruin of all +existing authority. + +The length to which our extracts and observations have already extended, +necessarily restrains us within more narrow limits in this part of our +citations; but it will not require much labour to find a pretty decided +contrast to some of the passages we have already detailed. The song on +the restoration of Lord Clifford is put into the mouth of an ancient +minstrel of the family; and in composing it, the author was led, +therefore, almost irresistibly to adopt the manner and phraseology that +is understood to be connected with that sort of composition, and to +throw aside his own babyish incidents and fantastical sensibilities.... + +All English writers of sonnets have imitated Milton; and, in this way, +Mr. Wordsworth, when he writes sonnets, escapes again from the trammels +of his own unfortunate system; and the consequence is, that his sonnets +are as much superior to the greater part of his other poems, as Milton's +sonnets are superior to his.... + +When we look at these, and many still finer passages, in the writings of +this author, it is impossible not to feel a mixture of indignation and +compassion, at that strange infatuation which has bound him up from the +fair exercise of his talents, and withheld from the public the many +excellent productions that would otherwise have taken the place of the +trash now before us. Even in the worst of these productions, there are, +no doubt, occasional little traits of delicate feeling and original +fancy; but these are quite lost and obscured in the mass of childishness +and insipidity with which they are incorporated, nor can anything give +us a more melancholy view of the debasing effects of this miserable +theory, than that it has given ordinary men a right to wonder at the +folly and presumption of a man gifted like Mr. Wordsworth, and made him +appear, in his second avowed publication, like a bad imitator of the +worst of his former productions. + +We venture to hope, that there is now an end of this folly; and that, +like other follies, it will be found to have cured itself by the +extravagances resulting from its unbridled indulgence. In this point of +view, the publication of the volumes before us may ultimately be of +service to the good cause of literature. Many a generous rebel, it is +said, has been reclaimed to his allegiance by the spectacle of lawless +outrage and excess presented in the conduct of the insurgents; and we +think there is every reason to hope, that the lamentable consequences +which have resulted from Mr. Wordsworth's open violation of the +established laws of poetry, will operate as a wholesome warning to those +who might otherwise have been seduced by his example, and be the means +of restoring to that antient and venerable code its due honour and +authority. + + + + +ON MATURIN'S "MELMOTH" + + +[From _The Edinburgh Review_, July, 1821] + +_Melmoth, the Wanderer_. 4 vols. By the Author of _Bertram_. Constable & +Co. Edinburgh, 1820. + +It was said, we remember, of Dr. Darwin's Botanic Garden--that it was +the sacrifice of Genius in the Temple of False Taste; and the remark may +be applied to the work before us, with the qualifying clause, that in +this instance the Genius is less obvious, and the false taste more +glaring. No writer of good judgment would have attempted to revive the +defunct horrors of Mrs. Radcliffe's School of Romance, or the demoniacal +incarnations of Mr. Lewis: But, as if he were determined not to be +arraigned for a single error only, Mr. Maturin has contrived to render +his production almost as objectionable in the manner as it is in the +matter. The construction of his story, which is singularly clumsy and +inartificial, we have no intention to analyze:--many will probably have +perused the work, before our review reaches them; and to those who have +not, it may be sufficient to announce, that the imagination of the +author runs riot, even beyond the usual license of romance;--that his +hero is a modern Faustus, who has bartered his soul with the powers of +darkness for protracted life, and unlimited worldly enjoyment;--his +heroine, a species of insular goddess, a virgin Calypso of the Indian +ocean, who, amid flowers and foliage, lives upon figs and tamarinds; +associates with peacocks, loxias and monkeys; is worshipped by the +occasional visitants of her island; finds her way to Spain, where she is +married to the aforesaid hero by the hand of a dead hermit, the ghost of +a murdered domestic being the witness of their nuptials; and finally +dies in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Madrid!--To complete this +phantasmagoric exhibition, we are presented with sybils and misers; +parricides; maniacs in abundance; monks with scourges pursuing a naked +youth streaming with blood; subterranean Jews surrounded by the +skeletons of their wives and children; lovers blasted by lightning; +Irish hags, Spanish grandees, shipwrecks, caverns, Donna Claras and +Donna Isidoras, all opposed to each other in glaring and violent +contrast, and all their adventures narrated with the same undeviating +display of turgid, vehement, and painfully elaborated language. Such are +the materials, and the style of this expanded nightmare: And as we can +plainly perceive, among a certain class of writers, a disposition to +haunt us with similar apparitions, and to describe them with a +corresponding tumor of words, we conceive it high time to step forward +and abate a nuisance which threatens to become a besetting evil, unless +checked in its outset. + +Political changes were not the sole cause of the rapid degeneracy in +letters that followed the Augustan era of Rome. Similar corruptions and +decay have succeeded to the intellectual eminence of other nations; and +we might be almost led to conclude, that mental as well as physical +power, after attaining a certain perfection, became weakened by +expansion, and sunk into a state of comparative imbecility, until time +and circumstance gave it a new progressive impetus. One great cause of +this deterioration is the insatiable thirst for novelty, which, becoming +weary even of excellence, will "sate itself in a celestial bed, and prey +on garbage." In the torpidity produced by an utter exhaustion of sensual +enjoyment, the Arreoi Club of Otaheite is recorded to have found a +miserable excitement, by swallowing the most revolting filth; and the +jaded intellectual appetites of more civilized communities will +sometimes seek a new stimulus in changes almost as startling. Some +adventurous writer, unable to obtain distinction among a host of +competitors, all better qualified than himself to win legitimate +applause, strikes out a fantastic or monstrous innovation; and arrests +the attention of many who would fall asleep over monotonous excellence. +Imitators are soon found;--fashion adopts the new folly;--the old +standard of perfection is deemed stale and obsolete;--and thus, by +degrees, the whole literature of a country becomes changed and +deteriorated. It appears to us, that we are now labouring in a crisis of +this nature. In our last Number, we noticed the revolution in our +poetry; the transition from the lucid terseness and exquisite polish of +Pope and Goldsmith, to the rambling, diffuse, irregular, and imaginative +style of composition by which the present era is characterized; and we +might have added, that a change equally complete, though diametrically +opposite in its tendency, has been silently introduced into our prose. +In this we have oscillated from freedom to restraint;--from the easy, +natural, and colloquial style of Swift, Addison and Steele, to the +perpetually strained, ambitious, and overwrought stiffness, of which the +author we are now considering affords a striking exemplification. "He's +knight o' the shire, and represents them all." There is not the smallest +keeping in his composition:--less solicitous what he shall say, than how +he shall say it, he exhausts himself in a continual struggle to produce +effect by dazzling, terrifying, or surprising. Annibal Caracci was +accused of an affectation of muscularity, and an undue parade of +anatomical knowledge, even upon quiescent figures: But the artist whom +we are now considering has no quiescent figures:--even his repose is a +state of rigid tension, if not extravagant distortion. He is the Fuseli +of novelists. Does he deem it necessary to be energetic, he forthwith +begins foaming at the mouth, and falling into convulsions; and this +orgasm is so often repeated, and upon such inadequate occasions, that we +are perpetually reminded of the tremendous puerilities of the Della +Cruscan versifiers, or the ludicrous grand eloquence of the Spaniard, +who tore a certain portion of his attire, "as if heaven and earth were +coming together." In straining to reach the sublime, he perpetually +takes that single unfortunate step which conducts him to the ridiculous +--a failure which, in a less gifted author, might afford a wicked +amusement to the critic, but which, when united with such undoubted +genius as the present work exhibits, must excite a sincere and painful +regret in every admirer of talent. + +Whatever be the cause, the fact, we think, cannot be disputed, that a +peculiar tendency to this gaudy and ornate style, exists among the +writers of Ireland. Their genius runs riot in the wantonness of its own +uncontrolled exuberance;--their imagination, disdaining the restraint of +judgment, imparts to their literature the characteristics of a nation in +one of the earlier stages of civilization and refinement. The florid +imagery, gorgeous diction, and Oriental hyperboles, which possess a sort +of wild propriety in the vehement sallies of Antar the Bedoween +chieftain of the twelfth century, become cold extravagance and +floundering fustian in the mouth of a barrister of the present age; and +we question whether any but a native of the sister island would have +ventured upon the experiment of their adoption. Even in the productions +of Mr. Moore, the sweetest lyric poet of this or perhaps any age, this +national peculiarity is not infrequently perceptible; and we were +compelled, in our review of his Lalla Rookh, a subject which justified +the introduction of much Eastern splendour and elaboration, to point out +the excessive finery, the incessant sparkle and efflorescence by which +the attention of the reader was fatigued, and his senses overcome. He +rouged his roses, and poured perfume upon his jessamines, until we +fainted under the oppression of beauty and odour, and were ready to "die +of a rose in aromatic pain." + +Dryden, in alluding to the metaphysical poets, exclaims "rather than all +things wit, let none be there":--though we would not literally adopt +this dictum, we can safely confirm the truth of the succeeding lines-- + + Men doubt, because so thick they lie, + If those be stars that paint the Galaxy:-- + +And we scruple not to avow, whatever contempt may be expressed for our +taste by the advocates of the toiling and turgid style, both in and out +of Ireland, that the prose works which we have lately perused with the +greatest pleasure, so far as their composition was concerned, have been +Belzoni's Travels, and Salame's Account of the Attack upon Algiers. +Unable, from their insufficient mastery of our tongue, to rival the +native manufacture of stiff and laborious verbosity, these foreigners +have contented themselves with the plainest and most colloquial language +that was consistent with a clear exposition of their meaning;--a +practice to which Swift was indebted for the lucid and perspicuous +character of his writings, and which alone has enabled a great living +purveyor of "twopenny trash" to retain a certain portion of popularity, +in spite of his utter abandonment of all consistency and public +principle. If the writers to whom we are alluding will not condescend to +this unstudied and familiar mode of communing with the public, let them +at least have the art to conceal their art, and not obtrude the +conviction that they are more anxious to display themselves than inform +their readers; and let them, above all things, consent to be +intelligible to the plainest capacity; for though speech, according to +the averment of a wily Frenchman, was given to us to conceal our +thoughts, no one has yet ventured to extend the same mystifying +definition to the art of writing ... + +After this, let us no longer smile at the furious hyperboles of Della +Crusca upon Mrs. Robinson's eyes. In the same strain we are told of a +convent whose "walls sweat, and its floors quiver," when a contumacious +brother treads them;--and when the parents of the same personage are +torn from his room by the Director of the convent, we are informed that +"the rushing of their robes as he dragged them out, seemed like the +whirlwind that attends the presence of the destroying angel." In a +similar spirit, of pushing every thing to extremes when he means to be +impressive, the author is sometimes offensively minute; as when he makes +the aforesaid persecuted monk declare, that "the cook had learned the +secret of the convent (that of tormenting those whom they had no longer +hopes of commanding), and mixed the fragments he threw to me with ashes, +hair, and dust;"--and sometimes the extravagance of his phrases becomes +simply ludicrous. Two persons are trying to turn a key--"It grated, +resisted; the lock seemed invincible. Again we tried with cranched +teeth, indrawn breath, and fingers stripped almost to the bone--in +vain." And yet, after they had almost stripped their fingers to the +bone, they succeed in turning that which they could not move when their +hands were entire. + +We have said that Mr. Maturin had contrived to render his work as +objectionable in the matter as in the manner; and we proceed to the +confirmation of our assertion. We do not arraign him solely for the +occasional indecorousness of his conceptions, or the more offensive tone +of some of his colloquies, attempted to be palliated by the flimsy plea, +that they are, appropriate in the mouths that utter them. Dr. Johnson, +as a proof of the total suppression of the reasoning faculty in dreams, +used to cite one of his own, wherein he imagined himself to be holding +an argument with an adversary, whose superior powers filled him with a +mortification which a moment's reflection would have dissipated, by +reminding him that he himself supplied the repartees of his opponent as +well as his own. In his waking dreams, Mr. Maturin is equally the parent +of all the parties who figure in his Romance; and, though not personally +responsible for their sentiments, he is amenable to the bar of criticism +for every phrase or thought which transgresses the bounds of decorum, or +violates the laws that regulate the habitual intercourse of polished +society. It is no defence to say, that profane or gross language is +natural to the characters whom he embodies. Why does he select such? It +may be proper in them; but what can make it proper to us? There are +wretches who never open their lips but to blaspheme; but would any +author think himself justified in filling his page with their +abominations? It betrays a lamentable deficiency of tact and judgment, +to imagine, as the author of Melmoth appears to do, that he may seize +upon nature in her most unhallowed or disgusting moods, and dangle her +in the eyes of a decorous and civilized community. We shall not stop to +stigmatize, as it deserves, the wild and flagrant calumnies which he +insinuates against three-fourths of his countrymen, by raking in the +long-forgotten rubbish of Popery for extinct enormities, which he +exaggerates as the inevitable result, rather than the casual abuse of +the system, and brands with an intolerant zeal, quite as uncharitable as +that which he condemns. These faults are either so peculiar to the +individual, or in their nature so obviously indefensible, as to repel +rather than invite imitation. But there is another peculiarity in the +productions of this gentleman which claims a more detailed notice, +because it seems likely to have extensive effects in corrupting others: +--we mean his taste for horrible and revolting subjects. We thought we +had supped full of this commodity; but it seems as if the most ghastly +and disgusting portion of the meal was reserved for the present day, and +its most hideous concoction for the writer before us,--who is never so +much in his favourite element as when he can "on horror's head horrors +accumulate." He assimilates the sluggish sympathies of his readers to +those of sailors and vulgar ballad readers, who cannot be excited to an +interest in the battle of the Arethusa, unless they learn that "her +sails smoaked with brains, and her scuppers ran blood;"--a line which +threatens him with formidable competitors from before the mast. Mere +physical horror, unalleviated by an intense mental interest, or +redeeming charities of the heart, may possess a certain air of +originality, not from the want of ability in former writers to delineate +such scenes, but from then-deference to the "_multaque tolles ex +oculis_" of Horace; from the conviction of their utter unfitness for +public exhibition. There is, however, a numerous class of inferior +caterers to the public, ready to minister to any appetite, however foul +and depraved, if they be once furnished with a precedent; and we foresee +an inundation of blood and abomination if they be not awed or ridiculed +into silence. We have quietly submitted to these inflictions from two or +three distinguished writers, whose talents may extenuate, though they +cannot justify, such outrages upon feeling. When regular artists and +professors conduct us into their dissecting room, the skill with which +they anatomise may reconcile us to the offensiveness of the operation; +but if butchers and resurrection-men are to drag us into their shambles, +while they mangle human carcases with their clumsy and unhallowed hands, +the stoutest spectators must turn from the exhibition with sickness and +disgust. + +Were any proof wanting that this Golgotha style of writing is likely to +become contagious, and to be pushed to a more harrowing extravagance at +each successive imitation, Mr. Maturin would himself supply it.... + +We have omitted this miscreant's flippant allusion to Madame de Sevigne +and his own damnation, uttered in a spirit which (to use the author's +own words upon another occasion), "mingled ridicule with horror, and +seemed like a Harlequin in the infernal regions flirting with the +furies:"--But we must not forget to mention, as little characteristic +touches in this scene of preposterous horrors, that the monster who +describes it was also a parricide, and that the female, on whose dying +agonies he had feasted, was his only sister! After this appalling +extract, we need not pursue our quotations from pages which, as more +than one of the personages say of themselves, seem to swim in blood and +fire; and we shall conclude with the following passage from a dream-- + + The next moment I was chained to my chair again,--the fires were lit, + the bells rang out, the litanies were sung;--my feet were scorched to + a cinder,--my muscles cracked, my blood and marrow hissed, my flesh + consumed like shrinking leather,--the bones of my leg hung two black + withering and moveless sticks in the ascending blaze;--it ascended, + caught my hair,--I was crowned with fire,--my head was a ball of + molten metal, my eyes flashed and melted in their sockets:--I opened + my mouth, it drank fire,--I closed it, the fire was within,--and still + the bells rang on, and the crowd shouted, and the king and queen, and + all the nobility and priesthood looked on, and we burned and burned! I + was a cinder, body and soul, in my dream. II. 301. + +These, and other scenes equally wild and abominable, luckily counteract +themselves;--they present such a Fee-fa-fum for grown up people, such a +burlesque upon tragic horrors, that a sense of the ludicrous +irresistibly predominates over the terrific; and, to avoid disgust, our +feelings gladly take refuge in contemptuous laughter. Pathos like this +may affect women, and people of weak nerves, with sickness at the +stomach;--it may move those of stouter fibre to scornful derision; but +we doubt whether, in the whole extensive circle of novel readers, it has +ever drawn a single tear. The Society for the Suppression of Mendicity +has fortunately cleared our streets of the offensive vagrants who used +to thrust their mangled limbs and putrid sores into our faces to extort +from our disgust what they could not wring from our compassion:--Be it +_our_ care to suppress those greater nuisances who, infesting the high +ways of literature, would attempt, by a still more revolting exhibition, +to terrify or nauseate us out of those sympathies which they might not +have the power to awaken by any legitimate appeal. + +Let it not be imagined, from any thing we have now said, that we think +meanly of Mr. Maturin's genius and abilities. It is precisely because we +hold both in respect that we are sincerely anxious to point out their +misapplication; and we have extended our observations to a greater +length than we contemplated, partly because we fear that his strong +though unregulated imagination, and unlimited command of glowing +language, may inflict upon us a herd of imitators who, "possessing the +contortions of the Sybil without her inspiration," will deluge us with +dull, turgid, and disgusting enormities;--and partly because we are not +without hopes that our animadversions, offered in a spirit of sincerity, +may induce the Author himself to abandon this new Apotheosis of the old +Raw-head-and-bloody-bones, and assume a station in literature more +consonant to his high endowments, and to that sacred profession to +which, we understand, he does honour by the virtues of his private life. + + + + +THE QUARTERLY REVIEW + + +If Macaulay represents a new _Edinburgh_ from the days of Jeffrey, +Brougham, and Sydney Smith, the variety of criticism embraced by the +_Quarterly_ is even more startling. There was more malice, and far +coarser personalities in the early days, and almost continuously while +Gifford, Croker, and Lockhart held the reins: it is--almost certainly-- +among these three that the responsibility for our "anonymous" group of +onslaughts may be distributed. The two earliest appreciations of Jane +Austen (from Scott and Whately) offer an interlude--actually in the same +period--which positively startles us by the honesty of its attempt at +fair criticism and the entire freedom from personality. + +Gladstone's interesting recognition of Tennyson, and the "Church in +Arms" against Darwin (so ably pleaded by Wilberforce), belong to yet +another school of criticism which comes much nearer to our day, though +retaining the solemnity, the prolixity, and the _ex cathedra_ assumption +of authority with which all the Reviews began their career; and is +singularly cautious in its independence. + + +WILLIAM GIFFORD + +(1757-1826) + +Gifford was the editor of the _Quarterly_ from its foundation in +February, 1809, until September, 1824, and undoubtedly established its +reputation for scurrility. It is probable that more reviews were +written, or directly inspired, by him than have been actually traced to +his pen; and, in any case, as Leigh Hunt puts it, he made it his +business to + + See that others + Misdeem and miscontrue, like miscreant brothers; + Misquote, and misplace, and mislead, and misstate, + Misapply, misinterpret, misreckon, misdate, + Missinform, misconjecture, misargue, in short + Miss all that is good, that ye miss not the court. + +Gifford was hated even more than his associates; not only, we fear, for +his venal sycophancy, but because he had been apprenticed to a shoemaker +and never concealed the lowness of his origin. Moreover, "the little +man, dumpled up together and so ill-made as to seem almost deformed," +received from Fortune-- + + One eye not overgood, + Two sides that to their cost have stood + A ten years' hectic cough, + Aches, stitches, all the various ills + That swell the devilish doctor's bills, + And sweep poor mortals off. + +Scott is almost alone in his generosity towards the learning and +industry of an editor who helped to make infamous the title of critic. +His original poems (_The Baviad_ and _The Moeviad_) have a certain +sledge-hammer merit; and he did yeoman service by suppressing the _Della +Cruscans_. + +It was Gifford also "who did the butchering business in the +Anti-Jacobin." He was far heavier, in bludgeoning, than Jeffrey; while +Hazlitt epitomized his principles of criticism with his accustomed +vigour:--"He believes that modern literature should wear the fetters of +classical antiquity; that truth is to be weighed in the scales of +opinion and prejudice; that power is equivalent to right; that genius is +dependent on rules; that taste and refinement of language consist in +_word-catching_." + + * * * * * + +Gifford's review of _Ford's Weber_ is, perhaps, no more than can be +expected of the man who had edited _Massinger_ six years before he wrote +it; and produced a _Ben Jonson_ in 1816 and a _Ford_ in 1827. Of these +works Thomas Moore exclaimed "What a canker'd carle it is! Strange that +a man should be able to lash himself up into such a spiteful fury, not +only against the living but the dead, with whom he engages in a sort of +_sciomachy_ in every page. Poor dull and dead Malone is the shadow at +which he thrusts his 'Jonson,' as he did at poor Monck Mason, still +duller and deader, in his _Massinger_." Mr. A.H. Bullen, again, remarks +of his Ford, "Gifford was so intent on denouncing the inaccuracy of +others that he frequently failed to secure accuracy himself.... In +reading the old dramatists we do not want to be distracted by editorial +invectives and diatribes." + +The review of _Endymion_ called forth Byron's famous apostrophe to-- + + John Keats, who was killed off by one critique + Just as he really promised something great, + If not intelligible, without Greek + Contrived to talk about the gods of late + Much as they might have been supposed to speak. + Poor fellow! his was an untoward fate; + 'Tis strange the mind, that very fiery particle, + Should let itself be snuff'd out by one article. + +It is but just to say, however, that the _Blackwood_ review of the same +poem, printed below, was scarcely less virulent; and later critics have +scouted the notion of the poet not having more strength of mind than he +is credited with by Byron. It is strange to notice that De Quincey found +in _Endymion_ "the very midsummer madness of affectation, of false +vapoury sentiment, and of fantastic effeminacy"; while one is ashamed +for the timidity of the publisher who chose to return all unsold copies +to George Keats because of "the ridicule which has, time after time, +been showered upon it." + + +JOHN WILSON CROKER + +(1780-1857) + +Croker was certainly unfortunate in his enemies, though they have given +him immortality. The contemptible Rigby in Disraeli's _Coningsby_ +(admittedly drawn from him) is scarcely more damaging to his reputation +than the sound, if prejudiced, onslaught of Macaulay's review, of which +we find echoes, after twelve years, in the same essayist's Madame +D'Arblay. Dr. Hill tells us that he "added considerably to our knowledge +of Johnson," yet he was a thoroughly bad editor and had no real sympathy +with either the subject or the author of that incomparable "Life": +through his essentially low mind. He was not a scholar, and he was +inaccurate. + +Croker was intimately associated with the _Quarterly_ from its +foundation until 1857, retaining his bitterness and spite to the year of +his death. But he was a born fighter, and never happier than in the heat +of controversy. That he secured the friendship of Scott, Peel, and +Wellington must go to prove that his political, and literary prejudices, +had not destroyed altogether his private character. He is credited with +being the first writer to use the word "conservatives" in the +_Quarterly_, January, 1830. He was a member of the Irish Bar, M.P. for +Dublin, Acting Chief Secretary for Ireland, Secretary of the Admiralty +(where his best work was accomplished), and a Privy Councillor. + + * * * * * + +The veiled sarcasm of his attack on _Sydney Smith_ was only to be +expected from a Tory reviewer, and was probably inflamed by that heated +loyalty to the Church which characterised his paper. + +_Macaulay_ had certainly provoked his retaliation, and we +may notice here the same eager partisanship of Church and +State, pervading even his personal malice. + + +JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART + +(1794-1854) + +It is to be regretted that Lockhart, who is so honourably remembered by +his great _Life of Scott_, his "fine and animated translation" of +Spanish Ballads, and his neglected--but powerful--_Adam Blair_, should +be so intimately associated with the black record of the _Quarterly_. He +was also a contributor to _Blackwood_ from October, 1817, succeeding +Gifford in the editorial chair of Mr. Murray's Review in 1825 until +1853. + +But Lockhart was "more than a satirist and a snarler." His polished +jibes were more mischievous than brutal. "This reticent, sensitive, +attractive, yet dangerous youth ... slew his victims mostly by the +midnight oil, not by any blaze of gaiety, or in the accumulative fervour +of social sarcasm. From him came most of those sharp things which the +victims could not forget.... Lockhart put in his sting in a moment, +inveterate, instantaneous, with the effect of a barbed dart, yet almost, +as it seemed, with the mere intention of giving point to his sentences, +and no particular feeling at all." + +Carlyle describes him as "a precise, brief, active person of +considerable faculty, which however, had shaped itself _gigmanically_ +only. Fond of quizzing, yet not _very_ maliciously. Has a broad, black +brow, indicating force and penetration, but the lower half of the face +diminishing into the character at best of distinctness, almost of +triviality." + + * * * * * + +There is certainly a good deal of perversity about the _abuse_ of +Vathek, so startlingly combined with almost immoderate eulogy: to which +the discriminating enthusiasm of his Coleridge affords a pleasing +contrast. + +It should be noticed that Lockhart has also been credited with the +bitter critical part of the _Jane Eyre_ review, printed below--of which +any man ought to have been ashamed--as Miss Rigby (afterwards Lady +Eastlake) is believed to have written "the part about the governess." He +probably had a hand in the Blackwood series on "The Cockney School of +Poetry" (see below); and, in some ways, those reviews are more +characteristic. + + + +SIR WALTER SCOTT + +(1771-1832) + +It would be out of place here to enter upon any biography or criticism +of the author of _Waverley_, or for that matter of Jane Austen. It is +sufficient to notice that Scott has found something generous to say (in +diaries, letters, or formal criticism) on every writer he had occasion +to mention, and that in his somewhat neglected, but frequently quoted, +_Lives of the Novelists_, a striking pre-eminence was given to women; +particularly Mrs. Radcliffe and Clara Reeve. Indeed, the essay on Mrs. +Radcliffe, a "very novel and rather heretical revelation" is "probably +the best in the whole set." + +We remember, too, the famous passage in his _General Preface to the +Waverley Novels_:--"without being so presumptuous as to hope to emulate +the rich humour, pathetic tenderness and admirable tact of my +accomplished friend, I felt that something might be attempted for my own +country, of the same kind with that which Miss Edgeworth so fortunately +achieved for Ireland";--an ambition of which the modesty only equals the +success achieved. + +In "appreciating" Jane Austen, indeed, Scott is far more cautious, if +not apologetic, than any critic of to-day would dream of being; but, +when we remember the prejudices then existing against women writers +(despite the popularity of Madame D'Arblay) and the well-nigh universal +neglect accorded the author of _Pride and Prejudice_, we should perhaps +rather marvel at the independent sincerity of his pronounced praise. The +article, at any rate, has historic significance, as the first serious +recognition of her immortal work. + + +RICHARD WHATELY + +(1787-1863) + +The "dogmatical and crotchety" Archbishop of Dublin was looked at +askance by the extreme Evangelicals of his day (though Thomas Arnold has +eulogised his holiness), and there is no doubt that his theology, +however able and sincere, was mainly inspired by the "daylight of +ordinary reason and of historical fact," opposed to the dogmas of +tradition. He combated sceptical criticism by an ingenious parody +entitled "Historical Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte," and his +epigram on the majority of preachers--that "they aim at nothing and they +hit it," proves his freedom from any touch of sacerdotalism. His +"Rhetoric," his "Logic," and his "Political Economy" were praised by so +eminent a judge as John Stuart Mill, though criticised by Hamilton; and +Lecky remarks on the "admirable lucidity of his style." + +His work, however, was as a whole too fragmentary to become standard, +and he regarded it himself as "the mission of his life to make up +cartridges for others to fire." + + * * * * * + +We may notice that in writing of _Jane Austen_, only six years after +Scott, though still measured and judicial, he permits himself a much +more assured attitude of applause; and the article affords most valuable +indication of the steady progress by which her masterpieces achieved the +supremacy now acknowledged by all. + + +WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE + +(1809-1898) + +It would be no less impertinent, and unnecessary, to dwell in these +pages upon the political, or literary, work of the greatest of modern +premiers. It is sufficient to recall the certainty which used to follow +a notice by Gladstone of a large and immediate rise in sales. Mr. John +Morley remarking that Gladstone's "place is not in literary or critical +history, but elsewhere," reminds us that his style was sometimes called +Johnsonian, though without good ground.... Some critics charged him in +1840 with "prolix clearness." "The old charge," says Mr. Gladstone upon +this, was obscure compression. I do not doubt that both may be true, and +the former may have been the result of a well-meant effort to escape +from the latter. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Morley, again, selects the essay on Tennyson for especial praise. +Though one is apt to forget it, the Laureate did not meet with anything +like immediate recognition; and, though coming twenty-eight years after +the appreciation by J.S. Mill, this article does not assume the +supremacy afterwards accorded the poet by common consent. + + +SAMUEL WILBERFORCE + +(1805-1873) + +"One of the most conspicuous and remarkable figures" of his generation +the versatile Bishop of Oxford is said to have come "next to Gladstone +as a man of inexhaustible powers of work." Known from his Oxford days as +Soapy Sam, he was involved through no fault of his own, in some of the +odium attached to the "Essays and Reviews" and "Colenso" cases: his +private life was embittered by the secession to Rome of his two +brothers, his brother-in-law, his only daughter, and his son-in-law. "He +was an unwearied ecclesiastical politician, always involved in +discussions and controversies, sometimes, it was thought, in intrigues; +without whom nothing was done in convocation, nor, where Church +interests were involved, in the House of Lords." The energy with which +he governed his diocese for twenty-four years earned for him the title +of "Romodeller [Transcriber's note: sic] of the Episcopate." + + * * * * * + +The attempt, by a man whose "relaxations" were botany and ornithology, +but who had no claims to be called an expert, to defeat Darwin on his +own ground--and the dignified horror of a Churchman at some deductions +from evolution--is eminently characteristic of the period. + +The earnest criticism of Newman's conversion to Rome concerns one of the +most striking events of his generation, and illustrates the "church" +attitude on such questions. + + +ANONYMOUS + +We have hinted already that the responsibility for this group of +ill-mannered recriminations may probably be distributed between Gifford, +Croker, and Lockhart. It is curious to notice that the second attack on +Scott appeared after his admission to the ranks of contributors; and the +author of _Waverley_ is perhaps the one man said to have friends both on +the _Edinburgh_ and the _Quarterly_. That on Leigh Hunt, always the pet +topic of Toryism, from whom he certainly provoked some retaliation, is +only paralleled in _Blackwood_. We have included the _Shakespeare_ and +the _Moxon_ as attractively brief samples on the approved model of +savage banter, and the _Jane Eyre_ as perhaps the most flagrant example +of bad taste to be found in these merciless pages. It was George Henry +Lewis, by the way, who so much offended Charlotte Bronte by the +greeting, "There ought to be a bond between us, for we have both written +naughty books." + +It is interesting to find Thackeray among those it was permitted to +praise: though the "moral" objection to his "realism" reveals a strange +attitude. + +We may notice, with some surprise, that the attitude towards George +Eliot is nearly as hostile as towards Charlotte Bronte. + + + + +GIFFORD ON WEBER'S "FORD" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, December, 1811] + + +... When it is determined to reprint the writings of an ancient author, +it is usual, we believe, to bestow a little labour in gratifying the +natural desire of the reader to know something of his domestic +circumstances. Ford had declared in the title-pages of his several +plays, that he was of the Inner Temple; and, from his entry there, Mr. +Malone, following up the inquiry, discovered that he was the second son +of Thomas Ford, Esq., and that he was baptized at Ilsington, in +Devonshire, the 17th of April, 1586. To this information Mr. Weber has +added nothing; and he hopes that the meagreness of his biographical +account will be readily excused by the reader who has examined the lives +of his (Ford's) dramatical contemporaries, in which we are continually +"led to lament that our knowledge respecting them amounts to little +better than nothing." It would surely be unjust to appear dissatisfied +at the imperfect account of an ancient author, when all the sources of +information have been industriously explored. But, in the present case, +we doubt whether Mr. Weber can safely "lay this flattering unction to +his soul"; and we shall therefore give such a sketch of the poet's life, +as an attentive examination of his writings has enabled us to +compile.... + +Reversing the observation of Dryden on Shakespeare, it may be said of +Ford that "he wrote laboriously, not luckily": always elegant, often +elevated, never sublime, he accomplished by patient and careful industry +what Shakespeare and Fletcher produced by the spontaneous exuberance of +native genius. He seems to have acquired early in life, and to have +retained to the last a softness of versification peculiar to himself. +Without the majestic march of verse which distinguishes the poetry of +Massinger, and with none of that playful gaiety which characterises the +dialogue of Fletcher, he is still easy and harmonious. There is, +however, a monotony in his poetry, which those who have perused his +scenes long together must have inevitably perceived. His dialogue is +declamatory and formal, and wants that quick chace of replication and +rejoinder so necessary to effect in representation. If we could put out +of our remembrance the singular merits of "The Lady's Trial," we should +consider the genius of Ford as altogether inclined to tragedy; and even +there so large a proportion of the pathetic pervades the drama, that it +requires the "humours" of Guzman and Fulgoso, in addition to a happy +catastrophe, to warrant the name of comedy. In the plots of his +tragedies Ford is far from judicious; they are for the most part too +full of the horrible, and he seems to have had recourse to an +accumulation of terrific incidents, to obtain that effect which he +despairs of producing by pathos of language. Another defect in Ford's +poetry, proceeding from the same source, is the alloy of pedantry which +pervades his scenes, at one time exhibited in the composition of uncouth +phrases, at another in perplexity of language; and he frequently labours +with a remote idea, which, rather than throw it away, he obtrudes upon +his reader, involved in inextricable obscurity. We cannot agree with the +editor in praising his delineation of the female character: less than +women in their passions, they are more than masculine in their exploits +and sufferings; but, excepting Spinella in "The Lady's Trial," and +perhaps Penthea, we do not remember in Ford's plays, any example of that +meekness and modesty which compose the charm of the female character.... + +Mr. Weber is known to the admirers of our antient literature by two +publications which, although they may not be deemed of great importance +in themselves, have yet a fair claim to notice. We speak of the battle +of Flodden Field, and the Romances of the fourteenth century: which, as +far as we have looked into them, appear very creditable to his industry +and accuracy: his good genius, we sincerely regret to say, appears in a +great measure to have forsaken him from the moment that he entered upon +the task of editing a dramatic poet. + +In the mechanical construction of his work Mr. Weber has followed the +last edition of Massinger, with a servility which appears, in his mind, +to have obviated all necessity of acknowledging the obligation: we will +not stop to enquire whether he might not have found a better model; but +proceed to the body of the work. As we feel a warm interest in +everything which regards our ancient literature, on the sober +cultivation of which the purity, copiousness, and even harmony of the +English language must, in no small degree, depend, we shall notice some +of the peculiarities of the volumes before us, in the earnest hope that +while we relieve Ford from a few of the errors and misrepresentations +with which he is here encumbered, we may convince Mr. Weber that +something more is necessary to a faithful editor than the copying of +printers' blunders, and to a judicious commentator, than a blind +confidence in the notes of every collection of old plays. + +Mr. Weber's attempts at explanation (for explanations it seems, there +must be) are sometimes sufficiently humble. "Carriage," he tells us, "is +behaviour." It is so; we remember it in our spelling-book, among the +words of three syllables, we have therefore no doubt of it. But you must +have, rejoins the editor; and accordingly, in every third or fourth +page, he persists in affirming that "carriage is behaviour." In the same +strain of thankless kindness, he assures us that "fond is foolish," +"but, except," "content, contentment," and _vice versa_, "period +[Transcriber's note: 'peroid' in original], end," "demur, delay," "ever, +always," "sudden, quickly," "quick, suddenly," and so on through a long +vocabulary of words of which a girl of six years old would blush to ask +the meaning.... + +The confidence which Mr. Weber reposes in Steevens, not only on one but +on every occasion, is quite exemplary: the name alone operates as a +charm, and supersedes all necessity of examining into the truth of his +assertions; and he gently reminds those who occasionally venture to +question it, that "they are ignorant and superficial critics." Vol. ii, +p. 256.--"I have seen Summer go up and down with _hot codlings!_ Mr. +Steevens observes that a codling _antiently_ meant an immature apple, +and the present passage _plainly_ proves it, as none but immature apples +could be had in summer," all this wisdom is thrown away. We can assure +Mr. Weber, on the authority of Ford himself, that "hot codlings" are +_not_ apples, either mature or immature. Steevens is a dangerous guide +for such as do not look well about them. His errors are specious: for he +was a man of ingenuity: but he was often wantonly mischievous, and +delighted to stumble for the mere gratification of dragging unsuspecting +innocents into the mire with him. He was, in short, the very Puck of +commentators.... + +No writer, in our remembrance, meets with so many "singular words" as +the present editor. He conjectures, however, that _unvamp'd_ means +_disclosed_. It means not stale, not patched up. We should have supposed +it impossible to miss the sense of so trite an expression.... Mr. +Weber's acquaintance with our dramatic writers extends, as the reader +must have observed, very little beyond the indexes of Steevens and Reed. +If he cannot find the word of which he is in quest, in them, he sets it +down as an uncommon expression, or a coinage of his author.... + +These inadvertences, and many others which might be noticed, being +chiefly confined to the notes, do not, perhaps, detract much from the +value of the text: we now turn to some of a different kind, which bear +hard on the editor, and prove that his want of knowledge is not +compensated by any extraordinary degree of attention. It is not +sufficient for Mr. Weber to say that many of the errors which we shall +point out are found in the old copy. It was his duty to reform them. A +facsimile of blunders no one requires. Modern editions of our old poets +are purchased upon the faith of a corrected text: this is their only +claim to notice; and, if defective here, they become at once little +better than waste-paper.... + +There is something extremely capricious in Mr. Weber's mode of +proceeding: words are tampered with which are necessary to the right +understanding of the text, while others, which reduce it to absolute +jargon, are left unmolested.... + +We might carry this part of our examination to an immense extent; but we +forbear. Enough, and more than enough, is done to show that a strict +revision of the text is indispensible; and, if it should fall to the lot +of the present editor to undertake it, we trust that he will evince +somewhat more care than he manifests in the conclusion of the work +before us. It will scarcely be credited that Mr. Weber should travel +through such a volume as we have just passed, in quest of errata, and +find only one. "Vol. ii (he says), p. 321, line 12, for satiromastrix +read satiromastix!" + +We could be well content to rest here; but we have a more serious charge +to bring against the editor, than the omission of points, or the +misapprehension of words. He has polluted his pages with the blasphemies +of a poor maniac, who, it seems, once published some detached scenes of +the "Broken Heart." For this unfortunate creature, every feeling mind +will find an apology in his calamitous situation; but--for Mr. Weber, we +know not where the warmest of his friends will seek either palliation or +excuse. + + + +ON KEATS + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, April, 1818] + +Reviewers have sometimes been accused of not reading the works which +they affected to criticise. On the present occasion we shall anticipate +the author's complaint, and honestly confess that we have not read his +work. Not that we have been wanting in our duty--far from it--indeed, we +have made efforts almost as superhuman as the story itself appears to +be, to get through it; but with the fullest stretch of our perseverence, +we are forced to confess that we have not been able to struggle beyond +the first of the four books[1] of which this Poetic Romance consists. We +should extremely lament this want of energy, or whatever it may be, on +our parts, were it not for one consolation--namely, that we are no +better acquainted with the meaning of that book through which we have so +painfully toiled than we are with that of the three which we have not +looked into. + +[1] _Endymion: A Poetic Romance_. By John Keats. London, 1818. + +It is not that Mr. Keats (if that be his real name, for we almost doubt +that any man in his senses would put his real name to such a rhapsody) +it is not, we say, that the author has not powers of language, rays of +fancy, and gleams of genius--he has all these; but he is unhappily a +disciple of the new school of what has been somewhere called Cockney +poetry; which may be defined to consist of the most incongruous ideas in +the most uncouth language. + +Of this school Mr. Leigh Hunt, as we observed in a former number, +aspires to be the hierophant. Our readers will recollect the pleasant +recipes for harmonious and sublime poetry which he gave us in his +preface to _Rimini_, and the still more facetious instances of his +harmony and sublimity in the verses themselves; and they will recollect +above all the contempt of Pope, Johnson, and such like poetasters and +pseudo-critics, which so forcibly contrasted itself with Mr. Leigh +Hunt's approbation of + + --All the things itself had wrote, + Of special merit though of little note. + +The author is a copyist of Mr. Hunt, but he is more unintelligible, +almost as rugged, twice as diffuse, and ten times more tiresome and +absurd than his prototype, who, though he impudently presumed to seat +himself in the chair of criticism, and to measure his own poetry by his +own standard, yet generally had a meaning. But Mr. Keats had advanced no +dogmas which he was bound to support by examples, his nonsense therefore +is quite gratuitous; he writes it for its own sake, and being bitten by +Mr. Leigh Hunt's insane criticism, more than rivals the insanity of his +poetry. + +Mr. Keats's preface hints that his poem was produced under peculiar +circumstances.... + + The two first books, and indeed the two last, are not of such + completion as to warrant their passing the press. p. vii. + +Thus, "the two first books" are, even in his own judgment, unfit to +appear, and "the two last" are, it seems, in the same condition--and as +two and two make four, and as that is the whole number of books, we have +a clear and, we believe, a very just estimate of the entire work. + +Mr. Keats, however, deprecates criticism on this "immature and feverish" +work in terms which are themselves sufficiently feverish; and we confess +that we should have abstained from inflicting upon him any of the +tortures of the "_fierce hell_" of criticism, which terrify his +imagination, if he had not begged to be spared in order that he might +write more; if we had not observed in him a certain degree of talent +which deserves to be put in the right way, or which, at least, ought to +be warned of the wrong; and if, finally, he had not told us that he is +of an age and temper which imperiously require mental discipline. + +Of the story we have been able to make out but little; it seems to be +mythological, and probably relates to the loves of Diana and Endymion; +but of this, as the scope of the work has altogether escaped us, we +cannot speak with any degree of certainty: and must therefore content +ourselves with giving some instances of its diction and versification.-- +And here again we are perplexed and puzzled.--At first it appeared to +us, that Mr. Keats had been amusing himself and wearying his readers +with an immeasurable game at _bouts rimes_; but, if we recollect +rightly, it is an indispensable condition at this play, that the rhymes +when filled up shall have a meaning; and our author, as we have already +hinted, has no meaning. He seems to us to write a line at random, and +then he follows not the thought excited by this line, but that suggested +by the _rhyme_ with which it concludes. There is hardly a complete +couplet inclosing a complete idea in the whole book. He wanders from one +subject to another, from the association, not of ideas, but of sounds, +and the work is composed of hemistichs which, it is quite evident, have +forced themselves upon the author by the mere force of the catchwords on +which they turn.... + + Be still the unimaginable lodge + For solitary thinkings; such as dodge + Conception to the very bourne of heaven, + Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven, + That spreading in this dull and clodded earth + Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth. p. 17. + +_Lodge, dodge--heaven, leaven--earth, birth_; such, in six words, is the +sum and substance of six lines. + +We come now to the author's taste in versification. He cannot indeed +write a sentence, but perhaps he may be able to spin a line. Let us see. +The following are specimens of his prosodial notions of our English +heroic metre. + + Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, + The passion poesy, glories infinite, p. 4. + + So plenteously all weed-hidden roots, p. 6. + +... By this time our readers must be pretty well satisfied as to the +meaning of his sentences and the structures of his lines: we now present +them with some of the new words with which, in imitation of Mr. Leigh +Hunt, he adorns our language. + +We are told that "turtles _passion_ their voices" (p. 15); that "an +arbour was _nested_" (p. 23); and a lady's locks "_gordian'd_" up (p. +32); and to supply the place of nouns thus verbalised Mr. Keats, with +great fecundity, spawns new ones; such as "men-slugs and human +_serpentry_" (p. 14); "_honey-feel_ of bliss" (p. 45); "wives prepare +_needments_" (p. 13)--and so forth. + +Then he has formed new verbs by the process of cutting off their tails, +the adverbs, and affixing them to their foreheads; thus "the wine +out-sparkled" (p. 10); the "multitude up-follow'd" (p. 11); and "night +up-took" (p. 29). "The wind up-blows" (p. 32); and the "hours are +down-sunken" (p. 36). + +But if he sinks some adverbs in the verbs he compensates the language +with adverbs and adjectives which he separates from the parent stock. +Thus, a lady "whispers _pantingly_ and close," makes "_hushing_ signs," +and steers her skiff into a "_ripply_ cove" (p. 23); a shower falls +"_refreshfully_" (p. 45); and a vulture has a "_spreaded_ tail" (p. 44). + +But enough of Mr. Leigh Hunt and his simple neophite.--If anyone should +be bold enough to purchase this "Poetic Romance," and so much more +patient than ourselves, as to get beyond the first book, and so much +more fortunate as to find a meaning, we entreat him to make us +acquainted with his success; we shall then return to the task which we +now abandon in despair, and endeavour to make all due amends to Mr. +Keats and to our readers. + + + + +CROKER ON SYDNEY SMITH + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, February, 1810] + +This sermon[1] is written on the characters and duties of the clergy. +Perhaps it would have produced more effect upon the Yorkshire divines +had it come from one who had lived longer among them, and of the +correspondence of whose life with his doctrines, they had better +opportunities of judging; one whom, from long experience, they knew to +be neither sullied by the little "affectations," nor "agitated by the +little vanities of the world," whose strict observance of "those +decencies and proprieties," which persons in their profession "owe to +their situation in society," they had remarked through a long course of +years. Whether the life of Mr. Smith would form an illustration of his +own precepts remains to be proved. But, if we rightly recollect dates, +he is still to his neighbours a sort of unknown person, and hardly yet +tried in his new situation of a parish priest. We therefore think, in +spite of all the apologies with which he has prefaced his advice, that a +more judicious topic might easily have been selected. + +[1] A sermon preached before His Grace the Archbishop of York, and the + clergy, at Malton, at the Visitation, Aug., 1809. By the Rev. Sydney + Smith, A.M., Rector of Foston, in Yorkshire, and late Fellow of New + College, Oxford. Carpenter, 1809. + +In the execution of this sermon there is little to commend. As a system +of duties for any body of clergy, it is wretchedly deficient:--and +really, when we call to mind the rich, the full, the vigorous, eloquent, +and impassioned manner in which these duties are recommended and +inforced in the writings of our old divines, we are mortified beyond +measure at the absolute poverty, crudeness, and meanness of the present +attempt to mimic them. As a composition, it is very imperfect: it has +nearly the same merits, and rather more than the same defects, which +characterise his former publications. Mr. Smith never writes but in a +loose declamatory way. He is careless of connection, and not very +anxious about argument. His sole object is to produce an effect at the +moment, a strong first impression upon an audience, and if that can be +done he is very indifferent as to what may be the result of examination +and reflection.... + +If Mr. Smith is not only not a Socinian, but if in his heart he doubts +as to the least important point of the most abstruce and controverted +subject on which our articles have decided, if, in short, he is not one +of the most rigorously orthodox divines that exists, he has been guilty +of the grossest and most disgusting hypocrisy--he has pronounced in the +face of the public to which he appeals, and of the church to which he +belongs, in the most solemn manner, and on the most solemn subject, a +direct, intentional, and scandalous falsehood--he has acted in a way +utterly subversive of all confidence among men; and the greater part of +the wretches who retire from a course of justice degraded for perjury +rank higher in the scale of morality, than an educated man holding a +respectable place in society, who could thus trifle with the most sacred +obligations. He could be induced to this base action only by a base +motive, that of obviating any difficulties which a suspicion of his +holding opinions different from those avowed by the establishment, might +throw in the way of his preferment: and of rendering himself a possible +object of the bounty of "his worthy masters and mistresses," whenever +the golden days arrive, in which they shall again dispense the favours +of the crown. Such must be the case, if Mr. Smith is not sincere. There +is no alternative. Now this is scarcely to be believed of any gentleman +of tolerably fair character, still less of a teacher of morality and +religion, who holds forth in all his writings the most refined +sentiments of honour and disinterestedness. + +The style of his profession of faith, however, partakes very much of the +most offensive peculiarities of his manner. It is abrupt and violent to +a degree which not only shocks good taste, but detracts considerably +from the appearance of sincerity. It seems as if he considered his creed +as a sort of nauseous medicine which could only be taken off at a +draught, and he looks round for applause at the heroic effort by which +he has drained the cup to its very dregs. + +But the passage about the verse in St. John is yet more extraordinary. +Has Mr. Smith really gone through the controversy upon this subject? And +even if he has, is this the light way in which a man wholly unknown in +the learned world, is entitled to contradict the opinion of some of the +greatest scholars of Europe? We have, however, the mere word of the +facetious rector of Foston, opposite to the authority and the arguments +of a Porson and a Griesbach. It is at his command, unsupported by the +smallest attempt at reasoning, that we are to set aside the opinion of +men whose lives have been spent in the study of the Greek language, and +of biblical criticism, and which has been acquiesced in by many of the +most competent judges both here and abroad. Such audacity (to call it by +no coarser name) is in itself only calculated to excite laughter and +contempt: coupled as it is with a most unprovoked and unwarrantable +mention of the name of the Bishop of Lincoln, it excites indignation. We +feel no morbid sensibility for the character of a mitred divine: but we +cannot see a blow aimed at the head of one of the chiefs of the church, +a pious, learned, and laborious man, by the hand of ignorance and +presumption, without interposing, not to heal the wound, for no wound +has been made, but to chastise the assailant. The Bishop of Lincoln +gives up these verses, not carelessly, and unadvisedly, but doubtless +because he is persuaded that the cause of true Religion can never be so +much injured as by resting its defence upon passages liable to so much +suspicion; and because he knows, that the doctrine of the Trinity by no +means depends upon that particular passage, but may be satisfactorily +deduced from various other expressions, and from the general tenor of +holy writ. Indeed, if we were not prevented from harbouring any such +suspicion by Mr. Smith's flaming profession of the _iotal_ accuracy of +his creed; and if we could doubt the orthodoxy of the divine, without +impugning the honesty of the man, we should be inclined to suspect that +his defence of the verses proceeded from a concealed enemy. We are not +unaware that the question cannot even yet be regarded as finally and +incontrovertibly settled, but we apprehend the truth to be that Mr. +Smith, not having read one syllable upon the subject, but having +accidentally heard that there was a disputed verse in St. John relative +to the doctrine of the Trinity, and that it had been given up by the +Bishop of Lincoln, thought he could not do better than by one dash of +the pen, to show his knowledge of controversy, and the orthodoxy of his +belief, at the expense of that prelate's character for discretion and +zeal.... + +The next note is mere political, an ebullition of party rage, in which +Mr. Smith abuses the present ministry with great bitterness, talks of +"wickedness," "weakness," "ignorance," "temerity," after the usual +fashion of opposition pamphlets, and clamours loudly against what, with +an obstinacy of misrepresentation hardly to be credited, he persists in +terming the "persecuting laws" against the Roman Catholics.... He is +very anxious that his political friends should not desist from urging +the question--an act of tergiversation and unconsistency which, he +thinks, would ruin them in the estimation of the public. Yet, if we +mistake not, these gentlemen, at least that portion of them with which +Mr. Smith (as we are told) is most closely connected, gave up, without a +blush, India, Reform, and Peace, all of which they taught us to believe +were vital questions in which the honour or the security of the country +was involved. But Catholic emancipation has some peculiar +recommendations. It is odious to the people, and painful to the King, +and therefore it cannot be delayed, without an utter sacrifice of +character.... + +Now we are by no means so eager on Mr. Smith in what he would term the +cause of _religious freedom_. We belong to that vulgar school of timid +churchmen, to whom the elevation of a vast body of sectaries to a level +with the establishment, is a matter of very grave consideration, if not +of alarm. We think that something is due to the prejudices (supposing +them to be no more than prejudices) of nine-tenths of the people of +England; and we are even so childish (for which we crave Mr. Smith's +pardon) as to pay some regard to the feelings of the King, in whose +personal mortification, we fairly own, we should not take the smallest +pleasure.... + +We now take leave of the sermon and its notes. But, before we conclude, +we are desirous ... to convey to Mr. Smith a little salutary advice ... +to remind him that unmeasured severity of invective against others, will +naturally produce, at the first favourable opportunity, a retort of +similar harshness upon himself; and that unless he feels himself +completely invulnerable, the conduct which he has hitherto pursued, is +not only uncharitable and violent, but foolish. He should be told that, +although he possesses some talents, they are by no means, as he +supposes, of the first order. He writes in a tone of superiority which +would hardly be justifiable at the close of a long and successful +literary career. His acquirements are very moderate, though he wants +neither boldness nor dexterity in displaying them to the best advantage; +and he is far, very far indeed, from being endowed with that powerful, +disciplined, and comprehensive mind, which should entitle him to decide +authoritatively and at once upon the most difficult parts of subjects so +far removed from one another as biblical criticism and legislation. His +style is rapid and lively, but hasty and inaccurate; and he either +despises or is incapable of regular and finished composition. + +Humour, indeed (we speak now generally, of all these performances which +have been ascribed to him by common consent), is his strong point; and +here he is often successful; but even from this praise many deductions +must be made. His jokes are broad and coarse; he is altogether a +mannerist, and never knows where to stop. The [Greek: _Paedenagan_] +seems quite unknown to him. His pleasantry does not proceed from keen +and well-supported irony; just, but unexpected comparisons; but depends, +for effect, chiefly upon strange polysyllabic epithets, and the endless +enumeration of minute circumstances. In this he, no doubt, displays +considerable ingenuity, and a strong sense of what is ludicrous; but his +good things are almost all prepared after one receipt. There is some +talent, but more trick, in their composition. The thing is well done, +but it is of a low order; we meet with nothing graceful, nothing +exquisite, nothing that pleases upon repetition and reflection. In +everything that Mr. Smith attempts, in all his "bravura" passages, +serious or comic, one is always shocked by some affectation or +absurdity; something in direct defiance of all those principles which +have been established by the authority of the best critics, and the +example of the best writers: indeed, bad taste seems to be Mr. Smith's +evil genius, both as to sentiment and expression. It is always hovering +near him, and, like one of the harpies, is sure to pounce down before +the end of the feast, and spoil the banquet, and disgust the guests. + +The present publication is by far the worst of all his performances, +avowed or imputed. Literary merit it has none; but in arrogance, +presumption, and absurdity, it far outdoes all his former outdoings. +Indeed, we regard it as one of the most deplorable mistakes that has +ever been committed by a man of supposed talents.... + + + + +ON MACAULAY + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, March, 1849] + +_The History of England from the Accession of James II_. +By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. 2 vols. 8vo. 1849. + +The reading world will not need our testimony, though we willingly give +it, that Mr. Macaulay possesses great talents and extraordinary +acquirements. He unites powers and has achieved successes, not only +various, but different in their character, and seldom indeed conjoined +in one individual. He was while in Parliament, though not quite an +orator, and still less a debater, the most brilliant rhetorician of the +House. His Roman ballads (as we said in an article on their first +appearance) exhibit a novel idea worked out with a rare felicity, so as +to combine the spirit of the ancient minstrels with the regularity of +construction and sweetness of versification which modern taste requires; +and his critical Essays exhibit a wide variety of knowledge with a great +fertility of illustration, and enough of the salt of pleasantry and +sarcasm to flavour and in some degree disguise a somewhat declamatory +and pretentious dogmatism. It may seem too epigrammatic, but it is, in +our serious judgment, strictly true, to say that his History seems to be +a kind of combination and exaggeration of the peculiarities of all his +former efforts. It is as full of political prejudice and partisan +advocacy as any of his parliamentary speeches. It makes the facts of +English History as fabulous as his Lays do those of Roman tradition; and +it is written with as captious, as dogmatical, and as cynical a spirit +as the bitterest of his Reviews. That upon so serious an undertaking he +has lavished uncommon exertion, is not to be doubted; nor can any one +during the first reading escape the _entrainement_ of his picturesque, +vivid, and pregnant execution: but we have fairly stated the impression +left on ourselves by a more calm and leisurely perusal. We have been so +long the opponents of the political party to which Mr. Macaulay belongs +that we welcomed the prospect of again meeting him on the neutral ground +of literature. We are of that class of Tories--Protestant Tories, as +they were called--that have no sympathy with the Jacobites. We are as +strongly convinced as Mr. Macaulay can be of the necessity of the +Revolution of 1688--of the general prudence and expediency of the steps +taken by our Whig and Tory ancestors of the Convention Parliament, and +of the happiness, for a century and a half, of the constitutional +results. We were, therefore, not without hope that at least in these two +volumes, almost entirely occupied with the progress and accomplishment +of that Revolution, we might without any sacrifice of our political +feelings enjoy unalloyed the pleasures reasonably to be expected from +Mr. Macaulay's high powers both of research and illustration. That hope +has been deceived: Mr. Macaulay's historical narrative is poisoned with +a rancour more violent than even the passions of the time; and the +literary qualities of the work, though in some respects very remarkable, +are far from redeeming its substantial defects. There is hardly a page-- +we speak literally, hardly a page--that does not contain something +objectionable either in substance or in colour: and the whole of the +brilliant and at first captivating narrative is perceived on examination +to be impregnated to a really marvellous degree with bad taste, bad +feeling, and, we are under the painful necessity of adding--bad faith. + +These are grave charges: but we make them in sincerity, and we think +that we shall be able to prove them; and if, here or hereafter, we +should seem to our readers to use harsher terms than good taste might +approve, we beg in excuse to plead that it is impossible to fix one's +attention on, and to transcribe large portions of a work, without being +in some degree infected with its spirit; and Mr. Macaulay's pages, +whatever may be their other characteristics, are as copious a +repertorium of vituperative eloquence as, we believe, our language can +produce, and especially against everything in which he chooses (whether +right or wrong) to recognise the shibboleth of Toryism. We shall +endeavour, however, in the expression of our opinions, to remember the +respect we owe to our readers and to Mr. Macaulay's general character +and standing in the world of letters, rather than the provocations and +examples of the volumes immediately before us. + +Mr. Macaulay announces his intention of bringing down the history of +England almost to our own times; but these two volumes are complete in +themselves, and we may fairly consider them as a history of the +Revolution; and in that light the first question that presents itself to +us is why Mr. Macaulay has been induced to re-write what had already +been so often and even so recently written--among others, by Dalrymple, +a strenuous but honest Whig, and by Mr. Macaulay's own oracles, Fox and +Mackintosh? It may be answered that both Fox and Mackintosh left their +works imperfect. Fox got no farther than Monmouth's death; but +Mackintosh came down to the Orange invasion, and covered full nine-tenths +of the period as yet occupied by Mr. Macaulay. Why then did Mr. +Macaulay not content himself with beginning where Mackintosh left off-- +that is, with the Revolution? and it would have been the more natural, +because, as our readers know, it is there that Hume's history +terminates. + +What reason does he give for this work of supererogation? None. He does +not (as we shall see more fully by and by) take the slightest notice of +Mackintosh's history, no more than if it had never existed. Has he +produced a new fact? Not one. Has he discovered any new materials? None, +as far as we can judge, but the collections of Fox and Mackintosh, +confided to him by their families.[1] It seems to us a novelty in +literary practice that a writer raised far by fame and fortune above the +vulgar temptations of the craft should undertake to tell a story already +frequently and recently told by masters of the highest authority and +most extensive information, without having, or even professing to have, +any additional means or special motive to account for the attempt. + +[1] It appears from two notes of acknowledgments to M. Guizot and the + keepers of the archives at The Hague, that Mr. Macaulay obtained + some additions to the copies which Mackintosh already had of the + letters of Ronquillo the Spanish and Citters the Dutch minister at + the court of James. We may conjecture that these additions were + insignificant, since Mr. Macaulay has nowhere, that we have + observed, specially noticed them; but except these, whatever they + may be, we find no trace of anything that Fox and Mackintosh had not + already examined and classed. + +We suspect, however, that we can trace Mr. Macaulay's design to its true +source--the example and success of the author of Waverley. The +historical novel, if not invented, at least first developed and +illustrated by the happy genius of Scott, took a sudden and extensive +hold of the public taste; he himself, in most of his subsequent novels, +availed himself largely of the historical element which had contributed +so much to the popularity of Waverley. The press has since that time +groaned with his imitators. We have had historical novels of all classes +and grades. We have had served up in this form the Norman Conquest and +the Wars of the Roses, the Gunpowder Plot and the Fire of London, +Darnley and Richelieu--and almost at the same moment with Mr. Macaulay's +appeared a professed romance of Mr. Ainsworth's on the same subject-- +James II. Nay, on a novelist of this popular order has been conferred +the office of _Historiographer_ to the Queen. + +Mr. Macaulay, too mature not to have well measured his own peculiar +capacities, not rich in invention but ingenious in application, saw the +use that might be made of this principle, and that history itself would +be much more popular with a large embroidery of personal, social, and +even topographical anecdote and illustration, instead of the sober garb +in which we had been in the habit of seeing it. Few histories indeed +ever were or could be written without some admixture of this sort. The +father of the art himself, old Herodotus, vivified his text with a +greater share of what we may call personal anecdote than any of his +classical followers. Modern historians, as they happened to have more or +less of what we may call _artistic_ feeling, admitted more or less of +this decoration into their text, but always with an eye (which Mr. +Macaulay never exercises) to the appropriateness and value of the +illustration. Generally, however, such matters have been thrown into +notes, or, in a few instances--as by Dr. Henry and in Mr. Knight's +interesting and instructive "Pictorial History"--into separate chapters. +The large class of memoir-writers may also be fairly considered as +anecdotical historians--and they are in fact the sources from which the +novelists of the new school extract their principal characters and main +incidents. + +Mr. Macaulay deals with history, evidently, as we think, in imitation of +the novelists--his first object being always picturesque effect--his +constant endeavour to give from all the repositories of gossip that have +reached us a kind of circumstantial reality to his incidents, and a sort +of dramatic life to his personages. For this purpose he would not be +very solicitous about contributing any substantial addition to history, +strictly so called; on the contrary, indeed, he seems to have willingly +taken it as he found it, adding to it such lace and trimmings as he +could collect from the Monmouth-street of literature, seldom it may be +safely presumed of very delicate quality. It is, as Johnson drolly said, +"an old coat with a new facing--the old dog in a new doublet." The +conception was bold, and--so far as availing himself, like other +novelists, of the fashion of the day to produce a popular and profitable +effect--the experiment has been eminently successful. + +But besides the obvious incentives just noticed, Mr. Macaulay had also +the stimulus of what we may compendiously call a strong party spirit. +One would have thought that the Whigs might have been satisfied with +their share in the historical library of the Revolution:--besides Rapin, +Echard, and Jones, who, though of moderate politics in general, were +stout friends to the Revolution, they have had of professed and zealous +Whigs, Burnet, the foundation of all, Kennett, Oldmixon, Dalrymple, +Laing, Brodie, Fox, and finally Mackintosh and his continuator, besides +innumerable writers of less note, who naturally adopted the successful +side; and we should not have supposed that the reader of any of those +historians, and particularly the later ones, could complain that they +had been too sparing of imputation, or even vituperation, to the +opposite party. But not so Mr. Macaulay. The most distinctive feature on +the face of his pages is personal virulence--if he has at all succeeded +in throwing an air of fresh life into his characters, it is mainly due, +as any impartial and collected reader will soon discover, to the simple +circumstance of his hating the individuals of the opposite party as +bitterly, as passionately, as if they were his own personal enemies-- +more so, indeed, we hope than he would a mere political antagonist of +his own day. When some one suggested to the angry O'Neil that one of the +Anglo-Irish families whom he was reviling as strangers had been four +hundred years settled in Ireland, the Milesian replied, "_I hate the +churls as if they had come but yesterday_." Mr. Macaulay seems largely +endowed with this (as with a more enviable) species of memory, and he +hates, for example, King Charles I as if he had been murdered only +yesterday. Let us not be understood as wishing to abridge an historian's +full liberty of censure--but he should not be a satirist, still less a +libeller. We do not say nor think that Mr. Macaulay's censures were +always unmerited--far from it--but they are always, we think without +exception, immoderate. Nay, it would scarcely be too much to say that +this massacre of character is the point on which Mr. Macaulay must +chiefly rest any claims he can advance to the praise of impartiality, +for while he paints everything that looks like a Tory in the blackest +colours, he does not altogether spare any of the Whigs against whom he +takes a spite, though he always visits them with a gentler correction. +In fact, except Oliver Cromwell, King William, a few gentlemen who had +the misfortune to be executed or exiled for high treason, and every +dissenting minister that he has or can find occasion to notice, there +are hardly any persons mentioned who are not stigmatized as knaves or +fools, differing only in degrees of "turpitude" and "imbecility". Mr. +Macaulay has almost realized the work that Alexander Chalmers's playful +imagination had fancied, a _Biographia Flagitiosa_, or _The Lives of +Eminent Scoundrels_. This is also an imitation of the Historical Novel, +though rather in the track of Eugene Aram and Jack Sheppard than of +Waverley or Woodstock; but what would you have? To attain the +picturesque--the chief object of our artist--he adopts the ready process +of dark colours and a rough brush. Nature, even at the worst, is never +gloomy enough for a Spagnoletto, and Judge Jeffries himself, for the +first time, excites a kind of pity when we find him (like one to whom he +was nearly akin) not so black as he is painted. + +From this first general view of Mr. Macaulay's Historical Novel, we now +proceed to exhibit in detail some grounds for the opinion which we have +ventured to express. + +We premise that we are about to enter into details, because there is in +fact little to question or debate about but details. We have already +hinted that there is absolutely no new fact of any consequence, and, we +think we can safely add, hardly a new view of any historical fact, in +the whole book. Whatever there may remain questionable or debatable in +the history of the period, we should have to argue with Burnet, +Dalrymple, or Mackintosh, and not with Mr. Macaulay. It would, we know, +have a grander air if we were to make his book the occasion of +disquisitions on the rise and progress of the constitution--on the +causes by which the monarchy of the Tudors passed, through the murder of +Charles, to the despotism of Cromwell--how again that produced a +restoration which settled none of the great moral or political questions +which had generated all those agitations, and which, in return, those +agitations had complicated and inflamed--and how, at last, the +undefined, discordant, and antagonistic pretensions of the royal and +democratical elements were reconciled by the Revolution and the Bill of +Rights--and finally, whether with too much or too little violence to the +principles of the ancient constitution--all these topics, we say, would, +if we were so inclined, supply us, as they have supplied Mr. Macaulay, +with abundant opportunities of grave tautology and commonplace; but we +decline to raise sham debates on points where there is no contest. We +can have little historic difference, properly so called, with one who +has no historical difference on the main facts with anybody else: +instead, then, of pretending to treat any great questions, either of +constitutional learning or political philosophy, we shall confine +ourselves to the humbler but more practical and more useful task above +stated. + +Our first complaint is of a comparatively small and almost mechanical, +and yet very real, defect--the paucity and irregularity of his dates, +and the mode in which the few that he does give are overlaid, as it +were, by the text. This, though it may be very convenient to the writer, +and quite indifferent to the reader, of an historical romance, is +perplexing to any one who might wish to read and weigh the book as a +serious history, of which dates are the guides and landmarks; and when +they are visibly neglected we cannot but suspect that the historian will +be found not very solicitous about strict accuracy. This negligence is +carried to such an extent that, in what looks like a very copious table +of contents, one of the most important events of the whole history-- +that, indeed, on which the Revolution finally turned--the marriage of +Princess Mary to the Prince of Orange, is not noticed; nor is any date +affixed to the very cursory mention of it in the text. It is rather hard +to force the reader who buys this last new model history, in general so +profuse of details, to recur to one of the old-fashioned ones to +discover that this important event happened in the year 1675, and on the +4th of November--a day thrice over remarkable in William's history--for +his birth, his marriage, and his arrival with his invading army on the +coast of Devon. + +Our second complaint is of one of the least important, perhaps, but most +prominent defects of Mr. Macaulay's book--his Style--not merely the +choice and order of words, commonly called style, but the turn of mind +which prompts the choice of expressions as well as of topics. We need +not repeat that Mr. Macaulay has a great facility of language, a +prodigal _copia verborum_--that he narrates rapidly and clearly--that he +paints very forcibly,--and that his readers throughout the tale are +carried on, or away, by something of the sorcery which a brilliant +orator exercises over his auditory. But he has also in a great degree +the faults of the oratorical style. He deals much too largely in +epithets--a habit exceedingly dangerous to historical truth. He +habitually constructs a piece of what should be calm, dispassionate +narrative, upon the model of the most passionate peroration--adhering in +numberless instances to precisely the same specific formula of artifice. +His diction is often inflated into fustian, and he indulges in +exaggeration till it sometimes, unconsciously no doubt, amounts to +falsehood. It is a common fault of those who strive at producing +oratorical effects, to oscillate between commonplace and extravagance; +and while studying Mr. Macaulay, one feels as if vibrating between facts +that every one knows and consequences which nobody can believe. We are +satisfied that whoever will take, as we have been obliged to do, the +pains of sifting what Mr. Macaulay has produced from his own mind with +what he has borrowed from others, will be entirely of our opinion. In +truth, when, after reading a page or two of this book, we have occasion +to turn to the same transaction in Burnet, Dalrymple, or Hume, we feel +as if we were exchanging the glittering agility of a rope-dancer for +gentlemen in the attire and attitude of society. And we must say that +there is not one of those writers that does not give a clearer and more +trustworthy account of all that is really historical in the period than +can be collected from Mr. Macaulay's more decorated pages. We invite our +readers to try Mr. Macaulay's merits as an historian by the test of +comparison with his predecessors. + + * * * * * + +Every great painter is supposed to make a larger use of one particular +colour. What a monstrous bladderful of _infamy_ Mr. Macaulay must have +squeezed on his palette when he took to portrait-painting! We have no +concern, except as friends to historical justice, for the characters of +any of the parties thus stigmatized, nor have we room or time to discuss +these, or the hundred other somewhat similar cases which the volumes +present; but we have looked at the authorities cited by Mr. Macaulay, +and we do not hesitate to say that, "as is his wont," he has, with the +exception of Jeffries, outrageously exaggerated them. + +We must next notice the way in which Mr. Macaulay refers to and uses his +authorities--no trivial points in the execution of a historical work-- +though we shall begin with comparatively small matters. In his chapter +on manners, which we may call the most remarkable in his book, one of +his most frequent references is to "Chamberlayne's State of England, +1684." It is referred to at least a dozen or fourteen times in that +chapter alone; but we really have some doubt whether Mr. Macaulay knew +the nature of the book he so frequently quoted. Chamberlayne's work, of +which the real title is "_Angliae_ [or, after the Scotch Union, _Magnae +Britanniae_] _Notitia, or the Present State of England_" [or _Great +Britain_], was a kind of periodical publication, half history and half +court-calendar. It was first published in 1669, and new editions or +reprints, with new dates, were issued, not annually, we believe, but so +frequently that there are between thirty and forty of them in the +Museum, ending with 1755. From the way and for the purposes for which +Mr. Macaulay quotes Chamberlayne, we should almost suspect that he had +lighted on the volume for 1684, and, knowing of no other, considered it +as a substantive work published in that year. _Once_ indeed he cites the +date of 1686, but there was, it seems, no edition of that year, and this +may be an accidental error; but however that may be, our readers will +smile when they hear that the two first and several following passages +which Mr. Macaulay cites from Chamberlayne (i. 290 and 291), as +_characteristic_ of the _days of Charles II_, distinctively from more +modern times, are to be found _literatim_ in every succeeding +"Chamberlayne" down to 1755--the last we have seen--were thus +continually reproduced because the proprietors and editors of the table +book knew they were _not_ particularly characteristical of one year or +reign more than another--and now, in 1849, might be as well quoted as +characteristics of the reign of George II as of Charles II. We must add +that there are references to Chamberlayne and to several weightier books +(some of which we shall notice more particularly hereafter), as +justifying assertions for which, on examining the said books with our +best diligence, we have not been able to find a shadow of authority. + +Our readers know that there was a Dr. John Eachard who wrote a +celebrated work on the "Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the +Clergy." They also know that there was a Dr. Lawrence Echard who wrote +both a History of England, and a History of the Revolution. Both of +these were remarkable men; but we almost doubt whether Mr. Macaulay, who +quotes the works of each, does not confound their persons, for he refers +to them both by the common (as it may once have been) name of _Each_ard, +and at least twenty times by the wrong name. This, we admit, is a small +matter; but what will some Edinburgh Reviewer (_temp_. Albert V) say if +he finds a writer confounding _Catherine_ and _Thomas_ Macaulay as "the +celebrated author of the great Whig History of England"--a confusion +hardly worse than that of the two Eachards--for Catherine, though now +forgotten by an ungrateful public, made quite as much noise in her day +as Thomas does in ours. + +But we are sorry to say we have a heavier complaint against Mr. +Macaulay. We accuse him of a habitual and really injurious perversion of +his authorities. This unfortunate indulgence, in whatever juvenile +levity it may have originated, and through whatever steps it may have +grown into an unconscious habit, seems to us to pervade the whole work-- +from Alpha to Omega--from Procopius to Mackintosh--and it is on that +very account the more difficult to bring to the distinct conception of +our readers. Individual instances can be, and shall be, produced; but +how can we extract and exhibit the minute particles that colour every +thread of the texture?--how extract the impalpable atoms that have +fermented the whole brewing? We must do as Dr. Faraday does at the +Institution when he exhibits in miniature the larger processes of +Nature. We will suppose, then--taking a simple phrase as the fairest for +the experiment--that Mr. Macaulay found Barillon saying in French, "_le +drole m'a fait peur_," or Burnet saying in English, "_the fellow +frightened me_." We should be pretty sure not to find the same words in +Mr. Macaulay. He would pause--he would first consider whether "the +fellow" spoken of was a _Whig_ or a _Tory_. If a Whig, the thing would +be treated as a joke, and Mr. Macaulay would transmute it playfully into +"_the rogue startled me_"; but if a _Tory_, it would take a deeper dye, +and we should find "_the villain assaulted me_"; and in either case we +should have a grave reference to + + Jan. 31, +"Barillon,-------- 1686"; or, "Burnet, i. 907." + Feb. 1, + +If our reader will keep this formula in his mind, he will find it a fair +exponent of Mr. Macaulay's _modus operandi_.... + +We shall now proceed to more general topics. We decline, as we set out +by saying, to treat this "New Atalantis" as a serious history, and +therefore we shall not trouble our readers with matters of such remote +interest as the errors and anachronisms with which the chapter that +affects to tell our earlier history abounds. Our readers would take no +great interest in a discussion whether Hengist was as fabulous as +Hercules, Alaric a Christian born, and "the fair chapels of New College +and St. George" at Windsor of the same date. But there is one subject in +that chapter on which we cannot refrain from saying a few words--THE +CHURCH. + +We decline to draw any inferences from this work as to Mr. Macaulay's +own religious opinions; but it is our duty to say--and we trust we may +do so without offence--that Mr. Macaulay's mode of dealing with the +general principle of Church government, and the doctrine, discipline, +and influence of the Church of England, cannot fail to give serious +pain, and sometimes to excite a stronger feeling than pain, in the mind +of every friend to that Church, whether in its spiritual or corporate +character. + +He starts with a notion that the fittest engine to redeem England from +the mischiefs and mistakes of oligarchical feudalism was to be found in +the imposing machinery and deception of the Roman Church; overlooking +the great truth that it was not the Romish Church, but the genius of +Christianity, working its vast but silent change, which was really +guiding on the chariot of civilization; but in this broad principle +there was not enough of the picturesqueness of detail to captivate his +mind. It would not suit him to distinguish between the Church of Christ +and the web of corruptions that had grown about her, but could not +effectually arrest the benignant influence inherent in her mainspring. +He therefore leads his readers to infer that Christianity came first to +Britain with St. Austin, and for aught that Mr. Macaulay condescends to +inform us, the existence of a prior Anglo-Saxon Church was a monkish +fiction. The many unhappy circumstances of the position taken up by the +Romish Church in its struggles for power--some of them unavoidable, it +may be, if such a battle were to be fought--are actually displayed as so +many blessings, attainable only by a system which the historian himself +condemns elsewhere as baneful and untrue. He maintains these strange +paradoxes and contradictions with a pertinacity quite surprising. He +doubts whether a true form of Christianity would have answered the +purposes of liberty and civilization half so well as the acknowledged +duplicities of the Church of Rome. + + It may perhaps be doubted whether a purer religion might not have been + found a less efficient agent.--i. 23. + + There is a point in the life both of an individual and a society at + which submission and faith, such as at a later period would be justly + called servility and credulity, are useful qualities.--i. 47. + +These are specimens of the often exposed fallacies in which he delights +to indulge. Place right and wrong in a state of uncertainty by reflected +lights, and you may fill up your picture as you like. And such for ever +is Mr. Macaulay's principle of art. It is not the elimination of error +that he seeks for, but an artistic balance of conflicting forces. And +this he pursues throughout: deposing the dignity of the historian for +the clever antithesis of the pamphleteer. At last, on this great and +important point of religious history--a point which more than any other +influences every epoch of English progress, he arrives at this pregnant +and illustrative conclusion-- + + It is difficult to say whether England owes more to the Roman Catholic + religion or to the Reformation.--i. 49. + +England owes nothing to "the Roman Catholic religion." She owes +everything to CHRISTIANITY, which Romanism injured and hampered but +could not destroy, and which the Reformation freed at least from the +worst of those impure and impeding excrescences. + +With regard to his treatment of the Reformation, and especially of the +Church of England, it is very difficult to give our readers an adequate +idea. Throughout a system of depreciation--we had almost said insult--is +carried on: sneers, sarcasms, injurious comparisons, sly +misrepresentations, are all adroitly mingled throughout the narrative, +so as to produce an unfavourable impression, which the author has not +the frankness to attempt directly. Even when obliged to approach the +subject openly, it is curious to observe how, under a slight veil of +impartiality, imputations are raised and calumnies accredited. For +instance, early in the first volume he gives us his view of the English +Reformation, as a kind of middle term, emerging out of the antagonist +struggles of the Catholics and Calvinists: and it is impossible not to +see that, between the three parties, he awards to the Catholics the +merit of unity and consistency; to the Calvinists, of reason and +independence; to the Anglicans, the lowest motives of expediency and +compromise. To enforce this last topic he relies on the inconsistencies, +some real and some imaginary, imputed to Cranmer, whose notions of +worldly expedience he chooses to represent as the source of the Anglican +Church.... + +Every one of the circumstances on which we may presume that Mr. Macaulay +would rely as justifying these charges has been long since, to more +candid judgments, either disproved, explained, or excused, and in truth +whatever blame can be justly attributed to any of them, belongs mainly, +if not exclusively, to those whose violence and injustice drove a +naturally upright and most conscientious man into the shifts and +stratagems of self-defence. With the greatest fault and the only crime +that Charles in his whole life committed Mr. Macaulay does not reproach +him--the consent to the execution of Lord Strafford--that indeed, as he +himself penitentially confessed, was a deadly weight on his conscience, +and is an indelible stain on his character; but even that guilt and +shame belongs in a still greater degree to Mr. Macaulay's patriot +heroes. + +This leads us to the conclusive plea which we enter to Mr. Macaulay's +indictment, namely--that all those acts alleged as the excuses of +rebellion and regicide occurred after the rebellion had broken out, and +were at worst only devices of the unhappy King to escape from the +regicide which he early foresaw. It was really the old story of the wolf +and the lamb. It was far down the stream of rebellion that these acts of +supposed perfidy on the part of Charles could be said to have troubled +it. + +But while he thus deals with the lamb, let us see how he treats the +wolf. We have neither space nor taste for groping through the long and +dark labyrinth of Cromwell's proverbial duplicity and audacious +apostacy: we shall content ourselves with two facts, which, though +stated in the gentlest way by Mr. Macaulay, will abundantly justify the +opinion which all mankind, except a few republican zealots, hold of that +man's sincerity, of whose abilities, wonderful as they were, the most +remarkable, and perhaps the most serviceable to his fortunes, was his +hypocrisy; so much so, that South--a most acute observer of mankind, and +who had been educated under the Commonwealth and Protectorate--in his +sermon on "Worldly Wisdom," adduces Cromwell as an instance of "habitual +dissimulation and imposture." Oliver, Mr. Macaulay tells us, modelled +his army on the principle of composing it of men fearing God, and +zealous for _public liberty_, and in the very next page he is forced to +confess that + + thirteen years followed in which for the first and the last time the + civil power of our country was subjected to military dictation.--i. + 120. + +Again, + + Oliver had made his choice. He had kept the hearts of his soldiers, + but he had _broken_ with every other class of his fellow citizens.--i. + 129. + +That is, he had broken through all the promises, pledges, and specious +pretences by which he had deceived and enslaved the nation, which Mr. +Macaulay calls with such opportune _naivete, his fellow citizens_! Then +follows, not a censure of this faithless usurpation, but many laboured +apologies, and even defences of it, and a long series of laudatory +epithets, some of which are worth collecting as a rare contrast to Mr. +Macaulay's usual style, and particularly to the abuse of Charles, which +we have just exhibited. + + His _genius and resolution_ made him more _absolute master of his + country_ than any of her legitimate Kings had been.--i. 129. + +He having cut off the legitimate King's head on a pretence that Charles +had wished to make himself _absolutely master of the country_. + + Everything yielded to the _vigour and ability_ of Cromwell.--i. 130. + + The Government, though in the form of a Republic, was in truth a + despotism, moderated only by the _wisdom, the sober-mindedness, and + the magnanimity_ of the despot.--i. 137. + +With a vast deal more of the same tone. + +But Mr. Macaulay particularly expatiates on the influence that Cromwell +exercised over foreign states: and there is hardly any topic to which he +recurs with more pleasure, or, as we think, with less sagacity, than the +terror with which Cromwell and the contempt with which the Stuarts +inspired the nations of Europe. He somewhat exaggerates the extent of +this feeling, and greatly misstates or mistakes the cause; and as this +subject is in the present state of the world of more importance than any +others in the work, we hope we may be excused for some observations +tending to a sounder opinion on that subject. + +It was not, as Mr. Macaulay everywhere insists, the personal abilities +and genius of Cromwell that exclusively, or even in the first degree, +carried his foreign influence higher than that of the Stuarts. The +internal struggles that distracted and consumed the strength of these +islands throughout their reigns necessarily rendered us little +formidable to our neighbours; and it is with no good grace that a Whig +historian stigmatises that result as shameful; for, without discussing +whether it was justifiable or not, the fact is certain, that it was +opposition of the Whigs--often in rebellion and always in faction +against the Government--which disturbed all progress at home and +paralysed every effort abroad. We are not, we say, now discussing +whether that opposition was not justifiable and may not have been +ultimately advantageous in several constitutional points; we think it +decidedly was: but at present all we mean to do is to show that it had a +great share in producing on our foreign influence the lowering effects +of which Mr. Macaulay complains. + +And there is still another consideration which escapes Mr. Macaulay in +his estimate of such usurpers as Cromwell and Buonaparte. A usurper is +always more terrible both at home and abroad than a legitimate +sovereign: first, the usurper is likely to be (and in these two cases +was) a man of superior genius and military glory, wielding the +irresistible power of the sword; but there is still stronger contrast-- +legitimate Governments are bound--at home by laws--abroad by treaties, +family ties, and international interests; they acknowledge the law of +nations, and are limited, even in hostilities, by many restraints and +bounds. The despotic usurpers had no fetters of either sort--they had no +opposition at home, and no scruples abroad. Law, treaties, rights, and +the like, had been already broken through like cobwebs, and kings +naturally humbled themselves before a vigour that had dethroned and +murdered kings, and foreign nations trembled at a power that had subdued +in their own fields and cities the pride of England and the gallantry of +France! To contrast Cromwell and Charles II, Napoleon and Louis XVIII, +is sheer nonsense and mere verbiage--it is as if one should compare the +house-dog and the wolf, and argue that the terror inspired by the latter +was very much to his honour. All this is such a mystery to Mr. Macaulay +that he wanders into two theories so whimsical, that we hesitate between +passing them by as absurdities, or producing them for amusement; we +adopt the latter. One is that Cromwell could have no interest and +therefore no personal share in the death of Charles. "Whatever Cromwell +was," says Mr. Macaulay, "he was no fool; and he must have known that +Charles I was obviously a less difficulty in his way than Charles II." +Cromwell, we retain the phrase, "was no fool," and he thought and +_found_ that Charles II, was, as far as he was concerned, no difficulty +at all. The real truth was, that the revolutionary party in England in +1648, like that in France in 1792, was but a rope of sand which nothing +could cement and consolidate but the _blood of the Kings--that_ was a +common crime and a common and indissoluble tie which gave all their +consistency and force to both revolutions--a stroke of original sagacity +in Cromwell and of imitative dexterity in Robespierre. If Mr. Macaulay +admits, as he subsequently does (i. 129), that the regicide was "a +sacrament of blood," by which the party became irrevocably bound to each +other and separated from the rest of the nation, how can he pretend that +Cromwell derived no advantage from it? In fact, his admiration--we had +almost said fanaticism--for Cromwell betrays him throughout into the +blindest inconsistencies. + +The second vision of Mr. Macaulay is, if possible, still more absurd. He +imagines a Cromwell dynasty! If it had not been for Monk and his army, +the rest of the nation would have been loyal to the son of the +illustrious Oliver. + + Had the Protector and the Parliament been suffered to proceed + undisturbed, there can be little doubt that an order of things similar + to that which was afterwards established under the House of Hanover, + would have been established under the house of Cromwell.--i. 142. + +And yet in a page or two Mr. Macaulay is found making an admission-- +made, indeed, with the object of disparaging Monk and the royalists--but +which gives to his theory of a Cromwellian dynasty the most conclusive +refutation. + + It was probably not till Monk had been some days in the capital that + he made up his mind. The cry of the whole people was for a free + parliament; and there could _be no doubt that a parliament really free + would instantly restore the exiled family_.--i. 147. + +All this hypothesis of a Cromwellian dynasty _looks_ like sheer +nonsense; but we have no doubt it has a meaning, and we request our +readers not to be diverted by the almost ludicrous partiality and +absurdity of Mr. Macaulay's speculations from an appreciation of the +deep hostility to the monarchy from which they arise. They are like +bubbles on the surface of a dark pool, which indicate there is something +rotten below. + +We should if we had time have many other complaints to make of the +details of this chapter, which are deeply coloured with all Mr. +Macaulay's prejudices and passions. He is, we may almost say of course, +violent and unjust against Strafford and Clarendon; and the most +prominent touch of candour that we can find in this period of his +history is, that he slurs over the murder of Laud in an abscure +half-line (i. 119) as if he were--as we hope he really is--ashamed of +it. + +We now arrive at what we have heard called the celebrated third chapter +--celebrated it deserves to be, and we hope our humble observations may +add something to its celebrity. There is no feature of Mr. Macaulay's +book on which, we believe, he more prides himself, and which has been in +truth more popular with his readers, than the descriptions which he +introduces of the residences, habits, and manners of our ancestors. They +are, provided you do not look below the surface, as entertaining as +Pepys or Pennant, or any of the many scrap-book histories which have +been recently fabricated from those old materials; but when we come to +examine them, we find that in these cases, as everywhere else, Mr. +Macaulay's propensity to caricature and exaggerate leads him not merely +to disfigure circumstances, but totally to forget the principle on which +such episodes are admissible into regular history--namely, the +illustration of the story. They should be, as it were, woven into the +narrative, and not, as Mr. Macaulay generally treats them, stitched on +like patches. This latter observation does not of course apply to the +collecting a body of miscellaneous facts into a separate chapter, as +Hume and others have done; but Mr. Macaulay's chapter, besides, as we +shall show, the prevailing inaccuracy of its details, has one general +and essential defect specially its own. + +The moment Mr. Macaulay has selected for suspending his narrative to +take a view of the surface and society of England is the death of +Charles II. Now we think no worse point of time could have been chosen +for tracing the obscure but very certain connection between political +events and the manners of a people. The restoration, for instance, was +an era in manners as well as in politics--so was in a fainter degree the +Revolution--either, or both, of those periods would have afforded a +natural position for contemplating a going and a coming order of things; +but we believe that there are no two periods in our annals which were so +identical in morals and politics--so undistinguishable, in short, in any +national view--as the latter years of Charles and the earlier years of +James. Here then is an objection _in limine_ to this famous chapter--and +not _in limine_ only, but in substance; for in fact the period he has +chosen would not have furnished out the chapter, four-fifths of which +belong to a date later than that which he professes to treat of. In +short, the chapter is like an old curiosity-shop, into which--no matter +whether it happens to stand in Charles Street, William Street, or George +Street--the knick-knacks of a couple of centuries are promiscuously +jumbled. What does it signify, in a history of the reign of Charles II, +that a writer, "_sixty years after the Revolution_" (i. 347), says that +in the lodging-houses at Bath "the hearth-slabs" were "freestone, not +marble"--that "the best apartments were hung with coarse woollen stuff, +and furnished with rush-bottomed chairs"?--nay, that he should have the +personal good taste to lament that in those Boeotian days "_not a +wainscot was painted_" (348); and yet this twaddle of the reign of +George II, patched into the times of Charles II, is the appropriate +occasion which he takes to panegyrise this new mode of elucidating +history?--... + +It is a curious and, to persons of our opinions, not unsatisfactory +circumstance, that, though Mr. Macaulay almost invariably applies the +term _Tory_ in an opprobrious or contemptuous sense, yet so great is the +power of truth in surmounting the fantastical forms and colours laid +over it by this brilliant _badigeonneur_, that on the whole no one, we +believe, can rise from the work without a conviction that the Tories +(whatever may be said of their prejudices) were the honestest and most +conscientious of the whole _dramatis personae_; and it is this fact that +in several instances and circumstances imprints, as it were by force, +upon Mr. Macaulay's pages an air of impartiality and candour very +discordant from their general spirit. + +We are now arrived at the fourth chapter--really the first, strictly +speaking, of Mr. Macaulay's history--the accession of James II, where +also Sir James Mackintosh's history commences. And here we have to open +to our readers the most extraordinary instance of _parallelism_ between +two writers, unacknowledged by the later one, which we have ever seen. +Sir James Mackintosh left behind him a history of the Revolution, which +was published in 1834, three years after his death, in quarto: it comes +down to the Orange invasion, and, though it apparently had not received +the author's last corrections, and was clumsily edited, and tagged with +a continuation by a less able hand, the work is altogether (bating not a +little ultra-Whiggery) very creditable to Mackintosh's diligence, taste, +and power of writing; it is indeed, we think, his best and most +important work, and that by which he will be most favourably known to +posterity. From that work Mr. Macaulay has borrowed largely--prodigally-- +helped himself with both hands--not merely without acknowledging his +obligation, but without so much as alluding to the existence of any such +work. Nay--though this we are sure was never designed--he inserts a note +full of kindness and respect to Sir James Mackintosh, which would +naturally lead an uninformed reader to conclude that Sir James +Mackintosh, though he had _meditated_ such a work, had never even begun +writing it. On the 391st page of Mr. Macaulay's first volume, at the +mention of the old news-letters which preceded our modern newspapers, +Mr. Macaulay says, that "they form a valuable part of the literary +treasures collected by the late Sir James Mackintosh"; and to this he +adds the following foot-note: + + I take this opportunity of expressing my warm gratitude to the family + of my dear and honoured friend Sir James Mackintosh, for confiding to + me the materials collected by him _at a time when he meditated a work + similar to that which I have undertaken._ I have never seen, and I do + not believe that there anywhere exists, within the same compass, so + noble a _collection of extracts_ from public and private archives. The + judgment with which Sir James, in great masses of the rudest ore of + history, selected what was valuable and rejected what was worthless, + can be fully appreciated only by one who has toiled after him in the + same mine.--i. 391. + +Could any one imagine from this that Mackintosh had not only _meditated_ +a work, but actually written, and that his friends had published, a +large closely printed quarto volume, on the same subject, from the same +materials, and sometimes in the very same words as Mr. Macaulay's? + +The coincidence--the identity, we might almost say--of the two works is +so great, that, while we have been comparing them, we have often been +hardly able to distinguish which was which. We rest little on the +similiarity of facts, for the facts were ready made for both; and Mr. +Macaulay tells us that he worked from Mackintosh's materials; there +would, therefore, even if he had never seen Mackintosh's work, be a +community of topics and authorities; but, seeing as we do in every page +that he was writing with Mackintosh's volume before his eyes, we cannot +account for his utter silence about it.... + +Having thus shown Mr. Macaulay's mode of dealing with what forms the +chief and most characteristic feature of his book--its anecdotical +gossip--we shall now endeavour to exhibit the deceptive style in which +he treats the larger historical facts: in truth the style is the same--a +general and unhesitating sacrifice of accuracy and reality to +picturesque effect and party prejudices. He treats historical personages +as the painter does his _layman_--a supple figure which he models into +what he thinks the most striking attitude, and dresses up with the +gaudiest colours and most fantastical draperies. + +It is very difficult to condense into any manageable space the proofs of +a general system of accumulating and aggravating all that was ever, +whether truly or falsely, reproached to the Tories, and alleviating +towards the Whigs the charges which he cannot venture to deny or even to +question. The mode in which this is managed so as to keep up some show +of impartiality is very dexterous. The reproach, well or ill founded, +which he thinks most likely to damage the character of any one he +dislikes, is repeated over and over again in hope that the iteration +will at last be taken for proof, such as the perfidy of Charles I, the +profligacy and selfishness of Charles II, the cold and cruel stupidity +of James, the baseness of Churchill, the indecent violence of Rochester, +the contemptible subserviency of his brother, Clarendon, and so on +through a whole dictionary of abuse on every one whom he takes or +mistakes for a Tory, and on a few Whigs whom for some special reasons of +his own he treats like Tories. On the other hand, when he finds himself +reluctantly forced to acknowledge even the greatest enormity of the +Whigs--corruption--treason--murder he finds much gentler terms for the +facts; selects a scapegoat, some subaltern villain, or some one whom +history has already gibbeted, "to bear upon him all their iniquities," +and that painful sacrifice once made, he avoids with tender care a +recurrence to so disagreeable a subject.... + +After so much political detail it will be some kind of diversion to our +readers to examine Mr. Macaulay's most elaborate strategic and +topographical effort, worked up with all the combined zeal and skill of +an ex-Secretary-at-War and a pictorial historian--a copious description +of the battle of Sedgemoor. Mr. Macaulay seems to have visited +Bridgwater with a zeal worthy of a better result: for it has produced a +description of the surrounding country as pompous and detailed as if it +had been the scene of some grand strategic operations--a parade not +merely unnecessary, but absurd, for the so-called battle was but a +bungling skirmish. Monmouth had intended to surprise the King's troops +in their quarters by a midnight attack, but was stopped by a wide and +deep trench, of which he was not apprised, called Bussex Rhine, behind +which the King's army lay. "The trenches which drain the moor are," Mr. +Macaulay adds, "in that country called _rhines_." On each side of this +ditch the parties stood firing at each other in the dark. Lord Grey and +the cavalry ran away without striking a blow; Monmouth followed them, +too, soon; for some time the foot stood with a degree of courage and +steadiness surprising in such raw and half-armed levies; at last the +King's cavalry got round their flank, and they too ran: the King's foot +then crossed the ditch with little or no resistance, and slaughtered, +with small loss on their own side, a considerable number of the +fugitives, the rest escaping back to Bridgwater. Our readers will judge +whether such a skirmish required a long preliminary description of the +surrounding country. Mr. Macaulay might just as usefully have described +the plain of Troy. Indeed at the close of his long topographical and +etymological narrative Mr. Macaulay has the tardy candour to confess +that-- + + little is now to be learned by visiting the field of battle, for the + face of the country has been greatly changed, and the old _Bussex + Rhine_, on the banks of which the great struggle took place, has long + disappeared. + +This is droll. After spending a deal of space and fine writing in +describing the present prospect, he concludes by telling us candidly it +is all of no use, for the whole scene has changed. This is like +Walpole's story of the French lady who asked for her lover's picture; +and when he demurred observing that, if her husband were to see it, it +might betray their secret--"O dear, no," she said--just like Mr. +Macaulay--"I _will have the picture_, but it _need not be like_!" + +But even as to the change, we again doubt Mr. Macaulay's accuracy. The +word _Rhine_ in Somersetshire, as perhaps--_parva componere magnis_--in +the great German river, means _running_ water, and we therefore think it +very unlikely that a running stream should have disappeared; but we also +find in the Ordnance Survey of Somersetshire, made in our own time, the +course and name of _Bussck's Rhine_ distinctly laid down in front of +Weston, where it probably ran in Monmouth's day; and we are further +informed, in return to some inquiries that we have caused to be made, +that the _Rhine_ is now, in 1849, as visible and well known as ever it +was. + +But this grand piece of the military topography of a battlefield where +there was no battle must have its picturesque and pathetic episode, and +Mr. Macaulay finds one well suited to such a novel. When Monmouth had +made up his mind to attempt to _surprise_ the royal army, Mr. Macaulay +is willing (for a purpose which we shall see presently) to persuade +himself that the Duke let the whole town into his secret:-- + + That an attack was to be made under cover of the night was no secret + in Bridgwater. The town was full of women, who had repaired thither by + hundreds from the surrounding region to see their husbands, sons, + lovers, and brothers once more. There were many sad partings that day; + and many parted never to meet again. The report of the intended attack + came to the ears of a young girl who was zealous for the king. Though + of modest character, she had the courage to resolve that she would + herself bear the intelligence to Feversham. She stole out of + Bridgwater, and made her way to the royal camp. But that camp was not + a place where female innocence could be safe. Even the officers, + despising alike the irregular force to which they were opposed, and + the negligent general who commanded them, had indulged largely in + wine, and were ready for any excess of licentiousness and cruelty. One + of them seized the unhappy maiden, refused to listen to her errand, + and brutally outraged her. She fled in agonies of rage and shame, + leaving the wicked army to its doom.--i. 606, 7. + +--the _doom of the wicked army_, be it noted _en passant_, being a +complete victory. Mr. Macaulay cites Kennett for this story, and adds +that he is "_forced_ to believe the story to be true, because Kennett +declares that it was communicated to him in the year 1718 by a brave +officer who had fought at Sedgemoor, and had himself seen the poor girl +depart in an agony of distress,"--_ib_. + +We shall not dwell on the value of an anonymous story told +_three-and-thirty years_ after the Battle of Sedgemoor. The tale is +sufficiently refuted by notorious facts and dates, and indeed by its +internal absurdity. We know from the clear and indisputable evidence of +Wade, who commanded Monmouth's infantry, all the proceedings of that day. +Monmouth no doubt intended to move that night, and made open preparation +for it, and the partings so pathetically described may have, therefore, +taken place, and the rather because the intended movement was to leave +that part of the country altogether--_not_ to meet the King's troops, but +to endeavour to escape them by a forced march across the Avon and into +Gloucestershire. So far might have been known. But about _three_ o'clock +that afternoon Monmouth received intelligence by a spy that the King's +troops had advanced to Sedgemoor, but had taken their positions so +injudiciously, that there seemed a possibility of surprising them in a +night attack. On this Monmouth assembled a council of war, which agreed +that, instead of retreating that night towards the Avon as they had +intended, they should advance and attack, provided the spy, who was to +be sent out to a new reconnoissance, should report that the troops were +not intrenched. We may be sure that--as the news only arrived at three +in the afternoon--the assembling the council of war--the deliberation-- +the sending back the spy--his return and another deliberation--must have +protracted the final decision to so late an hour that evening, that it +is utterly impossible that the change of the design of a march northward +to that of an "_attack to be made under cover of the night_," could have +been that _morning_ no secret in Bridgwater. But our readers see it was +necessary for Mr. Macaulay to raise this fable, in order to account for +the poor girl's knowing so important a secret. So far we have argued the +case on Mr. Macaulay's own showing, which, we confess, was very +incautious on our part; but on turning to his authority we find, as +usual, a story essentially different. Kennett says-- + + A brave Captain in the Horse Guards, now living (1718), was in the + action at Sedgemoor, and gave me the account of it:--That on _Sunday + morning, July 5_, a young woman came from Monmouth's quarters to give + notice of his design to surprise the King's camp _that night_; but + this young woman being carried to a chief officer in a neighbouring + village, she was led upstairs and debauched by him, and, coming down + in a great fright and disorder (as he himself saw her), she went back, + and her message was not told.--_Kennett_, in. 432. + +This knocks the whole story on the head. Kennett was not aware (Wade's +narrative not being published when he wrote) that the King's troops did +not come in sight of Sedgemoor till about three o'clock P.M. of that +Sunday on the early morning of which he places the girl's visit to the +camp, and it was not till late that same evening that Monmouth changed +his original determination, and formed the sudden resolution with which, +to support Kennett's story, the whole town must have been acquainted at +least twelve hours before. These are considerations which ought not to +have escaped a philosophical historian who had the advantage, which +Kennett had not, of knowing the exact time when these details +occurred.... + +We must here conclude. We have exhausted our time and our space, but not +our topics. We have selected such of the more prominent defects and +errors of Mr. Macaulay as were manageable within our limits; but +numerous as they are, we beg that they may be considered as specimens +only of the infinitely larger assortment that the volumes would afford, +and be read not merely as individual instances, but as indications of +the general style of the work, and the prevailing _animus_ of the +writer. We have chiefly directed our attention to points of mere +historical inaccuracy and infidelity; but they are combined with a +greater admixture of other--we know not whether to call them literary or +moral--defects, than the insulated passages sufficiently exhibit. These +faults, as we think them, but which may to some readers be the prime +fascinations of the work, abound on its surface. And their very number +and their superficial prominence constitute a main charge against the +author, and prove, we think, his mind to be unfitted for the severity of +historical inquiry. He takes much pains to parade--perhaps he really +believes in--his impartiality, with what justice we appeal to the +foregoing pages; but he is guilty of a prejudice as injurious in its +consequences to truth as any political bias. He abhors whatever is not +in itself picturesque, while he clings with the tenacity of a Novelist +to the _piquant_ and the startling. Whether it be the boudoir of a +strumpet or the death-bed of a monarch--the strong character of a +statesman-warrior abounding in contrasts and rich in mystery, or the +personal history of a judge trained in the Old Bailey to vulgarize and +ensanguine the King's Bench--he luxuriates with a vigour and variety of +language and illustration which renders his "History" an attractive and +absorbing story-book. And so spontaneously redundant are these errors-- +so inwoven in the very texture of Mr. Macaulay's mind--that he seems +never able to escape from them. Even after the reader is led to believe +that all that can be said either of praise or vituperation as to +character, of voluptuous description and minute delineation as to fact +and circumstance, has been passed in review before him--when a new +subject, indeed, seems to have been started--all at once the old theme +is renewed, and the old ideas are redressed in all the affluent imagery +and profuse eloquence of which Mr. Macaulay is so eminent a master. Now +of the fancy and fashion of this we should not complain--quite the +contrary--in a professed novel: there is a theatre in which it would be +exquisitely appropriate and attractive; but the Temple of History is not +the floor for a morris-dance--the Muse Clio is not to be worshipped in +the halls of Terpsichore. We protest against this species of _carnival_ +history; no more like the reality than the Eglintoun Tournament or the +Costume Quadrilles of Buckingham Palace; and we deplore the squandering +of so much melodramatic talent on a subject which we have hitherto +reverenced as the figure of Truth arrayed in the simple argments +[Transcriber's note: sic] of Philosophy. We are ready to admit an +hundred times over Mr. Macaulay's literary powers--brilliant even under +the affectation with which he too frequently disfigures them. He is a +great painter, but a suspicious narrator; a grand proficient in the +picturesque, but a very poor professor of the historic. These volumes +have been, and his future volumes as they appear will be, devoured with +the same eagerness that _Oliver Twist_ or _Vanity Fair_ excite--with the +same quality of zest, though perhaps with a higher degree of it;--but +his pages will seldom, we think, receive a second perusal--and the work, +we apprehend, will hardly find a permanent place on the historic shelf-- +nor ever assuredly, if continued in the spirit of the first two volumes, +be quoted as authority on any question or point of the History of +England. + + + + +LOCKHART ON THE AUTHOR OF "VATHEK"[1] + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, June, 1834] + +[1] "Italy: with sketches of Spain and Portugal. In a series of letters + written during a residence in these Countries." By William Beckford, + Esq., author of _Vathek_. London, 1834. + +Vathek is, indeed, without reference to the time of life [before he had +closed his twentieth year] when the author penned it, a very remarkable +performance; but, like most of the works of the great poet (Byron) who +has eloquently praised it, it is stained with poison-spots--its +inspiration is too often such as might have been inhaled in the "Hall of +Eblis." We do not allude so much to its audacious licentiousness, as to +the diabolical levity of its contempt for mankind. The boy-author +appears to have already rubbed all the bloom off his heart; and, in the +midst of his dazzling genius, one trembles to think that a stripling of +years so tender should have attained the cool cynicism of a _Candide_. +How different is the effect of that Eastern tale of our own days, which +Lord Byron ought not to have forgotten when he was criticising his +favourite romance. How perfectly does _Thalaba_ realize the ideal +demanded in the Welsh Triad, of "fulness of erudition, simplicity of +language, and purity of manners." But the critic was repelled by the +purity of that delicious creation, more than attracted by the erudition +which he must have respected, and the diction which he could not but +admire-- + + The low sweet voice so musical, + That with such deep and undefined delight + Fills the surrender'd soul. + +It has long been known that Mr. Beckford prepared, shortly after the +publication of his _Vathek_, some other tales in the same vein--the +histories, it is supposed, of the princes in his "Hall of Eblis." A +rumour had also prevailed, that the author drew up, early in life, some +account of his travels in various parts of the world; nay, that he had +printed a few copies of this account, and that its private perusal had +been eminently serviceable to more than one of the most popular poets of +the present age. But these were only vague reports; and Mr. Beckford, +after achieving, on the verge of manhood, a literary reputation, which, +however brilliant, could not satisfy the natural ambition of such an +intellect--seemed, for more than fifty years, to have wholly withdrawn +himself from the only field of his permanent distinction. The world +heard enough of his gorgeous palace at Cintra (described in _Childe +Harold_), afterwards of the unsubstantial pageant of his splendour at +Fonthill, and latterly of his architectural caprices at Bath. But his +literary name seemed to have belonged to another age; and, perhaps, in +this point of view, it may not have been unnatural for Lord Byron, when +comparing _Vathek_ with other Eastern tales, to think rather of _Zadig_ +and _Rasselas_, than + + Of Thalaba--the wild and wondrous song. + +The preface to the present volumes informs us that they include a +reprint of the book of travels, of which a small private edition passed +through the press forty years ago, and of the existence of which--though +many of our readers must have heard some hints--few could have had any +_knowledge_. Mr. Beckford has at length been induced to publish his +letters, in order to vindicate his own original claim to certain +thoughts, images, and expressions, which had been adopted by other +authors whom he had from time to time received beneath his roof, and +indulged with a perusal of his secret lucubrations. The mere fact that +such a work has lain for near half-a-century, printed but unpublished, +would be enough to stamp the author's personal character as not less +extraordinary than his genius. It is, indeed, sufficiently obvious that +Mr. Rogers had read it before he wrote his "Italy "--a poem, however, +which possesses so many exquisite beauties entirely its own, that it may +easily afford to drop the honour of some, perhaps unconsciously, +appropriated ones; and we are also satisfied that this book had passed +through Mr. Moore's hands before he gave us his light and graceful +"Rhymes on the Road," though the traces of his imitation are rarer than +those which must strike everyone who is familiar with the "Italy." We +are not so sure as to Lord Byron; but, although we have not been able to +lay our finger on any one passage in which he has evidently followed Mr. +Beckford's vein, it will certainly rather surprise us should it +hereafter be made manifest that he had not seen, or at least heard an +account of, this performance, before he conceived the general plan of +his "Childe Harold." Mr. Beckford's book is entirely unlike any book of +travel _in prose_ that exists in any European language; and if we could +fancy Lord Byron to have written the "Harold" in the measure of "Don +Juan," and to have availed himself of the facilities which the _ottima +rima_ affords for intermingling high poetry with merriment of all sorts, +and especially with sarcastic sketches of living manners, we believe the +result would have been a work more nearly akin to that now before us +than any other in the library. + +Mr. Beckford, like "Harold," passes through various regions of the +world, and, disdaining to follow the guide-book, presents his reader +with a series of detached, or very slenderly connected sketches of _the +scenes that had made the deepest impression upon himself_. He, when it +suits him, puts the passage of the Alps into a parenthesis. On one +occasion, he really treats Rome as if it had been nothing more than a +post station on the road from Florence to Naples; but, again, if the +scenery and people take his fancy, "he has a royal reluctance to move +on, as his own hero showed when his eye glanced on the grands caracteres +rouges, traces par la main de Carathis?... _Qui me donnera des loix_?-- +s'ecria le Caliphe." + +"England's wealthiest son" performs his travels, of course, in a style +of great external splendour. + + Conspictuus longe cunctisque notabilis intrat-- + +Courts and palaces, as well as convents and churches, and galleries of +all sorts, fly open at his approach: he is caressed in every capital--he +is _fete_ in every chateau. But though he appears amidst such +accompaniments with all the airiness of a Juan, he has a thread of the +blackest of Harold in his texture; and every now and then seems willing +to draw a veil between him and the world of vanities. He is a poet, and +a great one too, though we know not that he ever wrote a line of verse. +His rapture amidst the sublime scenery of mountains and forests--in the +Tyrol especially, and in Spain--is that of a spirit cast originally in +one of nature's finest moulds; and he fixes it in language which can +scarcely be praised beyond its deserts--simple, massive, nervous, +apparently little laboured, yet revealing, in its effect, the perfection +of art. Some immortal passages in Gray's letters and Byron's diaries, +are the only things, in our tongue, that seem to us to come near the +profound melancholy, blended with a picturesqueness of description at +once true and startling, of many of these extraordinary pages. Nor is +his sense for the _highest_ beauty of art less exquisite. He seems to +describe classical architecture, and the pictures of the great Italian +schools, with a most passionate feeling of the grand, and with an +inimitable grace of expression. On the other hand, he betrays, in a +thousand places, a settled voluptuousness of temperament, and a +capricious recklessness of self-indulgence, which will lead the world to +identify him henceforth with his _Vathek_, as inextricably as it has +long since connected Harold with the poet that drew him; and then, that +there may be no limit to the inconsistencies of such a strange genius, +this spirit, at once so capable of the noblest enthusiasm, and so dashed +with the gloom of over-pampered luxury, can stoop to chairs and china, +ever and anon, with the zeal of an auctioneer--revel in the design of a +clock or a candlestick, and be as ecstatic about a fiddler or a soprano +as the fools in Hogarth's _concert_. On such occasions he reminds us, +and will, we think, remind everyone, of the Lord of Strawberry Hill. But +even here all we have is on a grander scale. The oriental prodigality of +his magnificence shines out even in trifles. He buys a library where the +other would have cheapened a missal. He is at least a male Horace +Walpole; as superior to the "silken Baron," as Fonthill, with its +York-like tower embosomed among hoary forests, was to that silly band-box +which may still be admired on the road to Twickenham ... + +We have no discussions of any consequence in these volumes: even the +ultra-aristocratical opinions and feelings of the author--who is, we +presume, a Whig--are rather hinted than avowed. From a thousand passing +sneers, we may doubt whether he has any religion at all; but still he +_may_ be only thinking of the outward and visible absurdities of +popery--therefore we have hardly a pretext for treating these matters +seriously. In short, this is meant to be, as he says in his preface, +nothing but a "book of light reading"; and though no one can read it +without having many grave enough feelings roused and agitated within +him, there are really no passages to provoke or justify any detailed +criticism either as to morals or politics ... + +We risk nothing in predicting that Mr. Beckford's _Travels_ will +henceforth be classed among the most elegant productions of modern +literature: they will be forthwith translated into every language of the +Continent--and will keep his name alive, centuries after all the brass +and marble he ever piled together have ceased to vibrate with the echoes +of _Modenhas_. + + + + +ON COLERIDGE + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, August, 1834] + +_The Poetical Works of S.T. Coleridge_. 3 vols. 12mo. London, 1834. + + +Let us be indulged, in the mean time, in this opportunity of making a +few remarks on the genius of the extraordinary man whose poems, now for +the first time completely collected, are named at the head of this +article. The larger part of this publication is, of course, of old date, +and the author still lives; yet, besides the considerable amount of new +matter in this edition, which might of itself, in the present dearth of +anything eminently original in verse, justify our notice, we think the +great, and yet somewhat hazy, celebrity of Coleridge, and the +ill-understood character of his poetry, will be, in the opinion of a +majority of our readers, more than an excuse for a few elucidatory +remarks upon the subject. Idolized by many, and used without scruple by +more, the poet of "Christabel" and the "Ancient Mariner" is but little +truly known in that common literary world, which, without the +prerogative of conferring fame hereafter, can most surely give or +prevent popularity for the present. In that circle he commonly passes +for a man of genius, who has written some very beautiful verses, but +whose original powers, whatever they were, have been long since lost or +confounded in the pursuit of metaphysic dreams. We ourselves venture to +think very differently of Mr. Coleridge, both as a poet and a +philosopher, although we are well enough aware that nothing which we can +say will, as matters now stand, much advance his chance of becoming a +fashionable author. Indeed, as we rather believe, we should earn small +thanks from him for our happiest exertions in such a cause; for +certainly, of all the men of letters whom it has been our fortune to +know, we never met any one who was so utterly regardless of the +reputation of the mere author as Mr. Coleridge--one so lavish and +indiscriminate in the exhibition of his own intellectual wealth before +any and every person, no matter who--one so reckless who might reap +where he had most prodigally sown and watered. "God knows,"--as we once +heard him exclaim upon the subject of his unpublished system of +philosophy,--"God knows, I have no author's vanity about it. I should be +absolutely glad if I could hear that the _thing_ had been done before +me." It is somewhere told of Virgil, that he took more pleasure in the +good verses of Varius and Horace than in his own. We would not answer +for that; but the story has always occurred to us, when we have seen Mr. +Coleridge criticising and amending the work of a contemporary author +with much more zeal and hilarity than we ever perceived him to display +about anything of his own. + +Perhaps our readers may have heard repeated a saying of Mr. Wordsworth, +that many men of this age had done wonderful _things_, as Davy, Scott, +Cuvier, &c.; but that Coleridge was the only wonderful _man_ he ever +knew. Something, of course, must be allowed in this as in all other such +cases for the antithesis; but we believe the fact really to be, that the +greater part of those who have occasionally visited Mr. Coleridge have +left him with a feeling akin to the judgment indicated in the above +remark. They admire the man more than his works, or they forget the +works in the absorbing impression made by the living author. And no +wonder. Those who remember him in his more vigorous days can bear +witness to the peculiarity and transcendant power of his conversational +eloquence. It was unlike anything that could be heard elsewhere; the +kind was different, the degree was different, the manner was different. +The boundless range of scientific knowledge, the brilliancy and +exquisite nicety of illustration, the deep and ready reasoning, the +strangeness and immensity of bookish lore--were not all; the dramatic +story, the joke, the pun, the festivity, must be added--and with these +the clerical-looking dress, the thick waving silver hair, the +youthful-coloured cheek, the indefinable mouth and lips, the quick yet +steady and penetrating greenish grey eye, the slow and continuous +enunciation, and the everlasting music of his tones,--all went to make +up +the image and constitute the living presence of the man. He is now no +longer young, and bodily infirmities, we regret to know, have pressed +heavily upon him. His natural force is indeed abated; but his eye is not +dim, neither is his mind yet enfeebled. "O youth!" he says in one of the +most exquisitely finished of his later poems-- + + O youth! for years so many and sweet, + 'Tis known that thou and I were one, + I'll think it but a fond conceit-- + It cannot be that thou art gone! + Thy vesper bell hath not yet tolled:-- + And thou wert aye a masker bold! + What strange disguise hast now put on, + To make believe that thou art gone? + I see these locks in silvery slips, + This drooping gait, this altered size;-- + But springtide blossoms on thy lips, + And tears take sunshine from thine eyes! + Life is but thought: so think I will + That Youth and I are house-mates still. + +Mr. Coleridge's conversation, it is true, has not now all the brilliant +versatility of his former years; yet we know not whether the contrast +between his bodily weakness and his mental power does not leave a deeper +and more solemnly affecting impression, than his most triumphant +displays in youth could ever have done. To see the pain-stricken +countenance relax, and the contracted frame dilate under the kindling of +intellectual fire alone--to watch the infirmities of the flesh shrinking +out of sight, or glorified and transfigured in the brightness of the +awakening spirit--is an awful object of contemplation; and in no other +person did we ever witness such a distinction,--nay, alienation of mind +from body,--such a mastery of the purely intellectual over the purely +corporeal, as in the instance of this remarkable man. Even now his +conversation is characterized by all the essentials of its former +excellence; there is the same individuality, the same _unexpectedness_, +the same universal grasp; nothing is too high, nothing too low for it: +it glances from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, with a speed and +a splendour, an ease and a power, which almost seem inspired: yet its +universality is not of the same kind with the superficial ranging of the +clever talkers whose criticism and whose information are called forth +by, and spent upon, the particular topics in hand. No; in this more, +perhaps, than in anything else is Mr. Coleridge's discourse +distinguished: that it springs from an inner centre, and illustrates by +light from the soul. His thoughts are, if we may so say, as the radii of +a circle, the centre of which may be in the petals of a rose, and the +circumference as wide as the boundary of things visible and invisible. +In this it was that we always thought another eminent light of our time, +recently lost to us, an exact contrast to Mr. Coleridge as to quality +and style of conversation. You could not in all London or England hear a +more fluent, a more brilliant, a more exquisitely elegant converser than +Sir James Mackintosh; nor could you ever find him unprovided. But, +somehow or other, it always seemed as if all the sharp and brilliant +things he said were poured out of so many vials filled and labelled for +the particular occasion; it struck us, to use a figure, as if his mind +were an ample and well-arranged _hortus siccus_, from which you might +have specimens of every kind of plant, but all of them cut and dried for +store. You rarely saw nature working at the very moment in him. With +Coleridge it was and still is otherwise. He may be slower, more +rambling, less pertinent; he may not strike at the instant as so +eloquent; but then, what he brings forth is fresh coined; his flowers +are newly gathered, they are wet with dew, and, if you please, you may +almost see them growing in the rich garden of his mind. The projection +is visible; the enchantment is done before your eyes. To listen to +Mackintosh was to inhale perfume; it pleased, but did not satisfy. The +effect of an hour with Coleridge is to set you thinking; his words haunt +you for a week afterwards; they are spells, brightenings, revelations. +In short, it is, if we may venture to draw so bold a line, the whole +difference between talent and genius. + +A very experienced short-hand writer was employed to take down Mr. +Coleridge's lectures on Shakespeare, but the manuscript was almost +entirely unintelligible. Yet the lecturer was, as he always is, slow and +measured. The writer--we have some notion it was no worse an artist than +Mr. Gurney himself--gave this account of the difficulty: that with +regard to every other speaker whom he had ever heard, however rapid or +involved, he could almost always, by long experience in his art, guess +the form of the latter part, or apodosis, of the sentence by the form of +the beginning; but that the conclusion of every one of Coleridge's +sentences was a _surprise_ upon him. He was obliged to listen to the +last word. Yet this unexpectedness, as we termed it before, is not the +effect of quaintness or confusion of construction; so far from it, that +we believe foreigners of different nations, especially Germans and +Italians, have often borne very remarkable testimony to the grammatical +purity and simplicity of his language, and have declared that they +generally understood what he said much better than the sustained +conversation of any other Englishman whom they had met. It is the +uncommonness of the thoughts or the image which prevents your +anticipating the end. + +We owe, perhaps, an apology to our readers for the length of the +preceding remarks; but the fact is, so very much of the intellectual +life and influence of Mr. Coleridge has consisted in the oral +communication of his opinions, that no sketch could be reasonably +complete without a distinct notice of the peculiar character of his +powers in this particular. We believe it has not been the lot of any +other literary man in England, since Dr. Johnson, to command the devoted +admiration and steady zeal of so many and such widely differing +disciples--some of them having become, and others being likely to +become, fresh and independent sources of light and moral action in +themselves upon the principles of their common master. One half of these +affectionate disciples have learned their lessons of philosophy from the +teacher's mouth. He has been to them as an old oracle of the Academy or +Lyceum. The fulness, the inwardness, the ultimate scope of his doctrines +has never yet been published in print, and if disclosed, it has been +from time to time in the higher moments of conversation, when occasion, +and mood, and person begot an exalted crisis. More than once has Mr. +Coleridge said, that with pen in hand, he felt a thousand checks and +difficulties in the expression of his meaning; but that--authorship +aside--he never found the smallest hitch or impediment in the fullest +utterance of his most subtle fancies by word of mouth. His abstrusest +thoughts became rhythmical and clear when chaunted to their own music. +But let us proceed now to the publication before us. + +This is the first complete collection of the poems of Samuel Taylor +Coleridge. The addition to the last edition is not less than a fourth of +the whole, and the greatest part of this matter has never been printed +before. It consists of many juvenile pieces, a few of the productions of +the poet's middle life, and more of his later years. With regard to the +additions of the first class, we should not be surprised to hear +friendly doubts expressed as to the judgment shown in their publication. +We ourselves think otherwise; and we are very glad to have had an +opportunity of perusing them. There may be nothing in these earlier +pieces upon which a poet's reputation could be built; yet they are +interesting now as measuring the boyish powers of a great author. We +never read any juvenile poems that so distinctly foretokened the +character of all that the poet has since done; in particular, the very +earliest and loosest of these little pieces indicate that unintermitting +thoughtfulness, and that fine ear for verbal harmony in which we must +venture to think that not one of our modern poets approaches to +Coleridge. + + * * * * * + +We, of course, cite these lines for little besides their luxurious +smoothness; and it is very observable, that although the indications of +the more strictly intellectual qualities of a great poet are very often +extremely faint, as in Byron's case, in early youth,--it is universally +otherwise with regard to high excellence in _versification_ considered +apart and by itself. Like the ear for music, the sense of metrical +melody is always a natural gift; both indeed are evidently connected +with the physical arrangement of the organs, and never to be acquired by +any effort of art. When possessed, they by no means necessarily lead on +to the achievement of consummate harmony in music or in verse; and yet +consummate harmony in either has never been found where the natural gift +has not made itself conspicuous long before. Spenser's Hymns, and +Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," and "Rape of Lucrece," are striking +instances of the overbalance of mere sweetness of sound. Even "Comus" is +what we should, in this sense, call luxurious; and all four gratify the +outward ear much more than that inner and severer sense which is +associated with the reason, and requires a meaning even in the very +music for its full satisfaction. Compare the versification of the +youthful pieces mentioned above with that of the maturer works of those +great poets, and you will recognize how possible it is for verses to be +exquisitely melodious, and yet to fall far short of that exalted +excellence of numbers of which language is in itself capable. You will +feel the simple truth, that melody is a part only of harmony. Those +early flashes were indeed auspicious tokens of the coming glory, and +involved some of the conditions and elements of its existence; but the +rhythm of the "Faerie Queene" and of "Paradise Lost" was also the fruit +of a distinct effort of uncommon care and skill. The endless variety of +the pauses in the versification of these poems could not have been the +work of chance, and the adaptation of words with reference to their +asperity, or smoothness, or strength, is equally refined and scientific. +Unless we make a partial exception of the "Castle of Indolence," we do +not remember a single instance of the reproduction of the exact rhythm +of the Spenserian stanza, especially of the concluding line. The precise +Miltonic movement in blank verse has never, to our knowledge, been +caught by any later poet. It is Mr. Coleridge's own strong remark, that +you might as well think of pushing a brick out of a wall with your +forefinger, as attempt to remove a word out of the finished passages in +Shakespeare or Milton. The motion or transposition will alter the +thought, or the feeling, or at least the tone. They are as pieces of +Mosaic work, from which you cannot strike the smallest block without +making a hole in the picture. + +And so it is--in due proportion--with Coleridge's best poems. They are +distinguished in a remarkable degree by the perfection of their rhythm +and metrical arrangement. The labour bestowed upon this point must have +been very great; the tone and quantity of words seem weighed in scales +of gold. It will, no doubt, be considered ridiculous by the Fannii and +Fanniae of our day to talk of varying the trochee with the iambus, or of +resolving either into the tribrach. Yet it is evident to us that these, +and even minuter points of accentual scansion, have been regarded by Mr. +Coleridge as worthy of study and observation. We do not, of course, mean +that rules of this kind were always in his mind while composing, any +more than that an expert disputant is always thinking of the +distinctions of mood and figure, whilst arguing; but we certainly +believe that Mr. Coleridge has almost from the commencement of his +poetic life looked upon versification as constituting in and by itself a +much more important branch of the art poetic than most of his eminent +contemporaries appear to have done. And this more careful study shows +itself in him in no technical peculiarities or fantastic whims, against +which the genius of our language revolts; but in a more exact adaptation +of the movement to the feeling, and in a finer selection of particular +words with reference to their local fitness for sense and sound. Some of +his poems are complete models of versification, exquisitely easy to all +appearance, and subservient to the meaning, and yet so subtle in the +links and transitions of the parts as to make it impossible to produce +the same effect merely by imitating the syllabic metre as it stands on +the surface. The secret of the sweetness lies within, and is involved in +the feeling. It is this remarkable power of making his verse musical +that gives a peculiar character to Mr. Coleridge's lyric poems. In some +of the smaller pieces, as the conclusion of the "Kubla Khan," for +example, not only the lines by themselves are musical, but the whole +passage sounds all at once as an outburst or crash of harps in the still +air of autumn. The verses seem as if _played_ to the ear upon some +unseen instrument. And the poet's manner of reciting verse is similar. +It is not rhetorical, but musical: so very near recitative, that for any +one else to attempt it would be ridiculous; and yet it is perfectly +miraculous with what exquisite searching he elicits and makes sensible +every particle of the meaning, not leaving a shadow of a shade of the +feeling, the mood, the degree, untouched. We doubt if a finer rhapsode +ever recited at the Panathenaic festival; and the yet unforgotten Doric +of his native Devon is not altogether without a mellowing effect in his +utterance of Greek. He would repeat the + + [Greek: autar Achilleus dakrusas, etaron aphar ezeto. k. t. l.] + +with such an interpreting accompaniment of look, and tone and gesture, +that we believe any commonly-educated person might understand the import +of the passage without knowing alpha from omega. A chapter of Isaiah +from his mouth involves the listener in an act of exalted devotion. We +have mentioned this, to show how the whole man is made up of music; and +yet Mr. Coleridge has no _ear_ for music, as it is technically called. +Master as he is of the intellectual recitative, he could not _sing_ an +air to save his life. But his delight in music is intense and +unweariable, and he can detect good from bad with unerring +discrimination. Poor Naldi, whom most of us remember, and all who +remember must respect, said to our poet once at a concert--"That he did +not seem much interested with a piece of Rossini's which had just been +performed." Coleridge answered, "It sounded to me exactly like _nonsense +verses_. But this thing of Beethoven's that they have begun--stop, let +us listen to this, I beg!" ... + +The minute study of the laws and properties of metre is observable in +almost every piece in these volumes. Every kind of lyric measure, rhymed +and unrhymed, is attempted with success; and we doubt whether, upon the +whole, there are many specimens of the heroic couplet or blank verse +superior in construction to what Mr. Coleridge has given us. We mention +this the rather, because it was at one time, although that time is past, +the fashion to say that the Lake school--as two or three poets, +essentially unlike to each other, were foolishly called--had abandoned +the old and established measures of the English poetry for new conceits +of their own. There was no truth in that charge; but we will say this, +that, notwithstanding the prevalent opinion to the contrary, we are not +sure, after perusing _some passages_ in Mr. Southey's "Vision of +Judgment," and the entire "Hymn to the Earth," in hexameters, in the +second of the volumes now before us, that the question of the total +inadmissibility of that measure in English verse can be considered as +finally settled; the true point not being whether such lines are as good +as, or even like, the Homeric or Virgilian models, but whether they are +not in themselves a pleasing variety, and on that account alone, if for +nothing else, not to be rejected as wholly barbarous ... + +We should not have dwelt so long upon this point of versification, +unless we had conceived it to be one distinguishing excellence of Mr. +Coleridge's poetry, and very closely connected with another, namely, +fulness and individuality of thought. It seems to be a fact, although we +do not pretend to explain it, that condensation of meaning is generally +found in poetry of a high import in proportion to perfection in metrical +harmony. Petrarch, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton are obvious +instances. Goethe and Coleridge are almost equally so. Indeed, whether +in verse, or prose, or conversation, Mr. Coleridge's mind may be fitly +characterized as an energetic mind--a mind always at work, always in a +course of reasoning. He cares little for anything, merely because it was +or is; it must be referred, or be capable of being referred, to some law +or principle, in order to attract his attention. This is not from +ignorance of the facts of natural history or science. His written and +published works alone sufficiently show how constantly and accurately he +has been in the habit of noting all the phenomena of the material world +around us; and the great philosophical system now at length in +preparation for the press demonstrates, we are told, his masterly +acquaintance with almost all the sciences, and with not a few of the +higher and more genial of the arts. Yet his vast acquirements of this +sort are never put forward by or for themselves; it is in his apt and +novel illustrations, his indications of analogies, his explanation of +anomalies, that he enables the hearer or reader to get a glimpse of the +extent of his practical knowledge. He is always reasoning out from an +inner point, and it is the inner point, the principle, the law which he +labours to bring forward into light. If he can convince you or himself +of the principle _a priori_, he generally leaves the facts to take care +of themselves. He leads us into the laboratories of art or nature as a +showman guides you through a caravan crusted with spar and stalactites, +all cold, and dim, and motionless, till he lifts his torch aloft, and on +a sudden you gaze in admiration on walls and roof of flaming crystals +and stars of eternal diamond. + +All this, whether for praise or for blame, is perceptible enough in Mr. +Coleridge's verse, but perceptible, of course, in such degree and mode +as the law of poetry in general, and the nature of the specific poem in +particular, may require. But the main result from this frame and habit +of his mind is very distinctly traceable in the uniform subjectivity of +almost all his works. He does not belong to that grand division of +poetry and poets which corresponds with painting and painters; or which +Pindar and Dante are the chief;--those masters of the picturesque, who, +by a felicity inborn, view and present everything in the completeness of +actual objectivity--and who have a class derived from and congenial +with them, presenting few pictures indeed, but always full of +picturesque matter; of which secondary class Spenser and Southey may be +mentioned as eminent instances. To neither of these does Mr. Coleridge +belong; in his "Christabel," there certainly are several _distinct +pictures_ of great beauty; but he, as a poet, clearly comes within the +other division which answers to music and the musician, in which you +have a magnificent mirage of words with the subjective associations of +the poet curling, and twisting, and creeping round, and through, and +above every part of it. This is the class to which Milton belongs, in +whose poems we have heard Mr. Coleridge say that he remembered but two +proper pictures--Adam bending over the sleeping Eve at the beginning of +the fifth book of the "Paradise Lost," and Delilah approaching Samson +towards the end of the "Agonistes." But when we point out the intense +personal feeling, the self-projection, as it were, which characterizes +Mr. Coleridge's poems, we mean that such feeling is the soul and spirit, +not the whole body and form, of his poetry. For surely no one has ever +more earnestly and constantly borne in mind the maxim of Milton, that +poetry ought to be _simple, sensuous, and impassioned_. The poems in +these volumes are no authority for that dreamy, half-swooning style of +verse which was criticized by Lord Byron (in language too strong for +print) as the fatal sin of Mr. John Keats, and which, unless abjured +betimes, must prove fatal to several younger aspirants--male and female-- +who for the moment enjoy some popularity. The poetry before us is +distinct and clear, and accurate in its imagery; but the imagery is +rarely or never exhibited for description's sake alone; it is rarely or +never exclusively objective; that is to say, put forward as a spectacle, +a picture on which the mind's eye is to rest and terminate. You may if +your sight is short, or your imagination cold, regard the imagery in +itself and go no farther; but the poet's intention is that you should +feel and imagine a great deal more than you see. His aim is to awaken in +the reader the same mood of mind, the same cast of imagination and fancy +whence issued the associations which animate and enlighten his pictures. +You must think with him, must sympathize with him, must suffer yourself +to be lifted out of your own school of opinion or faith, and fall back +upon your own consciousness, an unsophisticated man. If you decline +this, _non tibi spirat_. From his earliest youth to this day, Mr. +Coleridge's poetry has been a faithful mirror reflecting the images of +his mind. Hence he is so original, so individual. With a little trouble, +the zealous reader of the "Biographia Literaria" may trace in these +volumes the whole course of mental struggle and self-evolvement narrated +in that odd but interesting work; but he will see the track marked in +light; the notions become images, the images glorified, and not +unfrequently the abstruse position stamped clearer by the poet than by +the psychologist. No student of Coleridge's philosophy can fully +understand it without a perusal of the illumining, and if we may so say, +_popularizing_ commentary of his poetry. It is the Greek put into the +vulgar tongue. And we must say, it is somewhat strange to hear any one +condemn those philosophical principles as altogether unintelligible, +which are inextricably interwoven in every page of a volume of poetry +which he professes to admire.... + +To this habit of intellectual introversion we are very much inclined to +attribute Mr. Coleridge's never having seriously undertaken a great +heroic poem. The "Paradise Lost" may be thought to stand in the way of +our laying down any general rule on the subject; yet that poem is as +peculiar as Milton himself, and does not materially affect our opinion, +that the pure epic can hardly be achieved by the poet in whose mind the +reflecting turn _greatly_ predominates. The extent of the action in such +a poem requires a free and fluent stream of narrative verse; +description, purely objective, must fill a large space in it, and its +permanent success depends on a rapidity, or at least a liveliness, of +movement which is scarcely compatible with much of what Bacon calls +_inwardness_ of meaning. The reader's attention could not be preserved; +his journey being long, he expects his road to be smooth and +unembarrassed. The condensed passion of the ode is out of place in +heroic song. Few persons will dispute that the two great Homeric poems +are the most delightful of epics; they may not have the sublimity of the +"Paradise Lost," nor the picturesqueness of the "Divine Comedy," nor the +etherial brilliancy of the "Orlando"; but, dead as they are in language, +metre, accent,--obsolete in religion, manners, costume, and country,-- +they nevertheless even now _please_ all those who can read them beyond +all other narrative poems. There is a salt in them which keeps them +sweet and incorruptible throughout every change. They are the most +popular of all the remains of ancient genius, and translations of them +for the twentieth time are amongst the very latest productions of our +contemporary literature. From beginning to end, these marvellous poems +are exclusively objective; everything is in them, except the poet +himself. It is not to Vico or Wolfe that we refer, when we say that +_Homer_ is _vox et praeterea nihil_; as musical as the nightingale, and +as invisible.... + +The "Remorse" and "Zapolya" strikingly illustrate the predominance of +the meditative, pausing habit of Mr. Coleridge's mind. The first of +these beautiful dramas was acted with success, although worse acting was +never seen. Indeed, Kelly's sweet music was the only part of the +theatrical apparatus in any respect worthy of the play. The late Mr. +Kean made some progress in the study of Ordonio, with a view of +reproducing the piece; and we think that Mr. Macready, either as Ordonio +or Alvar, might, with some attention to music, costume, and scenery, +make the representation attractive even in the present day. But in +truth, taken absolutely and in itself, the "Remorse" is more fitted for +the study than the stage; its character is romantic and pastoral in a +high degree, and there is a profusion of poetry in the minor parts, the +effect of which could never be preserved in the common routine of +representation. What this play wants is dramatic movement; there is +energetic dialogue and a crisis of great interest, but the action does +not sufficiently grow on the stage itself. Perhaps, also, the purpose of +Alvar to waken remorse in Ordonio's mind is put forward too prominently, +and has too much the look of a mere moral experiment to be probable +under the circumstances in which the brothers stand to each other. +Nevertheless, there is a calmness as well as superiority of intellect in +Alvar which seem to justify, in some measure, the sort of attempt on his +part, which, in fact, constitutes the theme of the play; and it must be +admitted that the whole underplot of Isidore and Alhadra is lively and +affecting in the highest degree. We particularly refer to the last scene +between Ordonio and Isidore in the cavern, which we think genuine +Shakespeare; and Alhadra's narrative of her discovery of her husband's +murder is not surpassed in truth and force by anything of the kind that +we know.... + +We have not yet referred to the "Ancient Mariner," "Christabel," the +"Odes on France," and the "Departing Year," or the "Love Poems." All +these are well known by those who know no other parts of Coleridge's +poetry, and the length of our preceding remarks compels us to be brief +in our notice. Mrs. Barbauld, meaning to be complimentary, told our +poet, that she thought the "Ancient Mariner" very beautiful, but that it +had the fault of containing no moral. "Nay, madam," replied the poet, +"if I may be permitted to say so, the only fault in the poem is that +there is _too much_ In a work of such pure imagination I ought not to +have stopped to give reasons for things, or inculcate humanity to +beasts. 'The Arabian Nights' might have taught me better." They might-- +the tale of the merchant's son who puts out the eyes of a genii by +flinging his date-shells down a well, and is therefore ordered to +prepare for death--might have taught this law of imagination; but the +fault is small indeed; and the "Ancient Mariner" is, and will ever be, +one of the most perfect pieces of imaginative poetry, not only in our +language, but in the literature of all Europe. We have, certainly, +sometimes doubted whether the miraculous destruction of the vessel in +the presence of the pilot and hermit, was not an error, in respect of +its bringing the purely preternatural into too close contact with the +actual frame-work of the poem. The only link between those scenes of +out-of-the-world wonders, and the wedding guest, should, we rather +suspect, have been the blasted, unknown being himself who described +them. There should have been no other witnesses of the truth of any part +of the tale, but the "Ancient Mariner" himself. This is by the way: but +take the work altogether, there is nothing else like it; it is a poem by +itself; between it and other compositions, in _pari materia_, there is a +chasm which you cannot overpass; the sensitive reader feels himself +insulated, and a sea of wonder and mystery flows round him as round the +spell-stricken ship itself. It was a sad mistake in the ablest artist-- +Mr. Scott, we believe--who in his engravings has made the ancient +mariner an old decrepit man. That is not the true image; no! he should +have been a growthless, decayless being, impassive to time or season, a +silent cloud--the wandering Jew. The curse of the dead men's eyes should +not have passed away. But this was, perhaps, too much for any pencil, +even if the artist had fully entered into the poet's idea. Indeed, it is +no subject for painting. The "Ancient Mariner" displays Mr. Coleridge's +peculiar mastery over the wild and preternatural in a brilliant manner; +but in his next poem, "Christabel," the exercise of his power in this +line is still more skilful and singular. The thing attempted in +"Christabel" is the most difficult of execution in the whole field of +romance--witchery by daylight; and the success is complete. Geraldine, +so far as she goes, is perfect. She is _sui generis_. The reader feels +the same terror and perplexity that Christabel in vain struggles to +express, and the same spell that fascinates her eyes. Who and what is +Geraldine--whence come, whither going, and what designing? What did the +poet mean to make of her? What could he have made of her? Could he have +gone on much farther without having had recourse to some of the ordinary +shifts of witch tales? Was she really the daughter of Roland de Vaux, +and would the friends have met again and embraced?... + +We are not amongst those who wish to have "Christabel" finished. It +cannot be finished. The poet has spun all he could without snapping. The +theme is too fine and subtle to bear much extension. It is better as it +is, imperfect as a story, but complete as an exquisite production of the +imagination, differing in form and colour from the "Ancient Mariner," +yet differing in effect from it only so as the same powerful faculty is +directed to the feudal or the mundane phases of the preternatural.... + +It has been impossible to express, in the few pages to which we are +necessarily limited, even a brief opinion upon all those pieces which +might seem to call for notice in an estimate of this author's poetical +genius. We know no writer of modern times whom it would not be easier to +characterize in one page than Coleridge in two. The volumes before us +contain so many integral efforts of imagination, that a distinct notice +of each is indispensable, if we would form a just conclusion upon the +total powers of the man. Wordsworth, Scott, Moore, Byron, Southey, are +incomparably more uniform in the direction of their poetic mind. But if +you look over these volumes for indications of their author's poetic +powers, you find him appearing in at least half a dozen shapes, so +different from each other, that it is in vain to attempt to mass them +together. It cannot indeed be said, that he has ever composed what is +popularly termed a _great_ poem; but he is great in several lines, and +the union of such powers is an essential term in a fair estimate of his +genius. The romantic witchery of the "Christabel," and "Ancient +Mariner," the subtle passion of the love-strains, the lyrical splendour +of the three great odes, the affectionate dignity, thoughtfulness, and +delicacy of the blank verse poems--especially the "Lover's Resolution," +"Frost at Midnight," and that most noble and interesting "Address to Mr. +Wordsworth"--the dramas, the satires, the epigrams--these are so +distinct and so whole in themselves, that they might seem to proceed +from different authors, were it not for that same individualizing power, +that "shaping spirit of imagination" which more or less sensibly runs +through them all. It is the _predominance_ of this power, which, in our +judgment, constitutes the essential difference between Coleridge and any +other of his great contemporaries. He is the most imaginative of the +English poets since Milton. Whatever he writes, be it on the most +trivial subject, be it in the most simple strain, his imagination, _in +spite of himself_, affects it. There never was a better illustrator of +the dogma of the Schoolmen--_in omnem actum intellectualem imaginatio +influit_. We believe we might affirm, that throughout all the mature +original poems in these volumes, there is not one image, the +_expression_ of which does not, in a greater or less degree, +individualize it and appropriate it to the poet's feelings. Tear the +passage out of its place, and nail it down at the head of a chapter of a +modern novel, and it will be like hanging up in a London exhibition-room +a picture painted for the dim light of a cathedral. Sometimes a single +word--an epithet--has the effect to the reader of a Claude Lorraine +glass; it tints without obscuring or disguising the object. The poet has +the same power in conversation. We remember him once settling an +elaborate discussion carried on in his presence, upon the respective +sublimity of Shakespeare and Schiller in Othello and the Robbers, by +saying, "Both are sublime; only Schiller's is the _material_ sublime-- +that's all!" _All_ to be sure; but more than enough to show the whole +difference. And upon another occasion, where the doctrine of the +Sacramentaries and the Roman Catholics on the subject of the Eucharist +was in question, the poet said, "They are both equally wrong; the first +have volatilized the Eucharist into a metaphor--the last have condensed +it into an idol." Such utterance as this flashes light; it supersedes +all argument--it abolishes proof by proving itself. + +We speak of Coleridge, then, as the poet of imagination; and we add, +that he is likewise the poet of thought and verbal harmony. That his +thoughts are sometimes hard and sometimes even obscure, we think must be +admitted; it is an obscurity of which all very subtle thinkers are +occasionally guilty, either by attempting to express evanescent feelings +for which human language is an inadequate vehicle, or by expressing, +however adequately, thoughts and distinctions to which the common reader +is unused. As to the first kind of obscurity, the words serving only as +hieroglyphics to denote a once existing state of mind in the poet, but +not logically inferring what that state was, the reader can only guess +for himself by the context, whether he ever has or not experienced in +himself a corresponding feeling; and, therefore, undoubtedly this is an +obscurity which strict criticism cannot but condemn. But, if an author +be obscure, merely because this or that reader is unaccustomed to the +mode or direction of thinking in which such author's genius makes him +take delight--such a writer must indeed bear the consequence as to +immediate popularity; but he cannot help the consequence, and if he be +worth anything for posterity, he will disregard it. In this sense almost +every great writer, whose natural bent has been to turn the mind upon +itself, is--must be--obscure; for no writer, with such a direction of +intellect, will be great, unless he is individual and original; and if +he is individual and original, then he must, in most cases, himself make +the readers who shall be competent to sympathize with him. + +The English flatter themselves by a pretence that Shakespeare and Milton +are popular in England. It is good taste, indeed, to wish to have it +believed that those poets are popular. Their names are so; but if it be +said that the works of Shakespeare and Milton are popular--that is, +liked and studied--amongst the wide circle whom it is now the fashion to +talk of as enlightened, we are obliged to express our doubts whether a +grosser delusion was ever promulgated. Not a play of Shakespeare's can +be ventured on the London stage without mutilation--and without the most +revolting balderdash foisted into the rents made by managers in his +divine dramas; nay, it is only some three or four of his pieces that can +be borne at all by our all-intelligent public, unless the burthen be +lightened by dancing, singing, or processioning. This for the stage. But +is it otherwise with "the _reading_ public"? We believe it is worse; we +think, verily, that the apprentice or his master who sits out Othello or +Richard at the theatres, does get a sort of glimpse, a touch, an +atmosphere of intellectual grandeur; but he could not keep himself awake +during the perusal of that which he admires--or fancies he admires--in +scenic representation. As to understanding Shakespeare--as to entering +into all Shakespeare's thoughts and feelings--as to seeing the idea of +Hamlet, or Lear, or Othello, as Shakespeare saw it--this we believe +falls, and can only fall, to the lot of the really cultivated few, and +of those who may have so much of the temperament of genius in +themselves, as to comprehend and sympathize with the criticism of men of +genius. Shakespeare is now popular by name, because, in the first place, +great men, more on a level with the rest of mankind, have said that he +is admirable, and also because, in the absolute universality of his +genius, he has presented points to all. Every man, woman, and child, may +pick at least one flower from his garden, the name and scent of which +are familiar. To all which must of course be added, the effect of +theatrical representation, be that representation what it may. There are +tens of thousands of persons in this country whose only acquaintance +with Shakespeare, such as it is, is through the stage. + +We have been talking of the contemporary mass; but this is not all; a +great original writer _of a philosophic turn_--especially a poet--will +almost always have the fashionable world also against him at first, +because he does not give the sort of pleasure expected of him at the +time, and because, not contented with that, he is sure, by precept or +example, to show a contempt for the taste and judgment of the +expectants. He is always, and by the law of his being, an idoloclast. By +and by, after years of abuse or neglect, the aggregate of the single +minds who think for themselves, and have seen the truth and force of his +genius, becomes important; the merits of the poet by degrees constitute +a question for discussion; his works are one by one read; men recognize +a superiority in the abstract, and learn to be modest where before they +had been scornful; the coterie becomes a sect; the sect dilates into a +party; and lo! after a season, no one knows how, the poet's fame is +universal. All this, to the very life, has taken place in this country +within the last twenty years. The noblest philosophical poem since the +time of Lucretius was, within time of short memory, declared to be +intolerable, by one of the most brilliant writers in one of the most +brilliant publications of the day. It always puts us in mind of Waller-- +no mean parallel--who, upon the coming out of the "Paradise Lost," wrote +to the duke of Buckingham, amongst other pretty things, as follows:-- +"Milton, the old blind schoolmaster, has lately written a poem on the +Fall of Man--_remarkable for nothing but its extreme length!_" Our +divine poet asked a fit audience, although it should be but few. His +prayer was heard; a fit audience for the "Paradise Lost" has ever been, +and at this moment must be, a small one, and we cannot affect to believe +that it is destined to be much increased by what is called the march of +intellect. + +Can we lay down the pen without remembering that Coleridge the poet is +but half the name of Coleridge? This, however, is not the place, nor the +time, to discuss in detail his qualities or his exertions as a +psychologist, moralist, and general philosopher. That time may come, +when his system, as a whole, shall be fairly placed before the world, as +we have reason to hope it will soon be; and when the preliminary works-- +the "Friend," the "Lay Sermons," the "Aids to Reflection," and the +"Church and State,"--especially the last two--shall be seen in their +proper relations as preparatory exercises for the reader. His "Church +and State, according to the Idea of Each"--a little book--we cannot help +recommending as a storehouse of grand and immovable principles, bearing +upon some of the most vehemently disputed topics of constitutional +interest in these momentous times. Assuredly this period has not +produced a profounder and more luminous essay. We have heard it asked, +what was the proposed object of Mr. Coleridge's labours as a +metaphysical philosopher? He once answered that question himself, in +language never to be forgotten by those who heard it, and which, +whatever may be conjectured of the probability or even possibility of +its being fully realized, must be allowed to express the completest idea +of a system of philosophy ever yet made public. + +"My system," said he, "if I may venture to give it so fine a name, is +the only attempt that I know, ever made, to reduce all knowledge into +harmony. It opposes no other system, but shows what was true in each; +and how that which was true in the particular in each of them, became +error, _because_ it was only half the truth. I have endeavoured to unite +the insulated fragments of truth, and therewith to frame a perfect +mirror. I show to each system that I fully understand and rightfully +appreciate what that system means; but then I lift up that system to a +higher point of view, from which I enable it to see its former position, +where it was indeed, but under another light and with different +relations,--so that the fragment of truth is not only acknowledged, but +explained. So the old astronomers discovered and maintained much that +was true; but because they were placed on a false ground, and looked +from a wrong point of view, they never did--they never could--discover +the truth--that is, the whole truth. As soon as they left the earth, +their false centre, and took their stand in the sun, immediately they +saw the whole system in its true light, and the former station +remaining--but remaining _as a part_ of the prospect. I wish, in short, +to connect a moral copula, natural history with political history; or, +in other words, to make history scientific, and science historical:--to +take from history its accidentality, and from science its fatalism." + +Whether we shall ever, hereafter, have occasion to advert to any new +poetical efforts of Mr. Coleridge, or not, we cannot say. We wish we had +a reasonable cause to expect it. If not, then this hail and farewell +will have been well made. We conclude with, we believe, the last verses +he has written-- + + _My Baptismal Birth-Day._ + + God's child in Christ adopted,--Christ my all,-- + What that earth boasts were not lost cheaply, rather + Than forfeit the blest name, by which I call + The Holy One, the Almighty God, my Father? + Father! in Christ we live, and Christ in Thee; + Eternal Thou, and everlasting we. + The heir of heaven, henceforth I fear not death: + In Christ I live: in Christ I draw the breath + Of the true life:--Let then earth, sea, and sky + Make war against me! On my heart I show + Their mighty Master's seal. In vain they try + To end my life, that can but end its woe. + Is that a death-bed where a Christian lies? + Yes! but not his--'tis Death itself there dies.--Vol. ii, p. 151. + + + + +SIR WALTER SCOTT ON JANE AUSTEN + + +[From. _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1815] + +_Emma; a Novel_. By the Author of _Sense and Sensibility, Pride and +Prejudice_, etc. 3 vols. 12mo. London. 1815. + +There are some vices in civilized society so common that they are hardly +acknowledged as stains upon the moral character, the propensity to which +is nevertheless carefully concealed, even by those who most frequently +give way to them; since no man of pleasure would willingly assume the +gross epithet of a debauchee or a drunkard. One would almost think that +novel-reading fell under this class of frailties, since among the crowds +who read little else, it is not common to find an individual of +hardihood sufficient to avow his taste for these frivolous studies. A +novel, therefore, is frequently "bread eaten in secret"; and it is not +upon Lydia Languish's toilet alone that Tom Jones and Peregrine Pickle +are to be found ambushed behind works of a more grave and instructive +character. And hence it has happened, that in no branch of composition, +not even in poetry itself, have so many writers, and of such varied +talents, exerted their powers. It may perhaps be added, that although +the composition of these works admits of being exalted and decorated by +the higher exertions of genius; yet such is the universal charm of +narrative, that the worst novel ever written will find some gentle +reader content to yawn over it, rather than to open the page of the +historian, moralist, or poet. We have heard, indeed, of one work of +fiction so unutterably stupid, that the proprietor, diverted by the +rarity of the incident, offered the book, which consisted of two volumes +in duodecimo, handsomely bound, to any person who would declare, upon +his honour, that he had read the whole from beginning to end. But +although this offer was made to the passengers on board an Indiaman, +during a tedious outward-bound voyage, the _Memoirs of Clegg the +Clergyman_ (such was the title of this unhappy composition) completely +baffled the most dull and determined student on board, and bid fair for +an exception to the general rule above-mentioned,--when the love of +glory prevailed with the boatswain, a man of strong and solid parts, to +hazard the attempt, and he actually conquered and carried off the prize! + +The judicious reader will see at once that we have been pleading our own +cause while stating the universal practice, and preparing him for a +display of more general acquaintance with this fascinating department of +literature, than at first sight may seem consistent with the graver +studies to which we are compelled by duty: but in truth, when we +consider how many hours of languor and anxiety, of deserted age and +solitary celibacy, of pain even and poverty, are beguiled by the perusal +of these light volumes, we cannot austerely condemn the source from +which is drawn the alleviation of such a portion of human misery, or +consider the regulation of this department as beneath the sober +consideration of the critic. + +If such apologies may be admitted in judging the labours of ordinary +novelists, it becomes doubly the duty of the critic to treat with +kindness as well as candour works which, like this before us, proclaim a +knowledge of the human heart, with the power and resolution to bring +that knowledge to the service of honour and virtue. The author is +already known to the public by the two novels announced in her title-page, +and both, the last especially, attracted, with justice, an +attention from the public far superior to what is granted to the +ephemeral productions which supply the regular demand of watering-places +and circulating libraries. They belong to a class of fictions which has +arisen almost in our own times, and which draws the characters and +incidents introduced more immediately from the current of ordinary life +than was permitted by the former rules of the novel. In its first +appearance, the novel was the legitimate child of the romance; and +though the manners and general turn of the composition were altered so +as to suit modern times, the author remained fettered by many +peculiarities derived from the original style of romantic fiction. These +may be chiefly traced in the conduct of the narrative, and the tone of +sentiment attributed to the fictitious personages. On the first point, +although + + The talisman and magic wand were broke, + Knights, dwarfs, and genii vanish'd into smoke, + +still the reader expected to peruse a course of adventures of a nature +more interesting and extraordinary than those which occur in his own +life, or that of his next-door neighbours. + +The hero no longer defeated armies by his single sword, clove giants to +the chine, or gained kingdoms. But he was expected to go through perils +by sea and land, to be steeped in poverty, to be tried by temptation, to +be exposed to the alternate vicissitudes of adversity and prosperity, +and his life was a troubled scene of suffering and achievement. Few +novelists, indeed, adventured to deny to the hero his final hour of +tranquillity and happiness, though it was the prevailing fashion never +to relieve him out of his last and most dreadful distress until the +finishing chapters of his history; so that although his prosperity in +the record of his life was short, we were bound to believe it was long +and uninterrupted when the author had done with him. The heroine was +usually condemned to equal hardships and hazards. She was regularly +exposed to being forcibly carried off like a Sabine virgin by some +frantic admirer. And even if she escaped the terrors of masked ruffians, +an insidious ravisher, a cloak wrapped forcibly around her head, and a +coach with the blinds up driving she could not conjecture whither, she +had still her share of wandering, of poverty, of obloquy, of seclusion, +and of imprisonment, and was frequently extended upon a bed of sickness, +and reduced to her last shilling before the author condescended to +shield her from persecution. In all these dread contingencies the mind +of the reader was expected to sympathize, since by incidents so much +beyond the bounds of his ordinary experience, his wonder and interest +ought at once to be excited. But gradually he became familiar with the +land of fiction, the adventures of which he assimilated not with those +of real life, but with each other. Let the distress of the hero or +heroine be ever so great, the reader reposed an imperturbable confidence +in the talents of the author, who, as he had plunged them into distress, +would in his own good time, and when things, as Tony Lumkin says, were +in a concatenation accordingly, bring his favourites out of all their +troubles. Mr. Crabbe has expressed his own and our feelings excellently +on this subject. + + For should we grant these beauties all endure + Severest pangs, they've still the speediest cure; + Before one charm be withered from the face, + Except the bloom which shall again have place, + In wedlock ends each wish, in triumph all disgrace. + And life to come, we fairly may suppose, + One light bright contrast to these wild dark woes. + +In short, the author of novels was, in former times, expected to tread +pretty much in the limits between the concentric circles of probability +and possibility; and as he was not permitted to transgress the latter, +his narrative, to make amends, almost always went beyond the bounds of +the former. Now, although it may be urged that the vicissitudes of human +life have occasionally led an individual through as many scenes of +singular fortune as are represented in the most extravagant of these +fictions, still the causes and personages acting on these changes have +varied with the progress of the adventurer's fortune, and do not present +that combined plot, (the object of every skilful novelist), in which all +the more interesting individuals of the dramatis personae have their +appropriate share in the action and in bringing about the catastrophe. +Here, even more than in its various and violent changes of fortune, +rests the improbability of the novel. The life of man rolls forth like a +stream from the fountain, or it spreads out into tranquillity like a +placid or stagnant lake. In the latter case, the individual grows old +among the characters with whom he was born, and is contemporary,--shares +precisely the sort of weal and woe to which his birth destined him,-- +moves in the same circle,--and, allowing for the change of seasons, is +influenced by, and influences the same class of persons by which he was +originally surrounded. The man of mark and of adventure, on the +contrary, resembles, in the course of his life, the river whose +mid-current and discharge into the ocean are widely removed from each +other, as well as from the rocks and wild flowers which its fountains +first reflected; violent changes of time, of place, and of circumstances, +hurry him forward from one scene to another, and his adventures will +usually be found only connected with each other because they have +happened to the same individual. Such a history resembles an ingenious, +fictitious narrative, exactly in the degree in which an old dramatic +chronicle of the life and death of some distinguished character, where +all the various agents appear and disappear as in the page of history, +approaches a regular drama, in which every person introduced plays an +appropriate part, and every point of the action tends to one common +catastrophe. + +We return to the second broad line of distinction between the novel, as +formerly composed, and real life,--the difference, namely, of the +sentiments. The novelist professed to give an imitation of nature, but +it was, as the French say, _la belle nature_. Human beings, indeed, were +presented, but in the most sentimental mood, and with minds purified by +a sensibility which often verged on extravagance. In the serious class +of novels, the hero was usually + + A knight of love, who never broke a vow. + +And although, in those of a more humorous cast, he was permitted a +licence, borrowed either from real life or from the libertinism of the +drama, still a distinction was demanded even from Peregrine Pickle, or +Tom Jones; and the hero, in every folly of which he might be guilty, was +studiously vindicated from the charge of infidelity of the heart. The +heroine was, of course, still more immaculate; and to have conferred her +affections upon any other than the lover to whom the reader had destined +her from their first meeting, would have been a crime against sentiment +which no author, of moderate prudence, would have hazarded, under the +old _regime_. + +Here, therefore, we have two essentials and important circumstances, in +which the earlier novels differed from those now in fashion, and were +more nearly assimilated to the old romances. And there can be no doubt +that, by the studied involution and extrication of the story, by the +combination of incidents new, striking and wonderful beyond the course +of ordinary life, the former authors opened that obvious and strong +sense of interest which arises from curiosity; as by the pure, elevated, +and romantic cast of the sentiment, they conciliated those better +propensities of our nature which loves to contemplate the picture of +virtue, even when confessedly unable to imitate its excellences. + +But strong and powerful as these sources of emotion and interest may be, +they are, like all others, capable of being exhausted by habit. The +imitators who rushed in crowds upon each path in which the great masters +of the art had successively led the way, produced upon the public mind +the usual effect of satiety. The first writer of a new class is, as it +were, placed on a pinnacle of excellence, to which, at the earliest +glance of a surprised admirer, his ascent seems little less than +miraculous. Time and imitation speedily diminish the wonder, and each +successive attempt establishes a kind of progressive scale of ascent +between the lately deified author, and the reader, who had deemed his +excellence inaccessible. The stupidity, the mediocrity, the merit of his +imitators, are alike fatal to the first inventor, by showing how +possible it is to exaggerate his faults and to come within a certain +point of his beauties. + +Materials also (and the man of genius as well as his wretched imitator +must work with the same) become stale and familiar. Social life, in our +civilized days, affords few instances capable of being painted in the +strong dark colours which excite surprise and horror; and robbers, +smugglers, bailiffs, caverns, dungeons, and mad-houses, have been all +introduced until they ceased to interest. And thus in the novel, as in +every style of composition which appeals to the public taste, the more +rich and easily worked mines being exhausted, the adventurous author +must, if he is desirous of success, have recourse to those which were +disdained by his predecessors as unproductive, or avoided as only +capable of being turned to profit by great skill and labour. + +Accordingly a style of novel has arisen, within the last fifteen or +twenty years, differing from the former in the points upon which the +interest hinges; neither alarming our credulity nor amusing our +imagination by wild variety of incident, or by those pictures of +romantic affection and sensibility, which were formerly as certain +attributes of fictitious characters as they are of rare occurrence among +those who actually live and die. The substitute for these excitements, +which had lost much of their poignancy by the repeated and injudicious +use of them, was the art of copying from nature as she really exists in +the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the +splendid scenes of an imaginary world, a correct and striking +representation of that which is daily taking place around him. + +In adventuring upon this task, the author makes obvious sacrifices, and +encounters peculiar difficulty. He who paints from _le beau ideal_, if +his scenes and sentiments are striking and interesting, is in a great +measure exempted from the difficult task of reconciling them with the +ordinary probabilities of life: but he who paints a scene of common +occurrence, places his composition within that extensive range of +criticism which general experience offers to every reader. The +resemblance of a statue of Hercules we must take on the artist's +judgment; but every one can criticize that which is presented as the +portrait of a friend, or neighbour. Something more than a mere sign-post +likeness is also demanded. The portrait must have spirit and character, +as well as resemblance; and being deprived of all that, according to +Bayes, goes "to elevate and surprize," it must make amends by displaying +depth of knowledge and dexterity of execution. We, therefore, bestow no +mean compliment upon the author of _Emma_, when we say that, keeping +close to common incidents, and to such characters as occupy the ordinary +walks of life, she has produced sketches of such spirit and originality, +that we never miss the excitation which depends upon a narrative of +uncommon events, arising from the consideration of minds, manners and +sentiments, greatly above our own. In this class she stands almost +alone; for the scenes of Miss Edgeworth are laid in higher life, varied +by more romantic incident, and by her remarkable power of embodying and +illustrating national character. But the author of _Emma_ confines +herself chiefly to the middling classes of society; her most +distinguished characters do not rise greatly above well-bred country +gentlemen and ladies; and those which are sketched with most originality +and precision, belong to a class rather below that standard. The +narrative of all her novels is composed of such common occurrences as +may have fallen under the observation of most folks; and her dramatis +personae conduct themselves upon the motives and principles which the +readers may recognize as ruling their own and that of most of their +acquaintances. The kind of moral, also, which these novels inculcate, +applies equally to the paths of common life, as will best appear from a +short notice of the author's former works, with a more full abstract of +that which we at present have under consideration. + +_Sense and Sensibility_, the first of these compositions, contains the +history of two sisters. The elder, a young lady of prudence and +regulated feelings, becomes gradually attached to a man of an excellent +heart and limited talents, who happens unfortunately to be fettered by a +rash and ill-assorted engagement. In the younger sister, the influence +of sensibility and imagination predominates; and she, as was to be +expected, also falls in love, but with more unbridled and wilful +passion. Her lover, gifted with all the qualities of exterior polish and +vivacity, proves faithless, and marries a woman of large fortune. The +interest and merit of the piece depend altogether upon the behaviour of +the elder sister, while obliged at once to sustain her own +disappointment with fortitude, and to support her sister, who abandons +herself, with unsuppressed feelings, to the indulgence of grief. The +marriage of the unworthy rival at length relieves her own lover from his +imprudent engagement, while her sister, turned wise by precept, example, +and experience, transfers her affection to a very respectable and +somewhat too serious admirer, who had nourished an unsuccessful passion +through the three volumes. + +In _Pride and Prejudice_ the author presents us with a family of young +women, bred up under a foolish and vulgar mother, and a father whose +good abilities lay hid under such a load of indolence and insensibility, +that he had become contented to make the foibles and follies of his wife +and daughters the subject of dry and humorous sarcasm, rather than of +admonition, or restraint. This is one of the portraits from ordinary +life which shews our author's talents in a very strong point of view. A +friend of ours, whom the author never saw or heard of, was at once +recognized by his own family as the original of Mr. Bennet, and we do +not know if he has yet got rid of the nickname. A Mr. Collins, too, a +formal, conceited, yet servile young sprig of divinity, is drawn with +the same force and precision. The story of the piece consists chiefly in +the fates of the second sister, to whom a man of high birth, large +fortune, but haughty and reserved manners, becomes attached, in spite of +the discredit thrown upon the object of his affection by the vulgarity +and ill-conduct of her relations. The lady, on the contrary, hurt at the +contempt of her connections, which the lover does not even attempt to +suppress, and prejudiced against him on other accounts, refuses the hand +which he ungraciously offers, and does not perceive that she has done a +foolish thing until she accidentally visits a very handsome seat and +grounds belonging to her admirer. They chance to meet exactly as her +prudence had begun to subdue her prejudice; and after some essential +services rendered to her family, the lover becomes encouraged to renew +his addresses, and the novel ends happily. + +_Emma_ has even less story than either of the preceding novels. Miss +Emma Woodhouse, from whom the book takes its name, is the daughter of a +gentleman of wealth and consequence residing at his seat in the +immediate vicinage of a country village called Highbury. The father, a +good-natured, silly valetudinary, abandons the management of his +household to Emma, he himself being only occupied by his summer and +winter walk, his apothecary, his gruel, and his whist table. The latter +is supplied from the neighbouring village of Highbury with precisely the +sort of persons who occupy the vacant corners of a regular whist table, +when a village is in the neighbourhood, and better cannot be found +within the family. We have the smiling and courteous vicar, who +nourishes the ambitious hope of obtaining Miss Woodhouse's hand. We have +Mrs. Bates, the wife of a former rector, past everything but tea and +whist; her daughter, Miss Bates, a good-natured, vulgar, and foolish old +maid; Mr. Weston, a gentleman of a frank disposition and moderate +fortune, in the vicinity, and his wife an amiable and accomplished +person, who had been Emma's governess, and is devotedly attached to her. +Amongst all these personages, Miss Woodhouse walks forth, the princess +paramount, superior to all her companions in wit, beauty, fortune, and +accomplishments, doated upon by her father and the Westons, admired, and +almost worshipped by the more humble companions of the whist table. The +object of most young ladies is, or at least is usually supposed to be, a +desirable connection in marriage. But Emma Woodhouse, either +anticipating the taste of a later period of life, or, like a good +sovereign, preferring the weal of her subjects of Highbury to her own +private interest, sets generously about making matches for her friends +without thinking of matrimony on her own account. We are informed that +she had been eminently successful in the case of Mr. and Mrs. Weston; +and when the novel commences she is exerting her influence in favour of +Miss Harriet Smith, a boarding-school girl without family or fortune, +very good humoured, very pretty, very silly, and, what suited Miss +Woodhouse's purpose best of all, very much disposed to be married. + +In these conjugal machinations Emma is frequently interrupted, not only +by the cautions of her father, who had a particular objection to any +body committing the rash act of matrimony, but also by the sturdy +reproof and remonstrances of Mr. Knightley, the elder brother of her +sister's husband, a sensible country gentleman of thirty-five, who had +known Emma from her cradle, and was the only person who ventured to find +fault with her. In spite, however, of his censure and warning, Emma lays +a plan of marrying Harriet Smith to the vicar; and though she succeeds +perfectly in diverting her simple friend's thoughts from an honest +farmer who had made her a very suitable offer, and in flattering her +into a passion for Mr. Elton, yet, on the other hand, that conceited +divine totally mistakes the nature of the encouragement held out to him, +and attributes the favour which he found in Miss Woodhouse's eyes to a +lurking affection on her own part. This at length encourages him to a +presumptuous declaration of his sentiments; upon receiving a repulse, he +looks abroad elsewhere, and enriches the Highbury society by uniting +himself to a dashing young woman with as many thousands as are usually +called ten, and a corresponding quantity of presumption and ill +breeding. + +While Emma is thus vainly engaged in forging wedlock-fetters for others, +her friends have views of the same kind upon her, in favour of a son of +Mr. Weston by a former marriage, who bears the name, lives under the +patronage, and is to inherit the fortune of a rich uncle. Unfortunately +Mr. Frank Churchill had already settled his affections on Miss Jane +Fairfax, a young lady of reduced fortune; but as this was a concealed +affair, Emma, when Mr. Churchill first appears on the stage, has some +thoughts of being in love with him herself; speedily, however, +recovering from that dangerous propensity, she is disposed to confer him +upon her deserted friend Harriet Smith. Harriet has in the interim, +fallen desperately in love with Mr. Knightley, the sturdy, advice-giving +bachelor; and, as all the village supposes Frank Churchill and Emma to +be attached to each other, there are cross purposes enough (were the +novel of a more romantic cast) for cutting half the men's throats and +breaking all the women's hearts. But at Highbury Cupid walks decorously, +and with good discretion, bearing his torch under a lanthorn, instead of +flourishing it around to set the house on fire. All these entanglements +bring on only a train of mistakes and embarrassing situations, and +dialogues at balls and parties of pleasure, in which the author displays +her peculiar powers of humour and knowledge of human life. The plot is +extricated with great simplicity. The aunt of Frank Churchill dies; his +uncle, no longer under her baneful influence, consents to his marriage +with Jane Fairfax. Mr. Knightley and Emma are led, by this unexpected +incident, to discover that they had been in love with each other all +along. Mr. Woodhouse's objections to the marriage of his daughter are +overpowered by the fears of house-breakers, and the comfort which he +hopes to derive from having a stout son-in-law resident in the family; +and the facile affections of Harriet Smith are transferred, like a bank +bill by indorsation, to her former suitor, the honest farmer, who had +obtained a favourable opportunity of renewing his addresses. Such is the +simple plan of a story which we peruse with pleasure, if not with deep +interest, and which perhaps we might more willingly resume than one of +those narratives where the attention is strongly riveted, during the +first perusal, by the powerful excitement of curiosity. + +The author's knowledge of the world, and the peculiar tact with which +she presents characters that the reader cannot fail to recognize, +reminds us something of the merits of the Flemish school of painting. +The subjects are not often elegant, and certainly never grand; but they +are finished up to nature, and with a precision which delights the +reader. This is a merit which it is very difficult to illustrate by +extracts, because it pervades the whole work, and is not to be +comprehended from a single passage. The following is a dialogue between +Mr. Woodhouse, and his elder daughter Isabella, who shares his anxiety +about health, and has, like her father, a favourite apothecary. The +reader must be informed that this lady, with her husband, a sensible, +peremptory sort of person, had come to spend a week with her father. + + * * * * * + +Perhaps the reader may collect from the preceding specimen both the +merits and faults of the author. The former consists much in the force +of a narrative conducted with much neatness and point, and a quiet yet +comic dialogue, in which the characters of the speakers evolve +themselves with dramatic effect. The faults, on the contrary, arise from +the minute detail which the author's plan comprehends. Characters of +folly or simplicity, such as those of old Woodhouse and Miss Bates, are +ridiculous when first presented, but if too often brought forward or too +long dwelt upon, their prosing is apt to become as tiresome in fiction +as in real society. Upon the whole, the turn of this author's novels +bears the same relation to that of the sentimental and romantic cast, +that cornfields and cottages and meadows bear to the highly adorned +grounds of a show mansion, or the rugged sublimities of a mountain +landscape. It is neither so captivating as the one, nor so grand as the +other, but it affords to those who frequent it a pleasure nearly allied +with the experience of their own social habits; and what is of some +importance, the youthful wanderer may return from his promenade to the +ordinary business of life, without any chance of having his head turned +by the recollection of the scene through which he has been wandering. + +One word, however, we must say in behalf of that once powerful divinity, +Cupid, king of gods and men, who in these times of revolution, has been +assailed, even in his own kingdom of romance, by the authors who were +formerly his devoted priests. We are quite aware that there are few +instances of first attachment being brought to a happy conclusion, and +that it seldom can be so in a state of society so highly advanced as to +render early marriages among the better class, acts, generally speaking, +of imprudence. But the youth of this realm need not at present be taught +the doctrine of selfishness. It is by no means their error to give the +world or the good things of the world all for love; and before the +authors of moral fiction couple Cupid indivisibly with calculating +prudence, we would have them reflect, that they may sometimes lend their +aid to substitute more mean, more sordid, and more selfish motives of +conduct, for the romantic feelings which their predecessors perhaps +fanned into too powerful a flame. Who is it, that in his youth has felt +a virtuous attachment, however romantic or however unfortunate, but can +trace back to its influence much that his character may possess of what +is honourable, dignified, and disinterested? If he recollects hours +wasted in unavailing hope, or saddened by doubt and disappointment; he +may also dwell on many which have been snatched from folly or +libertinism, and dedicated to studies which might render him worthy of +the object of his affection, or pave the way perhaps to that distinction +necessary to raise him to an equality with her. Even the habitual +indulgence of feelings totally unconnected with ourself and our own +immediate interest, softens, graces, and amends the human mind; and +after the pain of disappointment is past, those who survive (and by good +fortune those are the greater number) are neither less wise nor less +worthy members of society for having felt, for a time, the influence of +a passion which has been well qualified as the "tenderest, noblest and +best." + + + + +ARCHBISHOP WHATELY ON +JANE AUSTEN + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1821] + +_Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion_. By the Author of _Sense and +Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park_, and _Emma_. 4 vols. +New Edition. + +The times seem to be past when an apology was requisite from reviewers +for condescending to notice a novel; when they felt themselves bound in +dignity to deprecate the suspicion of paying much regard to such +trifles, and pleaded the necessity of occasionally stooping to humour +the taste of their fair readers. The delights of fiction, if not more +keenly or more generally relished, are at least more readily +acknowledged by men of sense and taste; and we have lived to hear the +merits of the best of this class of writings earnestly discussed by some +of the ablest scholars and soundest reasoners of the present day. + +We are inclined to attribute this change, not so much to an alteration +in the public taste, as in the character of the productions in question. +Novels may not, perhaps, display more genius now than formerly, but they +contain more solid sense; they may not afford higher gratification, but +it is of a nature which men are less disposed to be ashamed of avowing. +We remarked, in a former Number, in reviewing a work of the author now +before us, that "a new style of novel has arisen, within the last +fifteen or twenty years, differing from the former in the points upon +which the interest hinges; neither alarming our credulity nor amusing +our imagination by wild variety of incident, or by those pictures of +romantic affection and sensibility, which were formerly as certain +attributes of fictitious characters as they are of rare occurrence among +those who actually live and die. The substitute for these excitements, +which had lost much of their poignancy by the repeated and injudicious +use of them, was the art of copying from nature as she really exists in +the common walks of life, and presenting to the reader, instead of the +splendid scenes of an imaginary world, a correct and striking +representation of that which is daily taking place around him." + +Now, though the origin of this new school of fiction may probably be +traced, as we there suggested, to the exhaustion of the mines from which +materials for entertainment had been hitherto extracted, and the +necessity of gratifying the natural craving of the reader for variety, +by striking into an untrodden path; the consequences resulting from this +change have been far greater than the mere supply of this demand. When +this Flemish painting, as it were, is introduced--this accurate and +unexaggerated delineation of events and characters--it necessarily +follows, that a novel, which makes good its pretensions of giving a +perfectly correct picture of common life, becomes a far more +_instructive_ work than one of equal or superior merit of the other +class; it guides the judgment, and supplies a kind of artificial +experience. It is a remark of the great father of criticism, that poetry +(_i.e._, narrative, and dramatic poetry) is of a more philosophical +character than history; inasmuch as the latter details what has actually +happened, of which many parts may chance to be exceptions to the general +rules of probability, and consequently illustrate no general principles; +whereas the former shews us what must naturally, or would probably, +happen under given circumstances; and thus displays to us a +comprehensive view of human nature, and furnishes general rules of +practical wisdom. It is evident, that this will apply only to such +fictions as are quite _perfect_ in respect of the probability of their +story; and that he, therefore, who resorts to the fabulist rather than +the historian, for instruction in human character and conduct, must +throw himself entirely on the judgment and skill of his teacher, and +give him credit for talents much more rare than the accuracy and +veracity which are the chief requisites in history. We fear, therefore, +that the exultation which we can conceive some of our gentle readers to +feel, at having Aristotle's warrant for (what probably they had never +dreamed of) the _philosophical character_ of their studies, must, in +practice, be somewhat qualified, by those sundry little violations of +probability which are to be met with in most novels; and which so far +lower their value, as models of real life, that a person who had no +other preparation for the world than is afforded by them, would form, +probably, a less accurate idea of things as they are, than he would of a +lion from studying merely the representations on China tea-pots. + +Accordingly, a heavy complaint has long lain against works of fiction, +as giving a false picture of what they profess to imitate, and +disqualifying their readers for the ordinary scenes and everyday duties +of life. And this charge applies, we apprehend, to the generality of +what are strictly called novels, with even more justice than to +romances. When all the characters and events are very far removed from +what we see around us,--when, perhaps, even supernatural agents are +introduced, the reader may indulge, indeed, in occasional day-dreams, +but will be so little reminded by what he has been reading, of anything +that occurs in actual life, that though he may perhaps feel some +disrelish for the tameness of the scene before him, compared with the +fairy-land he has been visiting, yet at least his judgment will not be +depraved, nor his expectations misled; he will not apprehend a meeting +with Algerine banditti on English shores, nor regard the old woman who +shews him about an antique country seat, as either an enchantress or the +keeper of an imprisoned damsel. But it is otherwise with those fictions +which differ from common life in little or nothing but the improbability +of the occurrences: the reader is insensibly led to calculate upon some +of those lucky incidents and opportune coincidences of which he has been +so much accustomed to read, and which, it is undeniable, _may_ take +place in real life; and to feel a sort of confidence, that however +romantic his conduct may be, and in whatever difficulties it may involve +him, all will be sure to come right at last, as is invariably the case +with the hero of a novel. + +On the other hand, so far as these pernicious effects fail to be +produced, so far does the example lose its influence, and the exercise +of poetical justice is rendered vain. The reward of virtuous conduct +being brought about by fortunate accidents, he who abstains (taught, +perhaps, by bitter disappointments) from reckoning on such accidents, +wants that encouragement to virtue, which alone has been held out to +him. "If I were _a man in a novel_," we remember to have heard an +ingenious friend observe, "I should certainly act so and so, because I +should be sure of being no loser by the most heroic self-devotion and of +ultimately succeeding in the most daring enterprises." + +It may be said, in answer, that these objections apply only to the +_unskilful_ novelist, who, from ignorance of the world, gives an +unnatural representation of what he professes to delineate. This is +partly true, and partly not; for there is a distinction to be made +between the _unnatural_ and the merely _improbable_: a fiction is +unnatural when there is some assignable reason against the events taking +place as described,--when men are represented as acting contrary to the +character assigned them, or to human nature in general; as when a young +lady of seventeen, brought up in ease, luxury and retirement, with no +companions but the narrow-minded and illiterate, displays (as a heroine +usually does) under the most trying circumstances, such wisdom, +fortitude, and knowledge of the world, as the best instructors and the +best examples can rarely produce without the aid of more mature age and +longer experience.--On the other hand, a fiction is still _improbable_, +though _not unnatural_, when there is no reason to be assigned why +things should not take place as represented, except that the +_overbalance of chances is_ against it; the hero meets, in his utmost +distress, most opportunely, with the very person to whom he had formerly +done a signal service, and who happens to communicate to him a piece of +intelligence which sets all to rights. Why should he not meet him as +well as any one else? all that can be said is, that there is no reason +why he should. The infant who is saved from a wreck, and who afterwards +becomes such a constellation of virtues and accomplishments, turns out +to be no other than the nephew of the very gentleman, on whose estate +the waves had cast him, and whose lovely daughter he had so long sighed +for in vain: there is no reason to be given, except from the calculation +of chances, why he should not have been thrown on one part of the coast +as well as another. Nay, it would be nothing unnatural, though the most +determined novel-reader would be shocked at its improbability, if all +the hero's enemies, while they were conspiring his ruin were to be +struck dead together by a lucky flash of lightning: yet many denouements +which _are_ decidedly unnatural, are better tolerated than this would +be. We shall, perhaps, best explain our meaning by examples, taken from +a novel of great merit in many respects. When Lord Glenthorn, in whom a +most unfavourable education has acted on a most unfavourable +disposition, after a life of torpor, broken only by short sallies of +forced exertion, on a sudden reverse of fortune, displays at once the +most persevering diligence in the most repulsive studies, and in middle +life, without any previous habits of exertion, any hope of early +business, or the example of friends, or the stimulus of actual want, to +urge him, outstrips every competitor, though every competitor has every +advantage against him; this is unnatural.--When Lord Glenthorn, the +instant he is stripped of his estates, meets, falls in love with, and is +conditionally accepted by the very lady who is remotely intitled to +those estates; when, the instant he has fulfilled the conditions of +their marriage, the family of the person possessed of the estates +becomes extinct, and by the concurrence of circumstances, against every +one of which the chances were enormous, the hero is re-instated in all +his old domains; this is merely improbable. The distinction which we +have been pointing out may be plainly perceived in the events of real +life; when any thing takes place of such a nature as we should call, in +a fiction, merely improbable, because there are many chances against it, +we call it a lucky or unlucky accident, a singular coincidence, +something very extraordinary, odd, curious, etc.; whereas any thing +which, in a fiction, would be called unnatural, when it actually occurs +(and such things do occur), is still called unnatural, inexplicable, +unaccountable, inconceivable, etc., epithets which are not applied to +events that have merely the balance of chances against them. + +Now, though an author who understands human nature is not likely to +introduce into his fictions any thing that is unnatural, he will often +have much that is improbable: he may place his personages, by the +intervention of accident, in striking situations, and lead them through +a course of extraordinary adventures; and yet, in the midst of all this, +he will keep up the most perfect consistency of character, and make them +act as it would be natural for men to act in such situations and +circumstances. Fielding's novels are a good illustration of this: they +display great knowledge of mankind; the characters are well preserved; +the persons introduced all act as one would naturally expect they +should, in the circumstances in which they are placed; but these +circumstances are such as it is incalculably improbable should ever +exist: several of the events, taken singly, are much against the chances +of probability; but the combination of the whole in a connected series, +is next to impossible. Even the romances which admit a mixture of +supernatural agency, are not more unfit to prepare men for real life, +than such novels as these; since one might just as reasonably calculate +on the intervention of a fairy, as on the train of lucky chances which +combine first to involve Tom Jones in his difficulties, and afterwards +to extricate him. Perhaps, indeed, the supernatural fable is of the two +not only (as we before remarked) the less mischievous in its moral +effects, but also the more correct kind of composition in point of +taste: the author lays down a kind of hypothesis of the existence of +ghosts, witches, or fairies, and professes to describe what would take +place under that hypothesis; the novelist, on the contrary, makes no +demand of extraordinary machinery, but professes to describe what may +actually take place, according to the existing laws of human affairs: if +he therefore present us with a series of events quite unlike any which +ever do take place, we have reason to complain that he has not made good +his professions. + +When, therefore, the generality, even of the most approved novels, were +of this character (to say nothing of the heavier charges brought, of +inflaming the passions of young persons by warm descriptions, weakening +their abhorrence of profligacy by exhibiting it in combination with the +most engaging qualities, and presenting vice in all its allurements, +while setting forth the triumphs of "virtue rewarded") it is not to be +wondered that the grave guardians of youth should have generally +stigmatized the whole class, as "serving only to fill young people's +heads with romantic love-stories, and rendering them unfit to mind +anything else." That this censure and caution should in many instances +be indiscriminate, can surprize no one, who recollects how rare a +quality discrimination is; and how much better it suits indolence, as +well as ignorance, to lay down a rule, than to ascertain the exceptions +to it: we are acquainted with a careful mother whose daughters while +they never in their lives read a _novel_ of any kind, are permitted to +peruse, without reserve, any _plays_ that happen to fall in their way; +and with another, from whom no lessons, however excellent, of wisdom and +piety, contained in a _prose-fiction,_ can obtain quarter; but who, on +the other hand, is no less indiscriminately indulgent to her children in +the article of tales in _verse_, of whatever character. + +The change, however, which we have already noticed, as having taken +place in the character of several modern novels, has operated in a +considerable degree to do away this prejudice; and has elevated this +species of composition, in some respects at least, into a much higher +class. For most of that instruction which used to be presented to the +world in the shape of formal dissertations, or shorter and more +desultory moral essays, such as those of the _Spectator_ and _Rambler_, +we may now resort to the pages of the acute and judicious, but not less +amusing, novelists who have lately appeared. If their views of men and +manners are no less just than those of the essayists who preceded them, +are they to be rated lower because they present to us these views, not +in the language of general description, but in the form of +well-constructed fictitious narrative? If the practical lessons they +inculcate are no less sound and useful, it is surely no diminution of +their merit that they are conveyed by example instead of precept: nor, +if their remarks are neither less wise nor less important, are they the +less valuable for being represented as thrown out in the course of +conversations suggested by the circumstances of the speakers, and +perfectly in character. The praise and blame of the moralist are surely +not the less effectual for being bestowed, not in general declamation, +on classes of men, but on individuals representing those classes, who +are so clearly delineated and brought into action before us, that we +seem to be acquainted with them, and feel an interest in their fate. + +Biography is allowed, on all hands, to be one of the most attractive and +profitable kinds of reading: now such novels as we have been speaking +of, being a kind of fictitious biography, bear the same relation to the +real, that epic and tragic poetry, according to Aristotle, bear to +history: they present us (supposing, of course, each perfect in its +kind) with the general, instead of the particular,--the probable, +instead of the true; and, by leaving out those accidental +irregularities, and exceptions to general rules, which constitute the +many improbabilities of real narrative, present us with a clear and +_abstracted_ view of the general rules themselves; and thus concentrate, +as it were, into a small compass, the net result of wide experience. + +Among the authors of this school there is no one superior, if equal, to +the lady whose last production is now before us, and whom we have much +regret in finally taking leave of: her death (in the prime of life, +considered as a writer) being announced in this the first publication to +which her name is prefixed. We regret the failure not only of a source +of innocent amusement, but also of that supply of practical good sense +and instructive example, which she would probably have continued to +furnish better than any of her contemporaries:--Miss Edgeworth, indeed, +draws characters and details conversations, such as they occur in real +life, with a spirit and fidelity not to be surpassed; but her stories +are most romantically improbable (in the sense above explained), almost +all the important events of them being brought about by most +_providential_ coincidences; and this, as we have already remarked, is +not merely faulty, inasmuch as it evinces a want of skill in the writer, +and gives an air of clumsiness to the fiction, but is a very +considerable drawback on its practical utility: the personages either of +fiction or history being then only profitable examples, when their good +or ill conduct meets its appropriate reward, not from a sort of +independent machinery of accidents, but as a necessary or probable +result, according to the ordinary course of affairs. Miss Edgeworth also +is somewhat too avowedly didactic: that seems to be true of her, which +the French critics, in the extravagance of their conceits, attributed to +Homer and Virgil; viz., that they first thought of a moral, and then +framed a fable to illustrate it; she would, we think, instruct more +successfully, and she would, we are sure, please more frequently, if she +kept the design of teaching more out of sight, and did not so glaringly +press every circumstance of her story, principal or subordinate, into +the service of a principle to be inculcated, or information to be given. +A certain portion of moral instruction must accompany every +well-invented narrative. Virtue must be represented as producing, at the +long run, happiness; and vice, misery; and the accidental events, that +in +real life interrupt this tendency, are anomalies which, though true +individually, are as false generally as the accidental deformities which +vary the average outline of the human figure. They would be as much out +of place in a fictitious narrative, as a wen in an academic model. But +any _direct_ attempt at moral teaching, and any attempt whatever to give +scientific information will, we fear, unless managed with the utmost +discretion, interfere with what, after all, is the immediate and +peculiar object of the novelist, as of the poet, _to please_. If +instruction do not join as a volunteer, she will do no good service. +Miss Edgeworth's novels put us in mind of those clocks and watches which +are condemned "a double or a treble debt to pay": which, besides their +legitimate object, to show the hour, tell you the day of the month or +the week, give you a landscape for a dial-plate, with the second hand +forming the sails of a windmill, or have a barrel to play a tune, or an +alarum to remind you of an engagement: all very good things in their +way; but so it is that these watches never tell the time so well as +those in which that is the exclusive object of the maker. Every +additional movement is an obstacle to the original design. We do not +deny that we have learned much physic, and much law, from _Patronage_, +particularly the latter, for Miss Edgeworth's law is of a very original +kind; but it was not to learn law and physic that we took up the book, +and we suspect we should have been more pleased if we had been less +taught. With regard to the influence of religion, which is scarcely, if +at all, alluded to in Miss Edgeworth's novels, we would abstain from +pronouncing any decision which should apply to her personally. She may, +for aught we know, entertain opinions which would not permit her, with +consistency, to attribute more to it than she has done; in that case she +stands acquitted, in _foro conscientiae_, of wilfully suppressing any +thing which she acknowledges to be true and important; but, as a writer, +it must still be considered as a blemish, in the eyes at least of those +who think differently, that virtue should be studiously inculcated with +scarcely any reference to what they regard as the main spring of it; +that vice should be traced to every other source except the want of +religious principle; that the most radical change from worthlessness to +excellence should be represented as wholly independent of that agent +which they consider as the only one that can accomplish it; and that +consolation under affliction should be represented as derived from every +source except the one which they look to as the only true and sure one: +"is it not because there is no God in Israel that ye have sent to +inquire of Baalzebub the God of Ekron?" + +Miss Austin has the merit (in our judgment most essential) of being +evidently a Christian writer: a merit which is much enhanced, both on +the score of good taste, and of practical utility, by her religion being +not at all obtrusive. She might defy the most fastidious critic to call +any of her novels (as _Caelebs_ was designated, we will not say +altogether without reason), a "dramatic sermon." The subject is rather +alluded to, and that incidentally, than studiously brought forward and +dwelt upon. In fact she is more sparing of it than would be thought +desirable by some persons; perhaps even by herself, had she consulted +merely her own sentiments; but she probably introduced it as far as she +thought would be generally acceptable and profitable: for when the +purpose of inculcating a religious principle is made too palpably +prominent, many readers, if they do not throw aside the book with +disgust, are apt to fortify themselves with that respectful kind of +apathy with which they undergo a regular sermon, and prepare themselves +as they do to swallow a dose of medicine, endeavouring to _get it down_ +in large gulps, without tasting it more than is necessary. + +The moral lessons also of this lady's novels, though clearly and +impressively conveyed, are not offensively put forward, but spring +incidentally from the circumstances of the story; they are not forced +upon the reader, but he is left to collect them (though without any +difficulty) for himself: hers is that unpretending kind of instruction +which is furnished by real life; and certainly no author has ever +conformed more closely to real life, as well in the incidents, as in the +characters and descriptions. Her fables appear to us to be, in their own +way, nearly faultless; they do not consist (like those of some of the +writers who have attempted this kind of common-life novel writing) of a +string of unconnected events which have little or no bearing on one main +plot, and are introduced evidently for the sole purpose of bringing in +characters and conversations; but have all that compactness of plan and +unity of action which is generally produced by a sacrifice of +probability: yet they have little or nothing that is not probable; the +story proceeds without the aid of extraordinary accidents; the events +which take place are the necessary or natural consequences of what has +preceded; and yet (which is a very rare merit indeed) the final +catastrophe is scarcely ever clearly foreseen from the beginning, and +very often comes, upon the generality of readers at least, quite +unexpected. We know not whether Miss Austin ever had access to the +precepts of Aristotle; but there are few, if any, writers of fiction who +have illustrated them more successfully. + +The vivid distinctness of description, the minute fidelity of detail, +and air of unstudied ease in the scenes represented, which are no less +necessary than probability of incident, to carry the reader's +imagination along with the story, and give fiction the perfect +appearance of reality, she possesses in a high degree; and the object is +accomplished without resorting to those deviations from the ordinary +plan of narrative in the third person, which have been patronized by +some eminent masters. We allude to the two other methods of conducting a +fictitious story, viz., either by narrative in the first person, when +the hero is made to tell his own tale, or by a series of letters; both +of which we conceive have been adopted with a view of heightening the +resemblance of the fiction to reality. At first sight, indeed, there +might appear no reason why a story told in the first person should have +more the air of a real history than in the third; especially as the +majority of real histories actually are in the third person; +nevertheless, experience seems to show that such is the case: provided +there be no want of skill in the writer, the resemblance to real life, +of a fiction thus conducted, will approach much the nearest (other +points being equal) to a deception, and the interest felt in it, to that +which we feel in real transactions. We need only instance Defoe's +Novels, which, in spite of much improbability, we believe have been +oftener mistaken for true narratives, than any fictions that ever were +composed. Colonel Newport is well known to have been cited as an +historical authority; and we have ourselves found great difficulty in +convincing many of our friends that Defoe was not himself the citizen, +who relates the plague of London. The reason probably is, that in the +ordinary form of narrative, the writer is not content to exhibit, like a +real historian, a bare detail of such circumstances as might actually +have come under his knowledge; but presents us with a description of +what is passing in the minds of the parties, and gives an account of +their feelings and motives, as well as their most private conversations +in various places at once. All this is very amusing, but perfectly +unnatural: the merest simpleton could hardly mistake a fiction of _this_ +kind for a true history, unless he believed the writer to be endued with +omniscience and omnipresence, or to be aided by familiar spirits, doing +the office of Homer's Muses, whom he invokes to tell him all that could +not otherwise be known; + + [Greek: _Umeis gar theoi eote pareote te, iote te panta._] + +Let the events, therefore, which are detailed, and the characters +described, be ever so natural, the way in which they are presented to us +is of a kind of supernatural cast, perfectly unlike any real history +that ever was or can be written, and thus requiring a greater stretch of +imagination in the reader. On the other hand, the supposed narrator of +his own history never pretends to dive into the thoughts and feelings of +the other parties; he merely describes his own, and gives his +conjectures as to those of the rest, just as a real autobiographer might +do; and thus an author is enabled to assimilate his fiction to reality, +without withholding that delineation of the inward workings of the human +heart, which is so much coveted. Nevertheless novels in the first person +have not succeeded so well as to make that mode of writing become very +general. It is objected to them, not without reason, that they want a +_hero_: the person intended to occupy that post being the narrator +himself, who of course cannot so describe his own conduct and character +as to make the reader thoroughly acquainted with him; though the attempt +frequently produces an offensive appearance of egotism. + +The plan of a fictitious correspondence seems calculated in some measure +to combine the advantages of the other two; since, by allowing each +personage to be the speaker in turn, the feelings of each may be +described by himself, and his character and conduct by another. But +these novels are apt to become excessively tedious; since, to give the +letters the appearance of reality (without which the main object +proposed would be defeated), they must contain a very large proportion +of matter which has no bearing at all upon the story. There is also +generally a sort of awkward disjointed appearance in a novel which +proceeds entirely in letters, and holds together, as it were, by +continual splicing. + +Miss Austin, though she has in a few places introduced letters with +great effect, has on the whole conducted her novels on the ordinary +plan, describing, without scruple, private conversations and +uncommunicated feelings: but she has not been forgetful of the important +maxim, so long ago illustrated by Homer, and afterwards enforced by +Aristotle,[1] of saying as little as possible in her own person, and +giving a dramatic air to the narrative, by introducing frequent +conversations; which she conducts with a regard to character hardly +exceeded even by Shakespeare himself. Like him, she shows as admirable a +discrimination in the characters of fools as of people of sense; a merit +which is far from common. To invent, indeed, a conversation full of +wisdom or of wit, requires that the writer should himself possess +ability; but the converse does not hold good: it is no fool that can +describe fools well; and many who have succeeded pretty well in painting +superior characters, have failed in giving individuality to those weaker +ones, which it is necessary to introduce in order to give a faithful +representation of real life: they exhibit to us mere folly in the +abstract, forgetting that to the eye of a skilful naturalist the insects +on a leaf present as wide differences as exist between the elephant and +the lion. Slender, and Shallow, and Aguecheek, as Shakespeare has +painted them, though equally fools, resemble one another no more than +"Richard," and "Macbeth," and "Julius Caesar"; and Miss Austin's "Mrs. +Bennet," "Mr. Rushworth," and "Miss Bates," are no more alike than her +"Darcy," "Knightley," and "Edmund Bertram." Some have complained, +indeed, of finding her fools too much like nature, and consequently +tiresome; there is no disputing about tastes; all we can say is, that +such critics must (whatever deference they may outwardly pay to received +opinions) find the "Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Twelfth Night" very +tiresome; and that those who look with pleasure at Wilkie's pictures, or +those of the Dutch school, must admit that excellence of imitation may +confer attraction on that which would be insipid or disagreeable in the +reality. + +[1] [Greek: _ouden anthes_] Arist. Poet. + +Her minuteness of detail has also been found fault with; but even where +it produces, at the time, a degree of tediousness, we know not whether +that can justly be reckoned a blemish, which is absolutely essential to +a very high excellence. Now, it is absolutely impossible, without this, +to produce that thorough acquaintance with the characters, which is +necessary to make the reader heartily interested in them. Let any one +cut out from the _Iliad_ or from Shakespeare's plays every thing (we are +far from saying that either might not lose some parts with advantage, +but let him reject every thing) which is absolutely devoid of importance +and of interest _in itself_; and he will find that what is left will +have lost more than half its charms. We are convinced that some writers +have diminished the effect of their works by being scrupulous to admit +nothing into them which had not some absolute, intrinsic, and +independent merit. They have acted like those who strip off the leaves +of a fruit tree, as being of themselves good for nothing, with the view +of securing more nourishment to the fruit, which in fact cannot attain +its full maturity and flavour without them. + + * * * * * + +To say the truth, we suspect one of Miss Austin's great merits in our +eyes to be, the insight she gives us into the peculiarities of female +character. Authoresses can scarcely ever forget the _esprit de corps_-- +can scarcely ever forget that they _are authoresses_. They seem to feel +a sympathetic shudder at exposing naked a female mind. _Elles se +peignent en buste_, and leave the mysteries of womanhood to be described +by some interloping male, like Richardson or Marivaux, who is turned out +before he has seen half the rites, and is forced to spin from his own +conjectures the rest. Now from this fault Miss Austin is free. Her +heroines are what one knows women must be, though one never can get them +to acknowledge it. As liable to "fall in love first," as anxious to +attract the attention of agreeable men, as much taken with a striking +manner, or a handsome face, as unequally gifted with constancy and +firmness, as liable to have their affections biassed by convenience or +fashion, as we, on our part, will admit men to be. As some illustration +of what we mean, we refer our readers to the conversation between Miss +Crawford and Fanny, vol. iii, p. 102. Fanny's meeting with her father, +p. 199; her reflections after reading Edmund's letter, 246; her +happiness (good, and heroine though she be) in the midst of the misery +of all her friends, when she finds that Edmund has decidedly broken with +her rival; feelings, all of them, which, under the influence of strong +passion, must alloy the purest mind, but with which scarcely any +_authoress_ but Miss Austin would have ventured to temper the aetherial +materials of a heroine. + +But we must proceed to the publication of which the title is prefixed to +this article. It contains, it seems, the earliest and the latest +productions of the author; the first of them having been purchased, we +are told, many years back by a bookseller, who, for some reason +unexplained, thought proper to alter his mind and withhold it. We do not +much applaud his taste; for though it is decidedly inferior to her other +works, having less plot, and what there is, less artificially wrought +up, and also less exquisite nicety of moral painting; yet the same kind +of excellences which characterise the other novels may be perceived in +this, in a degree which would have been highly creditable to most other +writers of the same school, and which would have entitled the author to +considerable praise, had she written nothing better. + +We already begin to fear, that we have indulged too much in extracts, +and we must save some room for _Persuasion_, or we could not resist +giving a specimen of John Thorpe, with his horse that _cannot_ go less +than 10 miles an hour, his refusal to drive his sister "because she has +such thick ankles," and his sober consumption of five pints of port a +day; altogether the best portrait of a species, which, though almost +extinct, cannot yet be quite classed among the Palaeotheria, the Bang-up +Oxonian. Miss Thorpe, the jilt of middling life, is, in her way, quite +as good, though she has not the advantage of being the representative of +a rare or a diminishing species. We fear few of our readers, however +they may admire the naivete, will admit the truth of poor John Morland's +postscript, "I can never expect to know such another woman." + +The latter of these novels, however, _Persuasion_, which is more +strictly to be considered as a posthumous work, possesses that +superiority which might be expected from the more mature age at which it +was written, and is second, we think, to none of the former ones, if not +superior to all. In the humorous delineation of character it does not +abound quite so much as some of the others, though it has great merit +even on that score; but it has more of that tender and yet elevated kind +of interest which is aimed at by the generality of novels, and in +pursuit of which they seldom fail of running into romantic extravagance: +on the whole, it is one of the most elegant fictions of common life we +ever remember to have met with. + +Sir Walter Elliot, a silly and conceited baronet, has three daughters, +the eldest two, unmarried, and the third, Mary, the wife of a +neighbouring gentleman, Mr. Charles Musgrove, heir to a considerable +fortune, and living in a genteel cottage in the neighbourhood of the +Great house which he is hereafter to inherit. The second daughter, Anne, +who is the heroine, and the only one of the family possessed of good +sense (a quality which Miss Austin is as sparing of in her novels, as we +fear her great mistress, Nature, has been in real life), when on a visit +to her sister, is, by that sort of instinct which generally points out +to all parties the person on whose judgment and temper they may rely, +appealed to in all the little family differences which arise, and which +are described with infinite spirit and detail. + + * * * * * + +We ventured, in a former article, to remonstrate against the +dethronement of the once powerful God of Love, in his own most especial +domain, the novel; and to suggest that, in shunning the ordinary fault +of recommending by examples a romantic and uncalculating extravagance of +passion, Miss Austin had rather fallen into the opposite extreme of +exclusively patronizing what are called prudent matches, and too much +disparaging sentimental enthusiasm. We urged, that, mischievous as is +the extreme on this side, it is not the one into which the young folks +of the present day are the most likely to run: the prevailing fault is +not now, whatever it may have been, to sacrifice all for love: + + Venit enim magnum donandi parca juventus, + Nec tantum Veneris quantum studiosa culinae. + +We may now, without retracting our opinion, bestow unqualified +approbation; for the distresses of the present heroine all arise from +her prudent refusal to listen to the suggestions of her heart. The +catastrophe, however, is happy, and we are left in doubt whether it +would have been better for her or not, to accept the first proposal; and +this we conceive is precisely the proper medium; for, though we would +not have prudential calculations the sole principle to be regarded in +marriage, we are far from advocating their exclusion. To disregard the +advice of sober-minded friends on an important point of conduct, is an +imprudence we would by no means recommend; indeed, it is a species of +selfishness, if, in listening only to the dictates of passion, a man +sacrifices to its gratification the happiness of those most dear to him +as well as his own; though it is not now-a-days the most prevalent form +of selfishness. But it is no condemnation of a sentiment to say, that it +becomes blameable when it interferes with duty, and is uncontrolled by +conscience: the desire of riches, power, or distinction--the taste for +ease and comfort--are to be condemned when they transgress these bounds; +and love, if it keep within them, even though it be somewhat tinged with +enthusiasm, and a little at variance with what the worldly call +prudence, _i.e._, regard for pecuniary advantage, may afford a better +moral discipline to the mind than most other passions. It will not at +least be denied, that it has often proved a powerful stimulus to +exertion where others have failed, and has called forth talents unknown +before even to the possessor. What, though the pursuit may be fruitless, +and the hopes visionary? The result may be a real and substantial +benefit, though of another kind; the vineyard may have been cultivated +by digging in it for the treasure which is never to be found. What +though the perfections with which imagination has decorated the beloved +object, may, in fact, exist but in a slender degree? still they are +believed in and admired as real; if not, the love is such as does not +merit the name; and it is proverbially true that men become assimilated +to the character (_i.e._, what they _think_ the character) of the being +they fervently adore: thus, as in the noblest exhibitions of the stage, +though that which is contemplated be but a fiction, it may be realized +in the mind of the beholder; and, though grasping at a cloud, he may +become worthy of possessing a real goddess. Many a generous sentiment, +and many a virtuous resolution, have been called forth and matured by +admiration of one, who may herself perhaps have been incapable of +either. It matters not what the object is that a man aspires to be +worthy of, and proposes as a model for imitation, if he does but +_believe_ it to be excellent. Moreover, all doubts of success (and they +are seldom, if ever, entirely wanting) must either produce or exercise +humility; and the endeavour to study another's interests and +inclinations, and prefer them to one's own, may promote a habit of +general benevolence which may outlast the present occasion. Every thing, +in short, which tends to abstract a man in any degree, or in any way, +from self,--from self-admiration and self-interest, has, so far at +least, a beneficial influence in forming the character. + +On the whole, Miss Austin's works may safely be recommended, not only as +among the most unexceptionable of their class, but as combining, in an +eminent degree, instruction with amusement, though without the direct +effort at the former, of which we have complained, as sometimes +defeating its object. For those who cannot, or will not, _learn_ +anything from productions of this kind, she has provided entertainment +which entitles her to thanks; for mere innocent amusement is in itself a +good, when it interferes with no greater: especially as it may occupy +the place of some other that may _not_ be innocent. The Eastern monarch +who proclaimed a reward to him who should discover a new pleasure, would +have deserved well of mankind had he stipulated that it should be +blameless. Those, again, who delight in the study of human nature, may +improve in the knowledge of it, and in the profitable application of +that knowledge, by the perusal of such fictions as those before us. + + + +W. E. GLADSTONE ON TENNYSON + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1859] + +1. _Tennyson's Poems_. In Two Volumes. London, 1842. +2. _The Princess: a Medley_. London, 1847. +3. _In Memoriam_. London, 1850. +4. _Maud, and other Poems_. London, 1855. +5. _Idylls of the King_. London, 1859. + +Mr. Tennyson published his first volume, under the title of "Poems +Chiefly Lyrical," in 1830, and his second, with the name simply of +"Poems," in 1833. In 1842 he reappeared before the world in two volumes, +partly made up from the _debris_ of his earlier pieces; and from this +time forward he came into the enjoyment of a popularity at once great, +growing, and select. With a manly resolution, which gave promise of the +rare excellence he was progressively to attain, he had at this time +amputated altogether from the collection about one-half of the contents +of his earliest work, with some considerable portion of the second; he +had almost rewritten or carefully corrected other important pieces, and +had added a volume of new compositions. + +The latter handiwork showed a great advance upon the earlier; as, +indeed, 1833 had shown upon 1830. From the very first, however, he had +been noteworthy in performance as well as in promise, and it was plain +that, whatever else might happen, at least neglect was not to be his +lot. But, in the natural heat of youth he had at the outset certainly +mixed up some trivial with a greater number of worthy productions, and +had shown an impatience of criticism by which, however excusable, he was +sure to be himself the chief sufferer. His higher gifts, too, were of +the quality which, by the changeless law of nature, cannot ripen fast; +and there was, accordingly, some portion both of obscurity and of +crudity in the results of his youthful labours. Men of slighter +materials would have come more quickly to their maturity, and might have +given less occasion not only for cavil but for animadversion. It was yet +more creditable to him, than it could be even to the just among his +critics, that he should, and while yet young, have applied himself with +so resolute a hand to the work of castigation. He thus gave a remarkable +proof alike of his reverence for his art, of his insight into its +powers, of the superiority he had acquired to all the more commonplace +illusions of self-love, and perhaps of his presaging consciousness that +the great, if they mean to fulfil the measure of their greatness, should +always be fastidious against themselves. + +It would be superfluous to enter upon any general criticism of this +collection, which was examined when still recent in this Review, and a +large portion of which is established in the familiar recollection and +favour of the public. We may, however, say that what may be termed at +large the classical idea (though it is not that of Troas nor of the +Homeric period) has, perhaps, never been grasped with greater force and +justice than in "Oenone," nor exhibited in a form of more consummate +polish. "Ulysses" is likewise a highly finished poem; but it is open to +the remark that it exhibits (so to speak) a corner-view of a character +which was in itself a _cosmos_. Never has political philosophy been +wedded to the poetic form more happily than in the three short pieces on +England and her institutions, unhappily without title, and only to be +cited, like writs of law and papal bulls, by their first words. Even +among the rejected pieces there are specimens of a deep metaphysical +insight; and this power reappears with an increasing growth of ethical +and social wisdom in "Locksley Hall" and elsewhere. The Wordsworthian +poem of "Dora" is admirable in its kind. From the firmness of its +drawing, and the depth and singular purity of its colour, "Godiva" +stood, if we judge aright, as at once a great performance and a great +pledge. But, above all, the fragmentary piece on the Death of Arthur was +a fit prelude to that lordly music which is now sounding in our ears. If +we pass onward from these volumes, it is only because space forbids a +further enumeration. + +The "Princess" was published in 1847. The author has termed it "a +medley": why, we know not. It approaches more nearly to the character of +a regular drama, with the stage directions written into verse, than any +other of his works, and it is composed consecutively throughout on the +basis of one idea. It exhibits an effort to amalgamate the place and +function of woman with that of man, and the failure of that effort, +which duly winds up with the surrender and marriage of the fairest and +chief enthusiast. It may be doubted whether the idea is one well suited +to exhibition in a quasi-dramatic form. Certainly the mode of embodying +it, so far as it is dramatic, is not successful; for here again the +persons are little better than mere _personae_. They are _media_, and +weak _media_, for the conveyance of the ideas. The poem is, +nevertheless, one of high interest, on account of the force, purity and +nobleness of the main streams of thought, which are clothed in language +full of all Mr. Tennyson's excellences; and also because it marks the +earliest effort of his mind in the direction of his latest and greatest +achievements. + + * * * * * + +With passages like these still upon the mind and ear, and likewise +having in view many others in the "Princess" and elsewhere, we may +confidently assert it as one of Mr. Tennyson's brightest distinctions +that he is now what from the very first he strove to be, and what when +he wrote "Godiva" he gave ample promise of becoming--the poet of woman. +We do not mean, nor do we know, that his hold over women as his readers +is greater than his command or influence over men; but that he has +studied, sounded, painted woman in form, in motion, in character, in +office, in capability, with rare devotion, power, and skill; and the +poet who best achieves this end does also most and best for man. + +In 1850 Mr. Tennyson gave to the world, under the title of "In +Memoriam," perhaps the richest oblation ever offered by the affection of +friendship at the tomb of the departed. The memory of Arthur Henry +Hallam, who died suddenly in 1833, at the age of twenty-two, will +doubtless live chiefly in connection with this volume; but he is well +known to have been one who, if the term of his days had been prolonged, +would have needed no aid from a friendly hand, would have built for +himself an enduring monument, and would have bequeathed to his country a +name in all likelihood greater than that of his very distinguished +father. There was no one among those who were blessed with his +friendship, nay, as we see, not even Mr. Tennyson,[1] who did not feel +at once bound closely to him by commanding affection, and left far +behind by the rapid, full, and rich development of his ever-searching +mind; by his + + All comprehensive tenderness, + All subtilising intellect. + +[1] See "In Memoriam," pp. 64, 84. + +It would be easy to show what, in the varied forms of human excellence, +he might, had life been granted him, have accomplished; much more +difficult to point the finger and to say, "This he never could have +done." Enough remains from among his early efforts to accredit whatever +mournful witness may now be borne of him. But what can be a nobler +tribute than this, that for seventeen years after his death a poet, fast +rising towards the lofty summits of his art, found that young fading +image the richest source of his inspiration, and of thoughts that gave +him buoyancy for a flight such as he had not hitherto attained? + +It would be very difficult to convey a just idea of this volume either +by narrative or by quotation. In the series of monodies or meditations +which compose it, and which follow in long series without weariness or +sameness, the poet never moves away a step from the grave of his friend, +but, while circling round it, has always a new point of view. Strength +of love, depth of grief, aching sense of loss, have driven him forth as +it were on a quest of consolation, and he asks it of nature, thought, +religion, in a hundred forms which a rich and varied imagination +continually suggests, but all of them connected by one central point, +the recollection of the dead. This work he prosecutes, not in vain +effeminate complaint, but in a manly recognition of the fruit and profit +even of baffled love, in noble suggestions of the future, in +heart-soothing and heart-chastening thoughts of what the dead was and of +what he is, and of what one who has been, and therefore still is, in +near contact with him is bound to be. The whole movement of the poem is +between the mourner and the mourned: it may be called one long +soliloquy; but it has this mark of greatness, that, though the singer is +himself a large part of the subject, it never degenerates into egotism-- +for he speaks typically on behalf of humanity at large, and in his own +name, like Dante on his mystic journey, teaches deep lessons of life and +conscience to us all. + + * * * * * + +By the time "In Memoriam" had sunk into the public mind, Mr. Tennyson +had taken his rank as our first then living poet. Over the fresh hearts +and understandings of the young, notwithstanding his obscurities, his +metaphysics, his contempt of gewgaws, he had established an +extraordinary sway. We ourselves, with some thousands of other +spectators, saw him receive in that noble structure of Wren, the theatre +of Oxford, the decoration of D.C.L., which we perceive he always wears +on his title-page. Among his colleagues in the honour were Sir De Lacy +Evans and Sir John Burgoyne, fresh from the stirring exploits of the +Crimea; but even patriotism, at the fever heat of war, could not command +a more fervent enthusiasm for the old and gallant warriors than was +evoked by the presence of Mr. Tennyson. + +In the year 1855 Mr. Tennyson proceeded to publish his "Maud," the least +popular, and probably the least worthy of popularity, among his more +considerable works. A somewhat heavy dreaminess, and a great deal of +obscurity, hang about this poem; and the effort required to dispel the +darkness of the general scheme is not repaid when we discover what it +hides. The main thread of "Maud" seems to be this:--A love once +accepted, then disappointed, leads to blood-shedding, and onward to +madness with lucid alternations. The insanity expresses itself in the +ravings of the homicide lover, who even imagines himself among the dead, +in a clamour and confusion closely resembling an ill-regulated Bedlam, +but which, if the description be a faithful one, would for ever deprive +the grave of its title to the epithet of silent. It may be good frenzy, +but we doubt its being as good poetry. Of all this there may, we admit, +be an esoteric view: but we speak of the work as it offers itself to the +common eye. Both Maud and the lover are too nebulous by far; and they +remind us of the boneless and pulpy personages by whom, as Dr. Whewell +assures us, the planet Jupiter is inhabited, if inhabited at all. But +the most doubtful part of the poem is its climax. A vision of the +beloved image (p. 97) "spoke of a hope for the world in the coming +wars," righteous wars, of course, and the madman begins to receive light +and comfort; but, strangely enough, it seems to be the wars, and not the +image, in which the source of consolation lies (p. 98). + + No more shall Commerce be all in all, and Peace + Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, + And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase. + ... a peace that was full of wrongs and shames, + Horrible, hateful, monstrous, not to be told ... + For the long long canker of peace is over and done: + And now by the side of the Black and the Baltic deep, + And deathful grinning mouths of the fortress, names + The blood-red blossom of war with a heart of fire! + +What interpretation are we meant to give to all this sound and fury? We +would fain have put it down as intended to be the finishing-stroke in +the picture of a mania which has reached its zenith. We might call in +aid of this construction more happy and refreshing passages from other +poems, as when Mr. Tennyson is + + Certain, if knowledge brings the sword, + That knowledge takes the sword away.[1] + +[1] "Poems," p. 182, ed. 1853. See also "Locksley Hall," p. 278. + +And again in "The Golden Dream,"-- + + When shall all men's good + Be each man's rule, and universal peace + Lie like a shaft of light across the land? + +And yet once more in a noble piece of "In Memoriam,"-- + + Ring out old shapes of foul disease, + Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; + Ring out the thousand wars of old, + Ring in the thousand years of peace. + +But on the other hand we must recollect that very long ago, when the +apparition of invasion from across the Channel had as yet spoiled no +man's slumbers, Mr. Tennyson's blood was already up:[2]-- + + For the French, the Pope may shrive them ... + And the merry devil drive them + Through the water and the fire. + +[2] "Poems chiefly Lyrical," 1830, p. 142. + +And unhappily in the beginning of "Maud," when still in the best use of +such wits as he possesses, its hero deals largely in kindred +extravagances (p. 7):-- + + When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee, + And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children's bones, + Is it peace or war? better war! loud war by land and by sea, + War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones. + +He then anticipates that, upon an enemy's attacking this country, "the +smooth-faced, snub-nosed rogue," who typifies the bulk of the British +people, "the nation of shopkeepers," as it has been emasculated and +corrupted by excess of peace, will leap from his counter and till to +charge the enemy; and thus it is to be reasonably hoped that we shall +attain to the effectual renovation of society. + +We frankly own that our divining rod does not enable us to say whether +the poet intends to be in any and what degree sponsor to these +sentiments, or whether he has put them forth in the exercise of his +undoubted right to make vivid and suggestive representations of even the +partial and narrow aspects of some endangered truth. This is at best, +indeed, a perilous business, for out of such fervid partial +representations nearly all grave human error springs; and it should only +be pursued with caution and in season. But we do not recollect that 1855 +was a season of serious danger from a mania for peace and its pursuits; +and even if it had been so, we fear that the passages we have quoted far +overpass all the bounds of moderation and good sense. It is, indeed, +true that peace has its moral perils and temptations for degenerate man, +as has every other blessing, without exception, that he can receive from +the hand of God. It is moreover not less true that, amidst the clash of +arms, the noblest forms of character may be reared, and the highest acts +of duty done; that these great and precious results may be due to war as +their cause; and that one high form of sentiment in particular, the love +of country, receives a powerful and general stimulus from the bloody +strife. But this is as the furious cruelty of Pharaoh made place for the +benign virtue of his daughter; as the butchering sentence of Herod +raised without doubt many a mother's love into heroic sublimity; as +plague, as famine, as fire, as flood, as every curse and every scourge +that is wielded by an angry Providence for the chastisement of man, is +an appointed instrument for tempering human souls in the seven-times +heated furnace of affliction, up to the standard of angelic and +archangelic virtue. War, indeed, has the property of exciting much +generous and noble feeling on a large scale; but with this special +recommendation it has, in its modern forms especially, peculiar and +unequalled evils. As it has a wider sweep of desolating power than the +rest, so it has the peculiar quality that it is more susceptible of +being decked in gaudy trappings, and of fascinating the imagination of +those whose passions it inflames. But it is on this very account a +perilous delusion to teach that war is a cure for moral evil in any +other sense than as the sister tribulations are. The eulogies of the +frantic hero in "Maud," however, deviate into grosser folly. It is +natural that such vagaries should overlook the fixed laws of Providence; +and under these laws the mass of mankind is composed of men, women, and +children who can but just ward off hunger, cold, and nakedness; whose +whole ideas of Mammon-worship are comprised in the search for their +daily food, clothing, shelter, fuel; whom any casualty reduces to +positive want; and whose already low estimate is yet further lowered and +ground down when "the blood-red blossom of war flames with its heart of +fire." But what is a little strange is, that war should be recommended +as a specific for the particular evil of Mammon-worship. Such it never +was, even in the days when the Greek heroes longed for the booty of +Troy, and anticipated lying by the wives of its princes and its +citizens. Still it had, in times now gone by, ennobling elements and +tendencies of the less sordid kind. But one inevitable characteristic of +modern war is, that it is associated throughout, in all its particulars, +with a vast and most irregular formation of commercial enterprise. There +is no incentive to Mammon-worship so remarkable as that which it +affords. The political economy of war is now one of its most commanding +aspects. Every farthing, with the smallest exceptions conceivable, of +the scores or hundreds of millions which a war may cost, goes directly +to stimulate production, though it is intended ultimately for waste or +for destruction. Apart from the fact that war destroys every rule of +public thrift, and saps honesty itself in the use of the public treasure +for which it makes such unbounded calls, it therefore is the greatest +feeder of that lust of gold which we are told is the essence of +commerce, though we had hoped it was only its occasional besetting sin. +It is, however, more than this; for the regular commerce of peace is +tameness itself compared with the gambling spirit which war, through the +rapid shiftings and high prices which it brings, always introduces into +trade. In its moral operation it more resembles, perhaps, the finding of +a new gold-field, than anything else. Meantime, as the most wicked +mothers do not kill their offspring from a taste for the practice in the +abstract, but under the pressure of want, and as war always brings home +want to a larger circle of the people than feel it in peace, we ask the +hero of "Maud" to let us know whether war is more likely to reduce or to +multiply the horrors which he denounces? Will more babies be poisoned +amidst comparative ease and plenty, or when, as before the fall of +Napoleon, provisions were twice as dear as they now are, and wages not +much more than half as high? Romans and Carthaginians were pretty much +given to war: but no nations were more sedulous in the cult of Mammon. +Again, the Scriptures are pretty strong against Mammon-worship, but they +do not recommend this original and peculiar cure. Nay, once more: what +sad errors must have crept into the text of the prophet Isaiah when he +is made to desire that our swords shall be converted into ploughshares, +and our spears into pruning-hooks! But we have this solid consolation +after all, that Mr. Tennyson's war poetry is not comparable to his +poetry of peace. Indeed he is not here successful at all: the work, of a +lower order than his, demands the abrupt force and the lyric fire which +do not seem to be among his varied and brilliant gifts. We say more. Mr. +Tennyson is too intimately and essentially the poet of the nineteenth +century to separate himself from its leading characteristics, the +progress of physical science and a vast commercial, mechanical, and +industrial development. Whatever he may say or do in an occasional fit, +he cannot long either cross or lose its sympathies; for while he +elevates as well as adorns it, he is flesh of its flesh and bone of its +bone. We fondly believe it is his business to do much towards the +solution of that problem, so fearful from its magnitude, how to +harmonise this new draught of external power and activity with the old +and more mellow wine of faith, self devotion, loyalty, reverence, and +discipline. And all that we have said is aimed, not at Mr. Tennyson, but +at a lay-figure which he has set up, and into the mouth of which he has +put words that cannot be his words. + +We return to our proper task, "Maud," if an unintelligible or even, for +Mr. Tennyson, an inferior work, is still a work which no inferior man +could have produced; nor would it be difficult to extract abundance of +lines, and even passages, obviously worthy of their author. And if this +poem would have made while alone a volume too light for his fame, the +defect is supplied by the minor pieces, some of which are admirable. +"The Brook," with its charming interstitial soliloquy, and the "Letters" +will, we are persuaded, always rank among Mr. Tennyson's happy efforts; +while the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," written from the +heart and sealed by the conscience of the poet, is worthy of that great +and genuine piece of manhood, its immortal subject. + +We must touch for a moment upon what has already been mentioned as a +separate subject of interest in the "Princess." We venture to describe +it as in substance a drama, with a plot imperfectly worked and with +characters insufficiently chiselled and relieved. Its author began by +presenting, and for many years continued to present, personal as well as +natural pictures of individual attitude or movement; and, as in "Oenone" +and "Godiva," he carried them to a very high pitch of perfection. But he +scarcely attempted, unless in his more homely narrations, anything like +grouping or combination. It now appears that for the higher effort he +has been gradually accumulating and preparing his resources. In the +sections of the prolonged soliloquy of "Maud" we see a crude attempt at +representing combined interests and characters with heroic elevation, +under the special difficulty of appearing, like Mathews, in one person +only; in the "Princess" we had a happier effort, though one that still +left more to be desired. Each, however, in its own stage was a +preparation for an enterprise at once bolder and more mature. + +We now come to the recent work of the poet--the "Idylls of the King." +The field, which Mr. Tennyson has chosen for this his recent and far +greatest exploit, is one of so deep and wide-reaching an interest as to +demand some previous notice of a special kind. + +Lofty example in comprehensive forms is, without doubt, one of the great +standing needs of our race. To this want it has been from the first one +main purpose of the highest poetry to answer. The quest of Beauty leads +all those who engage in it to the ideal or normal man as the summit of +attainable excellence. By no arbitrary choice, but in obedience to +unchanging laws, the painter and the sculptor must found their art upon +the study of the human form, and must reckon its successful reproduction +as their noblest and most consummate exploit. The concern of Poetry with +corporal beauty is, though important, yet secondary: this art uses form +as an auxiliary, as a subordinate though proper part in the delineation +of mind and character, of which it is appointed to be a visible organ. +But with mind and character themselves lies the highest occupation of +the Muse. Homer, the patriarch of poets, has founded his two immortal +works upon two of these ideal developments in Achilles and Ulysses; and +has adorned them with others, such as Penelope and Helen, Hector and +Diomed, every one an immortal product, though as compared with the +others either less consummate or less conspicuous. Though deformed by +the mire of after-tradition, all the great characters of Homer have +become models and standards, each in its own kind, for what was, or was +supposed to be, its distinguishing gift. + +At length, after many generations and great revolutions of mind and of +events, another age arrived, like, if not equal, in creative power to +that of Homer. The Gospel had given to the whole life of man a real +resurrection, and its second birth was followed by its second youth. +This rejuvenescence was allotted to those wonderful centuries which +popular ignorance confounds with the dark ages properly so called--an +identification about as rational as if we were to compare the life +within the womb to the life of intelligent though early childhood. +Awakened to aspirations at once fresh and ancient, the mind of man took +hold of the venerable ideals bequeathed to us by the Greeks as a +precious part of its inheritance, and gave them again to the light, +appropriated but also renewed. The old materials came forth, but not +alone; for the types which human genius had formerly conceived were now +submitted to the transfiguring action of a law from on high. Nature +herself prompted the effort to bring the old patterns of worldly +excellence and greatness--or rather the copies of those patterns still +legible, though depraved, and still rich with living suggestion--into +harmony with that higher Pattern, once seen by the eyes and handled by +the hands of men, and faithfully delineated in the Gospels for the +profit of all generations. The life of our Saviour, in its external +aspect, was that of a teacher. It was in principle a model for all, but +it left space and scope for adaptations to the lay life of Christians in +general, such as those by whom the every-day business of the world is to +be carried on. It remained for man to make his best endeavour to exhibit +the great model on its terrestrial side, in its contact with the world. +Here is the true source of that new and noble cycle which the middle +ages have handed down to us in duality of form, but with a nearly +identical substance, under the royal sceptres of Arthur in England and +of Charlemagne in France. + +Of the two great systems of Romance, one has Lancelot, the other has +Orlando for its culminating point; these heroes being exhibited as the +respective specimens in whose characters the fullest development of man, +such as he was then conceived, was to be recognised. The one put forward +Arthur for the visible head of Christendom, signifying and asserting its +social unity; the other had Charlemagne. Each arrays about the Sovereign +a fellowship of knights. In them Valour is the servant of Honour; in an +age of which violence is the besetting danger, the protection of the +weak is elevated into a first principle of action; and they betoken an +order of things in which Force should be only known as allied with +Virtue, while they historically foreshadow the magnificent aristocracy +of mediaeval Europe. The one had Guinevere for the rarest gem of beauty, +the other had Angelica. Each of them contained figures of approximation +to the knightly model, and in each these figures, though on the whole +secondary, yet in certain aspects surpassed it: such were Sir Tristram, +Sir Galahad, Sir Lamoracke, Sir Gawain, Sir Geraint, in the Arthurian +cycle; Rinaldo and Ruggiero, with others, in the Carlovingian. They were +not twin systems, but they were rather twin investitures of the same +scheme of ideals and feelings. Their consanguinity to the primitive +Homeric types is proved by a multitude of analogies of character and by +the commanding place which they assign to Hector as the flower of human +excellence. Without doubt, this preference was founded on his supposed +moral superiority to all his fellows in Homer; and the secondary prizes +of strength, valour, and the like, were naturally allowed to group +themselves around what, under the Christian scheme, had become the +primary ornament of man. The near relation of the two cycles to one +another may be sufficiently seen in the leading references we have made, +and it runs into a multitude of details both great and small, of which +we can only note a few. In both the chief hero passes through a +prolonged term of madness. Judas, in the College of Apostles, is +represented under Charlemagne in Gano di Maganza and his house, who +appear, without any development in action, in the Arthurian romance as +"the traitours of Magouns," and who are likewise reflected in Sir +Modred, Sir Agravain, and others; while the Mahometan element, which has +a natural place ready made in a history that acknowledges Charlemagne +and France, for its centres, finds its way sympathetically into one +which is bound for the most part by the shores of Albion. Both schemes +cling to the tradition of the unity of the Empire as well as of +Christendom; and accordingly, what was historical in Charlemagne is +represented in the case of Arthur by an imaginary conquest reaching as +far as Rome, the capital of the West: even the sword _Durindana_ has its +counterpart in the sword _Excalibur_. + +The moral systems of the two cycles are essentially allied: and perhaps +the differences between them may be due in greater or in less part to +the fact that they come to us through different _media_. We of the +nineteenth century read the Carlovingian romance in the pages of Ariosto +and Bojardo, who gave to their materials the colour of their times, and +of a civilization rank in some respects, while still unripe in some +others. The genius of poetry was not at the same period applying its +transmuting force to the Romance of the Round Table. The date of Sir +Thomas Mallory, who lived under Edward IV, is something earlier than +that of the great Italian romances; he appears, too, to have been on the +whole content with the humble offices of a compiler and a chronicler, +and we may conceive that his spirit and diction are still older than his +date. The consequence is, that we are brought into more immediate and +fresher contact with the original forms of this romance. So that, as +they present themselves to us, the Carlovingian cycle is the child of +the latest middle age, while the Arthurian represents the earlier. Much +might be said on the differences which have thus arisen, and on those +which may be due to a more northern and more southern extraction +respectively. Suffice it to say that the Romance of the Round Table, far +less vivid and brilliant, far ruder as a work of skill and art, has more +of the innocence, the emotion, the transparency, the inconsistency of +childhood. Its political action is less specifically Christian than that +of the rival scheme, its individual more so. It is more directly and +seriously aimed at the perfection of man. It is more free from gloss and +varnish; it tells its own tale with more entire simplicity. The ascetic +element is more strongly, and at the same time more quaintly, developed. +It has a higher conception of the nature of woman; and like the Homeric +poems, appears to eschew exhibiting her perfections in alliance with +warlike force and exploits. So also love, while largely infused into the +story, is more subordinate to the exhibition of other qualities. Again, +the Romance of the Round Table bears witness to a more distinct and +keener sense of sin: and on the whole, a deeper, broader, and more manly +view of human character, life, and duty. It is in effect more like what +the Carlovingian cycle might have been had Dante moulded it. It hardly +needs to be added that it is more mythical, inasmuch as Arthur of the +Round Table is a personage, we fear, wholly doubtful, though not +impossible; while the broad back of the historic Charlemagne, like +another Atlas, may well sustain a world of mythical accretions. This +slight comparison, be it remarked, refers exclusively to what may be +termed the latest "redactions" of the two cycles of romance. Their early +forms, in the lays of troubadours, and in the pages of the oldest +chroniclers, offer a subject of profound interest, and one still +unexhausted, although it has been examined by Mr. Panizzi and M. +Fauriel,[1] but one which is quite beyond the scope of our present +subject. + +[1] Essay on the Romantic Narrative Poetry of the Italians: London, + 1830. Histoire de la Poesie Provencale: Paris, 1846. + +It is to this rich repository that Mr. Tennyson has resorted for his +material. He has shown, as we think, rare judgment in the choice. The +Arthurian Romance has every recommendation that should win its way to +the homage of a great poet. It is national: it is Christian. It is also +human in the largest and deepest sense; and, therefore, though highly +national, it is universal; for it rests upon those depths and breadths +of our nature to which all its truly great developments in all nations +are alike essentially and closely related. The distance is enough for +atmosphere, not too much for detail; enough for romance, not too much +for sympathy. A poet of the nineteenth century, the Laureate has adopted +characters, incidents, and even language in the main, instead of +attempting to project them on a basis of his own in the region of +illimitable fancy. But he has done much more than this. Evidently by +reading and by deep meditation, as well as by sheer force of genius, he +has penetrated himself down to the very core of his being, with all that +is deepest and best in the spirit of the time, or the representation, +with which he deals; and as others, using old materials, have been free +to alter them in the sense of vulgarity or licence, so he has claimed +and used the right to sever and recombine, to enlarge, retrench, and +modify, for the purposes at once of a more powerful and elaborate art +than his original presents, and of a yet more elevated, or at least of a +far more sustained, ethical and Christian strain. + +We are rather disposed to quarrel with the title of Idylls: for no +diminutive ([Greek: _eidullion_]) can be adequate to the breadth, +vigour, and majesty which belong to the subjects, as well as to the +execution, of the volume. The poet used the name once before; but he +then applied it to pieces generally small in the scale of their +delineations, whereas these, even if broken away one from the other, are +yet like the disjoined figures from the pediment of the Parthenon in +their dignity and force. One indeed among Mr. Tennyson's merits is, that +he does not think it necessary to keep himself aloft by artificial +effort, but undulates with his matter, and flies high or low as it +requires. But even in the humblest parts of these poems--as where the +little Novice describes the miniature sorrows and discipline of +childhood--the whole receives its tone from an atmosphere which is +heroic, and which, even in its extremest simplicity, by no means parts +company with grandeur, or ceases to shine in the reflected light of the +surrounding objects. Following the example which the poet has set us in +a former volume, we would fain have been permitted, at least +provisionally, to call these Idylls by the name of Books. Term them what +we may, there are four of them--arranged, as we think, in an ascending +scale. + +The simplicity and grace of the principal character in Enid, with which +the volume opens, touches, but does not too strongly agitate, the deeper +springs of feeling. She is the beautiful daughter of Earl Yniol, who, by +his refusal of a turbulent neighbour as a suitor, has drawn upon himself +the ruin of his fortunes, and is visited in his depressed condition by +(p. 1)-- + + The brave Geraint, a knight of Arthur's court, + A tributary prince of Devon, one + Of that great order of the Table Round.... + +Geraint wins her against the detested cousin. They wed, and she becomes +the purest gem of the court of Guinevere, her place in which is +described in the beautiful exordium of the poem. An accident, slight +perhaps for the weight it is made to carry, arouses his jealousy, and he +tries her severely by isolation and rude offices on one of his tours; +but her gentleness, purity, and patience are proof against all, and we +part from the pair in a full and happy reconciliation, which is +described in lines of a beauty that leaves nothing to be desired. + +The treatment of Enid by her husband has appeared to some of Mr. +Tennyson's readers to be unnatural. It is no doubt both in itself +repulsive, and foreign to our age and country. But the brutal element in +man, which now only invades the conjugal relation in cases where it is +highly concentrated, was then far more widely diffused, and not yet +dissociated from alternations and even habits of attachment. Something +of what we now call Eastern manners at one time marked the treatment +even of the women of the West. Unnatural means contrary to nature, +irrespectively of time or place; but time and place explain and warrant +the treatment of Enid by Geraint. + +Vivien, which follows Enid, is perhaps the least popular of the four +Books. No pleasure, we grant, can be felt from the character either of +the wily woman, between elf and fiend, or of the aged magician, whose +love is allowed to travel whither none of his esteem or regard can +follow it: and in reading this poem we miss the pleasure of those +profound moral harmonies, with which the rest are charged. But we must +not on these grounds proceed to the conclusion that the poet has in this +case been untrue to his aims. For he has neither failed in power, nor +has he led our sympathies astray; and if we ask why he should introduce +us to those we cannot love, there is something in the reply that Poetry, +the mirror of the world, cannot deal with its attractions only, but must +present some of its repulsions also, and avail herself of the powerful +assistance of its contrasts. The example of Homer, who allows Thersites +to thrust himself upon the scene in the debates of heroes, gives a +sanction to what reason and all experience teach, namely, the actual +force of negatives in heightening effect; and the gentle and noble +characters and beautiful combinations, which largely predominate in the +other poems, stand in far clearer and bolder relief when we perceive the +dark and baleful shadow of Vivien lowering from between them. + +Vivien exhibits a well-sustained conflict between the wizard and, in +another sense, the witch; on one side is the wit of woman, on the other +are the endowments of the prophet and magician, at once more and less +than those of nature. She has heard from him of a charm, a charm of +"woven paces, and of waving hands," which paralyses its victim for ever +and without deliverance, and her object is to extract from him the +knowledge of it as a proof of some return for the fervid and boundless +love that she pretends. We cannot but estimate very highly the skill +with which Mr. Tennyson has secured to what seemed the weaker vessel the +ultimate mastery in the fight. Out of the eater comes forth meat. When +she seems to lose ground with him by her slander against the Round Table +which he loved, she recovers it by making him believe that she saw all +other men, "the knights, the Court, the King, dark in his light": and +when in answer to her imprecation on herself a fearful thunderbolt +descends and storm rages, then, nestling in his bosom, part in fear but +more in craft, she overcomes the last remnant of his resolution, wins +the secret she has so indefatigably wooed, and that instant uses it to +close in gloom the famous career of the over-mastered sage. + + * * * * * + +Nowhere could we more opportunely than at this point call attention to +Mr. Tennyson's extraordinary felicity and force in the use of metaphor +and simile. This gift appears to have grown with his years, alike in +abundance, truth, and grace. As the showers descend from heaven to +return to it in vapour, so Mr. Tennyson's loving observation of Nature, +and his Muse, seem to have had a compact of reciprocity well kept on +both sides. When he was young, and when "Oenone" was first published, he +almost boasted of putting a particular kind of grasshopper into Troas, +which, as he told us in a note, was probably not to be found there. It +is a small but yet an interesting and significant indication that, when +some years after he retouched the poem, he omitted the note, and +generalised the grasshopper. Whether we are right or not in taking this +for a sign of the movement of his mind, there can be no doubt that his +present use of figures is both the sign and the result of a reverence +for Nature alike active, intelligent, and refined. Sometimes applying +the metaphors of Art to Nature, he more frequently draws the materials +of his analogies from her unexhausted book, and, however often he may +call for some new and beautiful vehicle of illustration, she seems never +to withhold an answer. With regard to this particular and very critical +gift, it seems to us that he may challenge comparison with almost any +poet either of ancient or modern times. We have always been accustomed +to look upon Ariosto as one of the greatest among the masters of the art +of metaphor and simile; and it would be easy to quote from him instances +which in tenderness, grace, force, or all combined, can never be +surpassed. But we have rarely seen the power subjected to a greater +trial than in the passages just quoted from Mr. Tennyson, where metaphor +lies by metaphor as thick as shells upon their bed; yet each +individually with its outline as well drawn, its separateness as clear, +its form as true to nature, and with the most full and harmonious +contribution to the general effect. + + * * * * * + +Mr. Tennyson practises largely, and with an extraordinary skill and +power, the art of designed and limited repetitions. They bear a +considerable resemblance to those Homeric _formulae_ which have been so +usefully remarked by Colonel Mure--not the formulae of constant +recurrence, which tells us who spoke and who answered, but those which +are connected with pointing moral effects, and with ulterior purpose. +These repetitions tend at once to give more definite impressions of +character, and to make firmer and closer the whole tissue of the poem. +Thus, in the last speech of Guinevere, she echoes back, with other ideas +and expressions, the sentiment of Arthur's affection, which becomes in +her mouth sublime:-- + + I must not scorn myself: he loves me still: + Let no one dream but that he loves me still. + +She prays admission among the nuns, that she may follow the pious and +peaceful tenor of their life (p. 260):-- + + And so wear out in almsdeed and in prayer + The sombre close of that voluptuous day + Which wrought the ruin of my lord the King. + +And it is but a debt of justice to the Guinevere of the romancers to +observe, that she loses considerably by the marked transposition which +Mr. Tennyson has effected in the order of greatness between Lancelot and +Arthur. With him there is an original error in her estimate, +independently of the breach of a positive and sacred obligation. She +prefers the inferior man; and this preference implies a rooted ethical +defect in her nature. In the romance of Sir T. Mallory the preference +she gives to Lancelot would have been signally just, had she been free +to choose. For Lancelot is of an indescribable grandeur; but the limit +of Arthur's character is thus shown in certain words that he uses, and +that Lancelot never could have spoken. "Much more I am sorrier for my +good knight's loss than for the loss of my queen; for queens might I +have enough, but, such a fellowship of good knights shall never be +together in company." + +We began with the exordium of this great work: we must not withhold the +conclusion. We left her praying admission to the convent-- + + She said. They took her to themselves; and she, + Still hoping, fearing, "is it yet too late?" + Dwelt with them, till in time their Abbess died. + Then she, for her good deeds and her pure life, + And for the power of ministration in her, + And likewise for the high rank she had borne, + Was chosen Abbess: there, an Abbess, lived + For three brief years; and there, an Abbess, pass'd + To where beyond these voices there is peace. + +No one, we are persuaded, can read this poem without feeling, when it +ends, what may be termed the pangs of vacancy--of that void in heart and +mind for want of its continuance of which we are conscious when some +noble strain of music ceases, when some great work of Raphael passes +from the view, when we lose sight of some spot connected with high +associations, or when some transcendent character upon the page of +history disappears, and the withdrawal of it is like the withdrawal of +the vital air. We have followed the Guinevere of Mr. Tennyson through +its detail, and have extracted largely from its pages, and yet have not +a hope of having conveyed an idea of what it really is; still we have +thought that in this way we should do it the least injustice, and we are +also convinced that even what we have shown will tend to rouse an +appetite, and that any of our readers, who may not yet have been also +Mr. Tennyson's, will become more eager to learn and admire it at first +hand. + +We have no doubt that Mr. Tennyson has carefully considered how far his +subject is capable of fulfilling the conditions of an epic structure. +The history of Arthur is not an epic as it stands, but neither was the +Cyclic song, of which the greatest of all epics, the "Iliad," handles a +part. The poem of Ariosto is scarcely an epic, nor is that of Bojardo; +but it is not this because each is too promiscuous and crowded in its +brilliant phantasmagoria to conform to the severe laws of that lofty and +inexorable class of poem? Though the Arthurian romance be no epic, it +does not follow that no epic can be made from out of it. It is grounded +in certain leading characters, men and women, conceived upon models of +extraordinary grandeur; and as the Laureate has evidently grasped the +genuine law which makes man and not the acts of man the base of epic +song, we should not be surprised were he hereafter to realize the great +achievement towards which he seems to be feeling his way. There is a +moral unity and a living relationship between the four poems before us, +and the first effort of 1842 as a fifth, which, though some considerable +part of their contents would necessarily rank as episode, establishes +the first and most essential condition of their cohesion. The +achievement of Vivien bears directly on the state of Arthur by +withdrawing his chief councillor--the brain, as Lancelot was the right +arm, of his court; the love of Elaine is directly associated with the +final catastrophe of the passion of Lancelot for Guinevere. Enid lies +somewhat further off the path, nor is it for profane feet to intrude +into the sanctuary, for reviewers to advise poets in these high matters; +but while we presume nothing, we do not despair of seeing Mr. Tennyson +achieve on the basis he has chosen the structure of a full-formed epic. + +In any case we have a cheerful hope that, if he continues to advance +upon himself as he has advanced heretofore, nay, if he can keep the +level he has gained, such a work will be the greatest, and by far the +greatest poetical creation, that, whether in our own or in foreign +poetry, the nineteenth century has produced. In the face of all critics, +the Laureate of England has now reached a position which at once imposes +and instils respect. They are self-constituted; but he has won his way +through the long dedication of his manful energies, accepted and crowned +by deliberate, and, we rejoice to think, by continually growing, public +favour. He has after all, and it is not the least nor lowest item in his +praise, been the severest of his own critics, and has not been too proud +either to learn or to unlearn in the work of maturing his genius and +building up his fame. + +From his very first appearance he has had the form and fashion of a true +poet: the insight into beauty, the perception of harmony, the faculty of +suggestion, the eye both in the physical and moral world for motion, +light, and colour, the sympathetic and close observation of nature, the +dominance of the constructive faculty, and that rare gift the thorough +mastery and loving use of his native tongue. Many of us, the common +crowd, made of the common clay, may be lovers of Nature, some as sincere +or even as ardent as Mr. Tennyson; but it does not follow that even +these favoured few possess the privilege that he enjoys. To them she +speaks through vague and indeterminate impressions: for him she has a +voice of the most delicate articulation; all her images to him are clear +and definite, and he translates them for us into that language of +suggestion, emphasis, and refined analogy which links the manifold to +the simple and the infinite to the finite. He accomplishes for us what +we should in vain attempt for ourselves, enables the puny hand to lay +hold on what is vast, and brings even coarseness of grasp into a real +contact with what is subtle and ethereal. His turn for metaphysical +analysis is closely associated with a deep ethical insight: and many of +his verses form sayings of so high a class that we trust they are +destined to form a permanent part of the household-words of England. + +Considering the quantity of power that Mr. Tennyson can make available, +it is a great proof of self-discipline that he is not given to a wanton +or tyrannous use of it. An extraordinary master of diction, he has +confined himself to its severe and simple forms. In establishing this +rule of practice his natural gift has evidently been aided by the fine +English of the old romances, and we might count upon the fingers the +cases in which he has lately deviated into the employment of any stilted +phrase, or given sanction to a word not of the best fabric. Profuse in +the power of graphic[1] representation, he has chastened some of his +earlier groups of imagery, which were occasionally overloaded with +particulars; and in his later works, as has been well remarked, he has +shown himself thoroughly aware that in poetry half is greater than the +whole. That the chastity of style he has attained is not from exhaustion +of power may easily be shown. No poet has evinced a more despotic +mastery over intractable materials, or has been more successful in +clothing what is common with the dignity of his art. The Downs are not +the best subjects in the world for verse; but they will be remembered +with and by his descriptive line in the "Idylls"-- + + Far o'er the long backs of the bushless downs. + +[1] We use the word in what we conceive to be its only legitimate + meaning; namely, after the manner and with the effect of painting. + It signifies the _quid_, not the _quale_. + +How becoming is the appearance of what we familiarly term the "clod" in +the "Princess"! (p. 37)-- + + Nor those horn-handled breakers of the glebe. + +Of all imaginable subjects, mathematics might seem the most hopeless to +make mention of in verse; but they are with him + + The hard-grained Muses of the cube and square. + +Thus at a single stroke he gives an image alike simple, true, and +poetical to boot, because suited to its place and object in his verse, +like the heavy Caryatides well placed in architecture. After this, we +may less esteem the feat by which in "Godiva" he describes the clock +striking mid-day:-- + + All at once, + With twelve great shocks of sound, the shameless noon + Was clashed and hammered from a hundred towers. + + +But even the contents of a pigeon-pie are not beneath his notice, nor +yet beyond his powers of embellishment, in "Audley Court":-- + + A pasty, costly made, + Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret lay + Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks + Imbedded and injellied. + +What excites more surprise is that he can, without any offence against +good taste, venture to deal with these contents even after they have +entered the mouth of the eater ("Enid," p. 79):-- + + The brawny spearman let his cheek + Bulge with the unswallowed piece, and turning, stared. + +The delicate insight of fine taste appears to show him with wonderful +precision up to what point his art can control and compel his materials, +and from what point the materials are in hopeless rebellion and must be +let alone. So in the "Princess" (p. 89) we are introduced to-- + + Eight daughters of the plough, stronger than men, + Huge women _blowzed_ with health, and wind, and rain, + And labour. + +It was absolutely necessary for him to heighten, nay, to coarsen, the +description of these masses of animated beef, who formed the standing +army of the woman-commonwealth. Few would have obeyed this law without +violating another; but Mr. Tennyson saw that the verb was admissible, +while the adjective would have been intolerable. + +In 1842 his purging process made it evident that he did not mean to +allow his faults or weaknesses to stint the growth and mar the +exhibition of his genius. When he published "In Memoriam" in 1850, all +readers were conscious of the progressive widening and strengthening, +but, above all, deepening of his mind. We cannot hesitate to mark the +present volume as exhibiting another forward and upward stride, and that +by perhaps the greatest of all, in his career. If we are required to +show cause for this opinion under any special head, we would at once +point to that which is, after all, the first among the poet's gifts--the +gift of conceiving and representing human character. + +Mr. Tennyson's Arthurian essays continually suggest to us comparisons +not so much with any one poet as a whole, but rather with many or most +of the highest poets. The music and the just and pure modulation of his +verse carry us back not only to the fine ear of Shelley, but to Milton +and to Shakespeare: and his powers of fancy and of expression have +produced passages which, if they are excelled by that one transcendent +and ethereal poet of our nation whom we have last named, yet could have +been produced by no other English minstrel. Our author has a right to +regard his own blank verse as highly characteristic and original: but +yet Milton has contributed to its formation, and occasionally there is a +striking resemblance in turn and diction, while Mr. Tennyson is the more +idiomatic of the two. The chastity and moral elevation of this volume, +its essential and profound though not didactic Christianity, are such as +perhaps cannot be matched throughout the circle of English literature in +conjunction with an equal power: and such as to recall a pattern which +we know not whether Mr. Tennyson has studied, the celestial strain of +Dante.[1] This is the more remarkable, because he has had to tread upon +the ground which must have been slippery for any foot but his. We are +far from knowing that either Lancelot or Guinevere would have been safe +even for mature readers, were it not for the instinctive purity of his +mind and the high skill of his management. We do not know that in other +times they have had their noble victims, whose names have become +immortal as their own. + + Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto + Di Lancilotto, e come amor lo strinse. + * * * * * + Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse.[2] + +[1] It is no reproach to say that neither Dante nor Homer could have + been studied by Mr. Tennyson at the time--a very early period of his + life--when he wrote the lines which are allotted to them + respectively in "The Palace of Art." +[2] "Inferno," c. V, v. 127. + +How difficult it is to sustain the elevation of such a subject, may be +seen in the well-meant and long popular "Jane Shore" of Rowe. How easily +this very theme may be vulgarised, is shown in the _"Chevaliers de la +Table Ronde"_ of M. Creuze de Lesser, who nevertheless has aimed at a +peculiar delicacy of treatment. + +But the grand poetical quality in which this volume gives to its author +a new rank and standing is the dramatic power: the power of drawing +character and of representing action. These faculties have not been +precocious in Mr. Tennyson: but what is more material, they have come +out in great force. He has always been fond of personal delineations, +from Claribel and Lilian down to his Ida, his Psyche, and his Maud; but +they have been of shadowy quality, doubtful as to flesh and blood, and +with eyes having little or no speculation in them. But he is far greater +and far better when he has, as he now has, a good raw material ready to +his hand, than when he draws only on the airy or chaotic regions of what +Carlyle calls unconditioned possibility. He is made not so much to +convert the moor into the field, as the field into the rich and gorgeous +garden. The imperfect _nisus_ which might be remarked in some former +works has at length reached the fulness of dramatic energy: in the +Idylls we have nothing vague or dreamy to complain of: everything lives +and moves, in the royal strength of nature: the fire of Prometheus has +fairly caught the clay: every figure stands clear, broad, and sharp +before us, as if it had sky for its background: and this of small as +well as great, for even the "little novice" is projected on the canvas +with the utmost truth and vigour, and with that admirable effect in +heightening the great figure of Guinevere, which Patroclus produces for +the character of Achilles, and (as some will have it) the modest +structure of Saint Margaret's for the giant proportions of Westminster +Abbey. And this, we repeat, is the crowning gift of the poet: the power +of conceiving and representing man. + +We do not believe that a Milton--or, in other words, the writer of a +"Paradise Lost"--could ever be so great as a Shakespeare or a Homer, +because (setting aside all other questions) his chief characters are +neither human, nor can they be legitimately founded upon humanity; and, +moreover, what he has to represent of man is, by the very law of its +being, limited in scale and development. Here at least the saying is a +true one: _Antiquitas saeculi, juventus mundi;_ rendered by our poet in +"The Day-dream," + + For we are ancients of the earth, + And in the morning of the times. + +The Adam and Eve of Paradise exhibit to us the first inception of our +race; and neither then, nor after their first sad lesson, could they +furnish those materials for representation, which their descendants have +accumulated in the school of their incessant and many-coloured, but on +the whole too gloomy, experience. To the long chapters of that +experience every generation of man makes its own addition. Again we ask +the aid of Mr. Tennyson in "Locksley Hall":-- + + Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, + And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. + +The substitution of law for force has indeed altered the relations of +the strong and the weak; the hardening or cooling down of political +institutions and social traditions, the fixed and legal track instead of +the open pathless field, have removed or neutralised many of those +occasions and passages of life, which were formerly the schools of +individual character. The genius of mechanism has vied, in the arts of +both peace and war, with the strong hand, and has well-nigh robbed it of +its place. But let us not be deceived by that smoothness of superficies, +which the social prospect offers to the distant eye. Nearness dispels +the illusion; life is still as full of deep, of ecstatic, of harrowing +interests as it ever was. The heart of man still beats and bounds, +exults and suffers, from causes which are only less salient and +conspicuous because they are more mixed and diversified. It still +undergoes every phase of emotion, and even, as seems probable, with a +susceptibility which has increased and is increasing, and which has its +index and outer form in the growing delicacy and complexities of the +nervous system. Does any one believe that ever at any time there was a +greater number of deaths referable to that comprehensive cause a broken +heart? Let none fear that this age, or any coming one, will extinguish +the material of poetry. The more reasonable apprehension might be lest +it should sap the vital force necessary to handle that material, and +mould it into appropriate forms. To those especially, who cherish any +such apprehension, we recommend the perusal of this volume. Of it we +will say without fear, what we would not dare to say of any other recent +work; that of itself it raises the character and the hopes of the age +and the country which have produced it, and that its author, by his own +single strength, has made a sensible addition to the permanent wealth of +mankind. + + + +CANON WILBERFORCE ON DARWIN + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1860] + +_On the Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection; or the +Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life._ By CHARLES +DARWIN, M.A., F.R.S. London, 1860. + +Any contribution to our Natural History literature from the pen of Mr. +C. Darwin is certain to command attention. His scientific attainments, +his insight and carefulness as an observer, blended with no scanty +measure of imaginative sagacity, and his clear and lively style, make +all his writings unusually attractive. His present volume on the _Origin +of Species_ is the result of many years of observation, thought, and +speculation; and is manifestly regarded by him as the "opus" upon which +his future fame is to rest. It is true that he announces it modestly +enough as the mere precursor of a mightier volume. But that volume is +only intended to supply the facts which are to support the completed +argument of the present essay. In this we have a specimen-collection of +the vast accumulation; and, working from these as the high analytical +mathematician may work from the admitted results of his conic sections, +he proceeds to deduce all the conclusions to which he wishes to conduct +his readers. + +The essay is full of Mr. Darwin's characteristic excellences. It is a +most readable book; full of facts in natural history, old and new, of +his collecting and of his observing; and all of these are told in his +own perspicuous language, and all thrown into picturesque combinations, +and all sparkle with the colours of fancy and the lights of imagination. +It assumes, too, the grave proportions of a sustained argument upon a +matter of the deepest interest, not to naturalists only, or even to men +of science exclusively, but to every one who is interested in the +history of man and of the relations of nature around him to the history +and plan of creation. + +With Mr. Darwin's "argument" we may say in the outset that we shall have +much and grave fault to find. But this does not make us the less +disposed to admire the singular excellences of his work; and we will +seek _in limine_ to give our readers a few examples of these. Here, for +instance, is a beautiful illustration of the wonderful interdependence +of nature--of the golden chain of unsuspected relations which bind +together all the mighty web which stretches from end to end of this full +and most diversified earth. Who, as he listened to the musical hum of +the great humble-bees, or marked their ponderous flight from flower to +flower, and watched the unpacking of their trunks for their work of +suction, would have supposed that the multiplication or diminution of +their race, or the fruitfulness and sterility of the red clover, depend +as directly on the vigilance of our cats as do those of our well-guarded +game-preserves on the watching of our keepers? Yet this Mr. Darwin has +discovered to be literally the case:-- + + From experiments which I have lately tried, I have found that the + visits of bees are necessary for the fertilisation of some kinds of + clover; but humble-bees alone visit the red clover (Trifolium + pratense), as other bees cannot reach the nectar. Hence I have very + little doubt, that if the whole genus of humble-bees became extinct or + very rare in England, the heartsease and red clover would become very + rare or wholly disappear. The number of humble-bees in any district + depends in a great degree on the number of field-mice, which destroy + their combs and nests; and Mr. H. Newman, who has long attended to the + habits of humble-bees, believes that "more than two-thirds of them are + thus destroyed all over England." Now the number of mice is largely + dependent, as every one knows, on the number of cats; and Mr. Newman + says, "near villages and small towns I have found the nests of + humble-bees more numerous than elsewhere, which I attribute to the + number of cats that destroy the mice." Hence, it is quite credible + that the presence of a feline animal in large numbers in a district + might determine, through the intervention, first of mice, and then of + bees, the frequency of certain flowers in that district.--p. 74. + + * * * * * + +Now, all this is, we think, really charming writing. We feel as we walk +abroad with Mr. Darwin very much as the favoured object of the attention +of the dervise must have felt when he had rubbed the ointment around his +eye, and had it opened to see all the jewels, and diamonds, and +emeralds, and topazes, and rubies, which were sparkling unregarded +beneath the earth, hidden as yet from all eyes save those which the +dervise had enlightened. But here we are bound to say our pleasure +terminates; for, when we turn with Mr. Darwin to his "argument," we are +almost immediately at variance with him. It is as an "argument" that the +essay is put forward; as an argument we will test it. + +We can perhaps best convey to our readers a clear view of Mr. Darwin's +chain of reasoning, and of our objections to it, if we set before them, +first, the conclusion to which he seeks to bring them; next, the leading +propositions which he must establish in order to make good his final +inference; and then the mode by which he endeavours to support his +propositions. + +The conclusion, then, to which Mr. Darwin would bring us is, that all +the various forms of vegetable and animal life with which the globe is +now peopled, or of which we find the remains preserved in a fossil state +in the great Earth-Museum around us, which the science of geology +unlocks for our instruction, have come down by natural succession of +descent from father to son,--"animals from at most four or five +progenitors, and plants from an equal or less number" (p. 484), as Mr. +Darwin at first somewhat diffidently suggests; or rather, as, growing +bolder when he has once pronounced his theory, he goes on to suggest to +us, from one single head:-- + + Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that ALL + ANIMALS and PLANTS have descended from some one prototype. But analogy + may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless, all living things have much in + common in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their + cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction.... + + Therefore I shall infer from analogy that probably all the organic + beings which have ever lived on this earth (man therefore of course + included) have descended from some one primordial form into which life + was first breathed by the Creator.--p. 484. + +This is the theory which really pervades the whole volume. Man, beast, +creeping thing, and plant of the earth, are all the lineal and direct +descendants of some one individual _ens_, whose various progeny have +been simply modified by the action of natural and ascertainable +conditions into the multiform aspect of life which we see around us. +This is undoubtedly at first sight a somewhat startling conclusion to +arrive at. To find that mosses, grasses, turnips, oaks, worms, and +flies, mites and elephants, infusoria and whales, tadpoles of to-day and +venerable saurians, truffles and men, are all equally the lineal +descendants of the same aboriginal common ancestor, perhaps of the +nucleated cell of some primaeval fungus, which alone possessed the +distinguishing honour of being the "one primordial form into which life +was first breathed by the Creator "--this, to say the least of it, is no +common discovery--no very expected conclusion. But we are too loyal +pupils of inductive philosophy to start back from any conclusion by +reason of its strangeness. Newton's patient philosophy taught him to +find in the falling apple the law which governs the silent movements of +the stars in their courses; and if Mr. Darwin can with the same +correctness of reasoning demonstrate to us our fungular descent, we +shall dismiss our pride, and avow, with the characteristic humility of +philosophy, our unsuspected cousinship with the mushrooms,-- + + Claim kindred there, and have our claim allowed, + +--only we shall ask leave to scrutinise carefully every step of the +argument which has such an ending, and demur if at any point of it we +are invited to substitute unlimited hypothesis for patient observation, +or the spasmodic fluttering flight of fancy for the severe conclusions +to which logical accuracy of reasoning has led the way. + +Now, the main propositions by which Mr. Darwin's conclusion is attained +are these:-- + +1. That observed and admitted variations spring up in the course of +descents from a common progenitor. + +2. That many of these variations tend to an improvement upon the parent +stock. + +3. That, by a continued selection of these improved specimens as the +progenitors of future stock, its powers may be unlimitedly increased. + +4. And, lastly, that there is in nature a power continually and +universally working out this selection, and so fixing and augmenting +these improvements. + +Mr. Darwin's whole theory rests upon the truth of these propositions and +crumbles utterly away if only one of them fail him. These, therefore, we +must closely scrutinise. We will begin with the last in our series, both +because we think it the newest and the most ingenious part of Mr. +Darwin's whole argument, and also because, whilst we absolutely deny the +mode in which he seeks to apply the existence of the power to help him +in his argument, yet we think that he throws great and very interesting +light upon the fact that such self-acting power does actively and +continuously work in all creation around us. + +Mr. Darwin finds then the disseminating and improving power, which he +needs to account for the development of new forms in nature, in the +principle of "Natural Selection," which is evolved in the strife for +room to live and flourish which is evermore maintained between +themselves by all living things. One of the most interesting parts of +Mr. Darwin's volume is that in which he establishes this law of natural +selection; we say establishes, because--repeating that we differ from +him totally in the limits which he would assign to its action--we have +no doubt of the existence or of the importance of the law itself. + + * * * * * + +We come then to these conclusions. All the facts presented to us in the +natural world tend to show that none of the variations produced in the +fixed forms of animal life, when seen in its most plastic condition +under domestication, give any promise of a true transmutation of +species; first, from the difficulty of accumulating and fixing +variations within the same species; secondly, from the fact that these +variations, though most serviceable for man, have no tendency to improve +the individual beyond the standard of his own specific type, and so to +afford matter, even if they were infinitely produced, for the supposed +power of natural selection on which to work; whilst all variations from +the mixture of species are barred by the inexorable law of hybrid +sterility. Further, the embalmed records of 3,000 years show that there +has been no beginning of transmutation in the species of our most +familiar domesticated animals; and beyond this, that in the countless +tribes of animal life around us, down to its lowest and most variable +species, no one has ever discovered a single instance of such +transmutation being now in prospect; no new organ has ever been known to +be developed--no new natural instinct to be formed--whilst, finally, in +the vast museum of departed animal life which the strata of the earth +imbed for our examination, whilst they contain far too complete a +representation of the past to be set aside as a mere imperfect record, +yet afford no one instance of any such change as having ever been in +progress, or give us anywhere the missing links of the assumed chain, or +the remains which would enable now existing variations, by gradual +approximations, to shade off into unity. On what then is the new theory +based? We say it with unfeigned regret, in dealing with such a man as +Mr. Darwin, on the merest hypothesis, supported by the most unbounded +assumptions. These are strong words, but we will give a few instances to +prove their truth:-- + + All physiologists admit that the swim-bladder is homologous or + "ideally similar" in position and structure with the lungs of the + higher vertebrate animals; hence there _seems to me to be no great + difficulty in believing_ that natural selection has actually converted + a swim-bladder into a lung, or organ used exclusively for + respiration.--p. 191. + + _I can indeed hardly doubt_ that all vertebrate animals having true + lungs have descended by ordinary generation from the ancient + prototype, of which we know nothing, furnished with a floating + apparatus or swim-bladder--p. 191. + +We must be cautious + + In concluding that the most different habits of all _could not_ + graduate into each other; that a bat, for instance, _could not_ have + been formed by natural selection from an animal which at first could + only glide through the air.--p. 204. + +Again:-- + + _I see no difficulty in supposing_ that such links formerly existed, + and that each had been formed by the same steps as in the case of the + less perfectly gliding squirrels, and that each grade of structure was + useful to its possessor. Nor _can I see any insuperable difficulty in + further believing_ it possible that the membrane-connected fingers and + forearm of the galeopithecus might be greatly lengthened by natural + selection, and this, as far as the organs of flight are concerned, + would convert it into a bat.--p. 181. + + For instance, a swim-bladder has _apparently_ been converted into an + air-breathing lung.--p. 181. + +And again:-- + + The electric organs of fishes offer another case of special + difficulty: It is impossible to conceive by what steps these wondrous + organs have been produced; but, as Owen and others have remarked, + their intimate structure closely resembles that of common muscle; and + as it has lately been shown that rays have an organ closely analogous + to the electric apparatus, and yet do not, as Matteucci asserts, + discharge any electricity, we must own that we are far too ignorant to + argue that _no transition of any kind is possible._--pp. 192-3. + +Sometimes Mr. Darwin seems for a moment to recoil himself from this +extravagant liberty of speculation, as when he says, concerning the +eye,-- + + To suppose that the eye, with its inimitable contrivances for + adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different + amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic + aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I + freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.--p. 186. + +But he soon returns to his new wantonness of conjecture, and, without +the shadow of a fact, contents himself with saying that-- + + he _suspects_ that any sensitive nerve may be rendered sensitive to + light, and likewise to those coarser vibrations of the air which + produce sound.--p-187. + +And in the following passage he carries this extravagance to the highest +pitch, requiring a licence for advancing as true any theory which cannot +be demonstrated to be actually impossible:-- + + If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, _which + could not possibly_ have been formed by numerous, successive, slight + modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find + no such case.--p. 189. + +Another of these assumptions is not a little remarkable. It suits his +argument to deduce all our known varieties of pigeons from the +rock-pigeon (the Columba livia), and this parentage is traced out, +though not, we think, to demonstration, yet with great ingenuity and +patience. But another branch of the argument would be greatly +strengthened by establishing the descent of our various breeds of dogs +with their perfect power of fertile inter-breeding from different +natural species. And accordingly, though every fact as to the canine +race is parallel to the facts which have been used before to establish +the common parentage of the pigeons in Columba livia, all these are +thrown over in a moment, and Mr. Darwin, first assuming, without the +shadow of proof, that our domestic breeds are descended from different +species, proceeds calmly to argue from this, as though it were a +demonstrated certainty. + + It _seems to me unlikely_ in the case of the dog-genus, which is + distributed in a wild state throughout the world, that since man first + appeared one species alone should have been domesticated.--p. 18. + + In some cases _I do not doubt_ that the intercrossing of species + aboriginally distinct has played an important part in the origin of + our domestic productions.--p. 43. + +What new words are these for a loyal disciple of the true Baconian +philosophy?--"I can conceive"--"It is not incredible"--"I do not doubt" +--"It is conceivable." + + For myself, _I venture confidently_ to look back thousands on + thousands of generations, and I see an animal striped like a zebra, + but perhaps otherwise very differently constructed, the common parent + of our domestic horse, whether or not it be descended from one or more + wild stocks of the ass, hemionous, quagga, or zebra.--p. 167. + +In the name of all true philosophy we protest against such a mode of +dealing with nature, as utterly dishonourable to all natural science, as +reducing it from its present lofty level of being one of the noblest +trainers of man's intellect and instructors of his mind, to being a mere +idle play of the fancy, without the basis of fact or the discipline of +observation. In the "Arabian Nights" we are not offended as at an +impossibility when Amina sprinkles her husband with water and transforms +him into a dog, but we cannot open the august doors of the venerable +temple of scientific truth to the genii and magicians of romance. We +plead guilty to Mr. Darwin's imputation that + + the chief cause of our natural unwillingness to admit that one species + has given birth to other and distinct species is that we are always + slow in admitting any great change of which we do not see the + intermediate steps.--p. 481. + +In this tardiness to admit great changes suggested by the imagination, +but the steps of which we cannot see, is the true spirit of philosophy. + + Analysis, says Professor Sedgwick, consists in making experiments and + observations, and in drawing general conclusions from them by + induction, and admitting of no objections against the conclusions but + such as are taken from experiments or other certain truths; for + _hypotheses are not to be regarded in experimental philosophy._[1] + +[1] "A Discourse on the Studies of the University," by A. Sedgwick, p. + 102. + +The other solvent which Mr. Darwin most freely and, we think, +unphilosophically employs to get rid of difficulties, is his use of +time. This he shortens or prolongs at will by the mere wave of his +magician's rod. Thus the duration of whole epochs, during which certain +forms of animal life prevailed, is gathered up into a point, whilst an +unlimited expanse of years, "impressing his mind with a sense of +eternity," is suddenly interposed between that and the next series, +though geology proclaims the transition to have been one of gentle and, +it may be, swift accomplishment. All this too is made the more startling +because it is used to meet the objections drawn from facts. "We see none +of your works," says the observer of nature; "we see no beginnings of +the portentous change; we see plainly beings of another order in +creation, but we find amongst them no tendencies to these altered +organisms." "True," says the great magician, with a calmness no +difficulty derived from the obstinacy of facts can disturb; "true, but +remember the effect of time. Throw in a few hundreds of millions of +years more or less, and why should not all these changes be possible, +and, if possible, why may I not assume them to be real?" + +Together with this large licence of assumption we notice in this book +several instances of receiving as facts whatever seems to bear out the +theory upon the slightest evidence, and rejecting summarily others, +merely because they are fatal to it. We grieve to charge upon Mr. Darwin +this freedom in handling facts, but truth extorts it from us. That the +loose statements and unfounded speculations of this book should come +from the author of the monograms on Cirripedes, and the writer, in the +natural history of the Voyage of the "Beagle," of the paper on the Coral +Reefs, is indeed a sad warning how far the love of a theory may seduce +even a first-rate naturalist from the very articles of his creed. + +This treatment of facts is followed up by another favourite line of +argument, namely, that by this hypothesis difficulties otherwise +inextricable are solved. Such passages abound. Take a few, selected +almost at random, to illustrate what we mean:-- + + How inexplicable are these facts on the ordinary view of creation!--p. + 436. + + Such facts as the presence of peculiar species of bats and the absence + of other mammals on oceanic islands are utterly inexplicable on the + theory of independent acts of creation.--pp. 477-8. + + It must be admitted that these facts receive no explanation on the + theory of creation.--p. 478. + + The inhabitants of the Cape de Verde Islands are related to those of + Africa, like those of the Galapagos to America. I believe this grand + fact can receive no sort of explanation on the ordinary view of + independent creation.--pp. 398-9. + +Now what can be more simply reconcilable with that theory than Mr. +Darwin's own account of the mode in which the migration of animal life +from one distant region to another is continually accomplished? + +Take another of these suggestions:-- + + It is inexplicable, on the theory of creation, why a part developed in + a very unusual manner in any one species of a genus, and therefore, as + we may naturally infer, of great importance to the species, should be + eminently liable to variation.--p. 474. + +Why "inexplicable"? Such a liability to variation might most naturally +be expected in the part "unusually developed," because such unusual +development is of the nature of a monstrosity, and monsters are always +tending to relapse into likeness to the normal type. Yet this argument +is one on which he mainly relies to establish his theory, for he sums +all up in this triumphant inference:-- + + I cannot believe that a false theory would explain, as it seems to me + that the theory of natural selection does explain, the several large + classes of facts above specified.--p. 480. + +Now, as to all this, we deny, first, that many of these difficulties are +"inexplicable on any other supposition." Of the greatest of them (128, +194) we shall have to speak before we conclude. We will here touch only +on one of those which are continually reappearing in Mr. Darwin's pages, +in order to illustrate his mode of dealing with them. He finds, then, +one of these "inexplicable difficulties" in the fact, that the young of +the blackbird, instead of resembling the adult in the colour of its +plumage, is like the young of many other birds spotted, and triumphantly +declaring that-- + + No one will suppose that the stripes on the whelp of a lion, or the + spots on the young blackbird, are of any use to these animals, or are + related to the conditions to which they are exposed.--pp. 439-40-- + +he draws from them one of his strongest arguments for this alleged +community of descent. Yet what is more certain to every observant +field-naturalist than that this alleged uselessness of colouring is one +of the greatest protections to the young bird, imperfect in its flight, +perching on every spray, sitting unwarily on every bush through which +the rays of sunshine dapple every bough to the colour of its own +plumage, and so give it a facility of escape which it would utterly want +if it bore the marked and prominent colours, the beauty of which the +adult bird needs to recommend him to his mate, and can safely bear with +his increased habits of vigilance and power of wing? + +But, secondly, as to many of these difficulties, the alleged solving of +which is one great proof of the truth of Mr. Darwin's theory, we are +compelled to join issue with him on another ground, and deny that he +gives us any solution at all. Thus, for instance, Mr. Darwin builds a +most ingenious argument on the tendency of the young of the horse, ass, +zebra, and quagga, to bear on their shoulders and on their legs certain +barred stripes. Up these bars (bars sinister, as we think, as to any +true descent of existing animals from their fancied prototype) he mounts +through his "thousands and thousands of generations," to the existence +of his "common parent, otherwise perhaps very differently constructed, +but striped like a zebra."--(p. 67.) "How inexplicable," he exclaims, +"on the theory of creation, is the occasional appearance of stripes on +the shoulder and legs of several species of the horse genus and in their +hybrids!"--(p. 473.) He tells us that to suppose that each species was +created with a tendency "like this, is to make the works of God a mere +mockery and deception"; and he satisfies himself that all difficulty is +gone when he refers the stripes to his hypothetical thousands on +thousands of years removed progenitor. But how is his difficulty really +affected? for why is the striping of one species a less real difficulty +than the striping of many? + +Another instance of this mode of dealing with his subject, to which we +must call the attention of our readers, because it too often recurs, is +contained in the following question:-- + + Were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created + as eggs, or seed, or as full grown? and, in the case of mammals, were + they created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's + womb?--p. 483. + +The difficulty here glanced at is extreme, but it is one for the +solution of which the transmutation-theory gives no clue. It is inherent +in the idea of the creation of beings, which are to reproduce their like +by natural succession; for, in such a world, place the first beginning +where you will, that beginning _must_ contain the apparent history of a +_past_, which existed only in the mind of the Creator. If, with Mr. +Darwin, to escape the difficulty of supposing the first man at his +creation to possess in that framework of his body "false marks of +nourishment from his mother's womb," with Mr. Darwin you consider him to +have been an improved ape, you only carry the difficulty up from the +first man to the first ape; if, with Mr. Darwin, in violation of all +observation, you break the barrier between the classes of vegetable and +animal life, and suppose every animal to be an "improved" vegetable, you +do but carry your difficulty with you into the vegetable world; for, how +could there be seeds if there had been no plants to seed them? and if +you carry up your thoughts through the vista of the Darwinian eternity +up to the primaeval fungus, still the primaeval fungus must have had a +humus, from which to draw into its venerable vessels the nourishment of +its archetypal existence, and that humus must itself be a "false mark" +of a pre-existing vegetation. + +We have dwelt a little upon this, because it is by such seeming +solutions of difficulties as that which this passage supplies that the +transmutationist endeavours to prop up his utterly rotten fabric of +guess and speculation. + +There are no parts of Mr. Darwin's ingenious book in which he gives the +reins more completely to his fancy than where he deals with the +improvement of instinct by his principle of natural selection. We need +but instance his assumption, without a fact on which to build it, that +the marvellous skill of the honey-bee in constructing its cells is thus +obtained, and the slave-making habits of the Formica Polyerges thus +formed. There seems to be no limit here to the exuberance of his fancy, +and we cannot but think that we detect one of those hints by which Mr. +Darwin indicates the application of his system from the lower animals to +man himself, when he dwells so pointedly upon the fact that it is always +the _black_ ant which is enslaved by his other coloured and more +fortunate brethren. "The slaves are black!" We believe that, if we had +Mr. Darwin in the witness-box, and could subject him to a moderate +cross-examination, we should find that he believed that the tendency of +the lighter-coloured races of mankind to prosecute the negro slave-trade +was really a remains, in their more favoured condition, of the +"extraordinary and odious instinct" which had possessed them before they +had been "improved by natural selection" from Formica Polyerges into +Homo. This at least is very much the way in which (p. 479) he slips in +quite incidentally the true identity of man with the horse, the bat, and +the porpoise:-- + + The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a + bat, fin of a porpoise, and leg of the horse, the same number of + vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and of the elephant, and + innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory + of descent with slow and slight successive modifications.--p. 479. + +Such assumptions as these, we once more repeat, are most dishonourable +and injurious to science; and though, out of respect to Mr. Darwin's +high character and to the tone of his work, we have felt it right to +weigh the "argument" again set by him before us in the simple scales of +logical examination, yet we must remind him that the view is not a new +one, and that it has already been treated with admirable humour when +propounded by another of his name and of his lineage. We do not think +that, with all his matchless ingenuity, Mr. Darwin has found any +instance which so well illustrates his own theory of the improved +descendant under the elevating influences of natural selection +exterminating the progenitor whose specialities he has exaggerated as he +himself affords us in this work. For if we go back two generations we +find the ingenious grandsire of the author of the _Origin of Species_ +speculating on the same subject, and almost in the same manner with his +more daring descendant. + + * * * * * + +Our readers will not have failed to notice that we have objected to the +views with which we have been dealing solely on scientific grounds. We +have done so from our fixed conviction that it is thus that the truth or +falsehood of such arguments should be tried. We have no sympathy with +those who object to any facts or alleged facts in nature, or to any +inference logically deduced from them, because they believe them to +contradict what it appears to them is taught by Revelation. We think +that all such objections savour of a timidity which is really +inconsistent with a firm and well-instructed faith:-- + + "Let us for a moment," profoundly remarks Professor Sedgwick, "suppose + that there are some religious difficulties in the conclusions of + geology. How, then, are we to solve them? Not by making a world after + a pattern of our own--not by shifting and shuffling the solid strata + of the earth, and then dealing them out in such a way as to play the + game of an ignorant or dishonest hypothesis--not by shutting our eyes + to facts, or denying the evidence of our senses--but by patient + investigation, carried on in the sincere love of truth, and by + learning to reject every consequence not warranted by physical + evidence."[1] + +He who is as sure as he is of his own existence that the God of Truth is +at once the God of Nature and the God of Revelation, cannot believe it +to be possible that His voice in either, rightly understood, can differ, +or deceive His creatures. To oppose facts in the natural world because +they seem to oppose Revelation, or to humour them so as to compel them +to speak its voice, is, he knows, but another form of the ever-ready +feebleminded dishonesty of lying for God, and trying by fraud or +falsehood to do the work of the God of truth. It is with another and a +nobler spirit that the true believer walks amongst the works of nature. +The words graven on the everlasting rocks are the words of God, and they +are graven by His hand. No more can they contradict His Word written in +His book, than could the words of the old covenant graven by His hand on +the stony tables contradict the writings of His hand in the volume of +the new dispensation. There may be to man difficulty in reconciling all +the utterances of the two voices. But what of that? He has learned +already that here he knows only in part, and that the day of reconciling +all apparent contradictions between what must agree is nigh at hand. He +rests his mind in perfect quietness on this assurance, and rejoices in +the gift of light without a misgiving as to what it may discover:-- + + "A man of deep thought and great practical wisdom," says Sedgwick,[2] + "one whose piety and benevolence have for many years been shining + before the world, and of whose sincerity no scoffer (of whatever + school) will dare to start a doubt, recorded his opinion in the great + assembly of the men of science who during the past year were gathered + from every corner of the Empire within the walls of this University, + 'that Christianity had everything to hope and nothing to fear from the + advancement of philosophy.'"[3] + +[1] "A Discourse on the Studies of the University," p. 149. +[2] Ibid., p. 153. +[3] Speech of Dr. Chalmers at the Meeting of the British Association + for the Advancement of Science, June, 1833. + +This is as truly the spirit of Christianity as it is that of philosophy. +Few things have more deeply injured the cause of religion than the busy +fussy energy with which men, narrow and feeble alike in faith and in +science, have bustled forth to reconcile all new discoveries in physics +with the word of inspiration. For it continually happens that some +larger collection of facts, or some wider view of the phenomena of +nature, alter the whole philosophic scheme; whilst Revelation has been +committed to declare an absolute agreement with what turns out after all +to have been a misconception or an error. We cannot, therefore, consent +to test the truth of natural science by the Word of Revelation. But this +does not make it the less important to point out on scientific grounds +scientific errors, when those errors tend to limit God's glory in +creation, or to gainsay the revealed relations of that creation to +Himself. To both these classes of error, though, we doubt not, quite +unintentionally on his part, we think that Mr. Darwin's speculations +directly tend. + +Mr. Darwin writes as a Christian, and we doubt not that he is one. We do +not for a moment believe him to be one of those who retain in some +corner of their hearts a secret unbelief which they dare not vent; and +we therefore pray him to consider well the grounds on which we brand his +speculations with the charge of such a tendency. First, then, he not +obscurely declares that he applies his scheme of the action of the +principle of natural selection to MAN himself, as well as to the animals +around him. Now, we must say at once, and openly, that such a notion is +absolutely incompatible not only with single expressions in the word of +God on that subject of natural science with which it is not immediately +concerned, but, which in our judgment is of far more importance, with +the whole representation of that moral and spiritual condition of man +which is its proper subject-matter. Man's derived supremacy over the +earth; man's power of articulate speech; man's gift of reason; man's +free-will and responsibility; man's fall and man's redemption; the +incarnation of the Eternal Son; the indwelling of the Eternal Spirit,-- +all are equally and utterly irreconcilable with the degrading notion of +the brute origin of him who was created in the image of God, and +redeemed by the Eternal Son assuming to himself his nature. Equally +inconsistent, too, not with any passing expressions, but with the whole +scheme of God's dealings with man as recorded in His word, is Mr. +Darwin's daring notion of man's further development into some unknown +extent of powers, and shape, and size, through natural selection acting +through that long vista of ages which he casts mistily over the earth +upon the most favoured individuals of his species. We care not in these +pages to push the argument further. We have done enough for our purpose +in thus succinctly intimating its course. If any of our readers doubt +what must be the result of such speculations carried to their logical +and legitimate conclusion, let them turn to the pages of _Oken_, and see +for themselves the end of that path the opening of which is decked out +in these pages with the bright hues and seemingly innocent deductions of +the transmutation-theory. + +Nor can we doubt, secondly, that this view, which thus contradicts the +revealed relation of creation to its Creator, is equally inconsistent +with the fullness of His glory. It is, in truth, an ingenious theory for +diffusing throughout creation the working and so the personality of the +Creator. And thus, however unconsciously to him who holds them, such +views really tend inevitably to banish from the mind most of the +peculiar attributes of the Almighty. + +How, asks Mr. Darwin, can we possibly account for the manifest plan, +order, and arrangement which pervade creation, except we allow to it +this self-developing power through modified descent? + + As Milne-Edwards has well expressed it, Nature is prodigal in variety, + but niggard in innovation. Why, on the theory of creation, should this + be so? Why should all the parts and organs of many independent beings, + each supposed to have been separately created for its proper place in + nature, be so commonly linked together by graduated steps? Why should + not Nature have taken a leap from structure to structure?--p. 194. + +And again:-- + + It is a truly wonderful fact--the wonder of which we are apt to + overlook from familiarity--that all animals and plants throughout all + time and space should be related to each other in group subordinate to + group, in the manner which we everywhere behold, namely, varieties of + the same species most closely related together, species of the same + genus less closely and unequally related together, forming sections + and sub-genera, species of distinct genera much less closely related, + and genera related in different degrees, forming sub-families, + families, orders, sub-classes, and classes.--pp. 128-9. + +How can we account for all this? By the simplest and yet the most +comprehensive answer. By declaring the stupendous fact that all creation +is the transcript in matter of ideas eternally existing in the mind of +the Most High--that order in the utmost perfectness of its relation +pervades His works, because it exists as in its centre and highest +fountain-head in Him the Lord of all. Here is the true account of the +fact which has so utterly misled shallow observers, that Man himself, +the Prince and Head of this creation, passes in the earlier stages of +his being through phases of existence closely analogous, so far as his +earthly tabernacle is concerned, to those in which the lower animals +ever remain. At that point of being the development of the protozoa is +arrested. Through it the embryo of their chief passes to the perfection +of his earthly frame. But the types of those lower forms of being must +be found in the animals which never advance beyond them--not in man for +whom they are but the foundation for an after-development; whilst he +too, Creation's crown and perfection, thus bears witness in his own +frame to the law of order which pervades the universe. + +In like manner could we answer every other question as to which Mr. +Darwin thinks all oracles are dumb unless they speak his speculation. He +is, for instance, more than once troubled by what he considers +imperfections in Nature's work. "If," he says, "our reason leads us to +admire with enthusiasm a multitude of inimitable contrivances in Nature, +this same reason tells us that some other contrivances are less +perfect." + + Nor ought we to marvel if all the contrivances in nature be not, as + far as we can judge, absolutely perfect; and if some of them be + abhorrent to our idea of fitness. We need not marvel at the sting of + the bee causing the bee's own death; at drones being produced in such + vast numbers for one single act, and with the great majority + slaughtered by their sterile sisters; at the astonishing waste of + pollen by our fir-trees; at the instinctive hatred of the queen-bee + for her own fertile daughters; at ichneumonidae feeding within the + live bodies of caterpillars; and at other such cases. The wonder + indeed is, on the theory of natural selection, that more cases of the + want of absolute perfection have not been observed.--p. 472. + +We think that the real temper of this whole speculation as to nature +itself may be read in these few lines. It is a dishonouring view of +nature. + +That reverence for the work of God's hands with which a true belief in +the All-wise Worker fills the believer's heart is at the root of all +great physical discovery; it is the basis of philosophy. He who would +see the venerable features of Nature must not seek with the rudeness of +a licensed roysterer violently to unmask her countenance; but must wait +as a learner for her willing unveiling. There was more of the true +temper of philosophy in the poetic fiction of the Pan-ic shriek, than in +the atheistic speculations of Lucretius. But this temper must beset +those who do in effect banish God from nature. And so Mr. Darwin not +only finds in it these bungling contrivances which his own greater skill +could amend, but he stands aghast before its mightier phenomena. The +presence of death and famine seems to him inconceivable on the ordinary +idea of creation; and he looks almost aghast at them until reconciled to +their presence by his own theory that "a ratio of increase so high as to +lead to a struggle for life, and as a consequence to natural selection +entailing divergence of character and the extinction of less improved +forms, is decidedly followed by the most exalted object which we are +capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals" (p. +490). But we can give him a simpler solution still for the presence of +these strange forms of imperfection and suffering amongst the works of +God. + +We can tell him of the strong shudder which ran through all this world +when its head and ruler fell. When he asks concerning the infinite +variety of these multiplied works which are set in such an orderly +unity, and run up into man as their reasonable head, we can tell him of +the exuberance of God's goodness and remind him of the deep philosophy +which lies in those simple words--"All thy works praise Thee, O God, and +thy saints give thanks unto Thee." For it is one office of redeemed man +to collect the inarticulate praises of the material creation, and pay +them with conscious homage into the treasury of the supreme Lord. + + * * * * * + +It is by putting restraint upon fancy that science is made the true +trainer of our intellect:-- + + "A study of the Newtonian philosophy," says Sedgwick, "as affecting + our moral powers and capacities, does not terminate in mere negations. + It teaches us to see the finger of God in all things animate and + inaminate [Transcriber's note: sic], and gives us an exalted + conception of His attributes, placing before us the clearest proof of + their reality; and so prepares, or ought to prepare, the mind for the + reception of that higher illumination which brings the rebellious + faculties into obedience to the Divine will."--_Studies of the + University_, p. 14. + +It is by our deep conviction of the truth and importance of this view +for the scientific mind of England that we have been led to treat at so +much length Mr. Darwin's speculation. The contrast between the sober, +patient, philosophical courage of our home philosophy, and the writings +of Lamarck and his followers and predecessors, of MM. Demaillet, Bory de +Saint Vincent, Virey, and Oken,[1] is indeed most wonderful; and it is +greatly owing to the noble tone which has been given by those great men +whose words we have quoted to the school of British science. That Mr. +Darwin should have wandered from this broad highway of nature's works +into the jungle of fanciful assumption is no small evil. We trust that +he is mistaken in believing that he may count Sir C. Lyell as one of his +converts. We know indeed the strength of the temptations which he can +bring to bear upon his geological brother. The Lyellian hypothesis, +itself not free from some of Mr. Darwin's faults, stands eminently in +need for its own support of some such new scheme of physical life as +that propounded here. Yet no man has been more distinct and more logical +in the denial of the transmutation of species than Sir C. Lyell, and +that not in the infancy of his scientific life, but in its full vigour +and maturity. + +[1] It may be worth while to exhibit to our readers a few of Dr. Oken's + postulates or arguments as specimens of his views:-- + I wrote the first edition of 1810 in a kind of inspiration. + 4. Spirit is the motion of mathematical ideas. + 10. Physio-philosphy [Transcriber's note: sic] has to ... pourtray + the first period of the world's development from nothing; how the + elements and heavenly bodies originated; in what method by + self-evolution into higher and manifold forms they separated into + minerals, became finally organic, and in man attained + self-consciousness. + 42. The mathematical monad is eternal. + 43. The eternal is one and the same with the zero of mathematics. + + +Sir C. Lyell devotes the 33rd to the 36th chapter of his "Principles of +Geology" to an examination of this question. He gives a clear account of +the mode in which Lamarck supported his belief of the transmutation of +species; he interrupts the author's argument to observe that "no +positive fact is cited to exemplify the substitution of some _entirely +new_ sense, faculty, or organ--because no examples were to be found"; +and remarks that when Lamarck talks of "the effects of internal +sentiment," etc., as causes whereby animals and plants may acquire _new +organs_, he substitutes names for things, and with a disregard to the +strict rules of induction, resorts to fictions. + +He shows the fallacy of Lamarck's reasoning, and by anticipation +confutes the whole theory of Mr. Darwin, when gathering clearly up into +a few heads the recapitulation of the whole argument in favour of the +reality of species in nature. He urges:--[Transcriber's note: numbering +in original] + +1. That there is a capacity in all species to accommodate themselves to +a certain extent to a change of external circumstances. + +4. The entire variation from the original type ... may usually be +effected in a brief period of time, after which no further deviation can +be obtained. + +5. The intermixing distinct species is guarded against by the sterility +of the mule offspring. + +6. It appears that species have a real existence in nature, and that +each was endowed at the time of its creation with the attributes and +organization by which it is now distinguished.[1] + +[1] "Principles of Geology," edit. 1853. + +We trust that Sir C. Lyell abides still by these truly philosophical +principles; and that with his help and with that of his brethren this +flimsy speculation may be as completely put down as was what in spite of +all denials we must venture to call its twin though less-instructed +brother, the "Vestiges of Creation." In so doing they will assuredly +provide for the strength and continually growing progress of British +science. + +Indeed, not only do all laws for the study of nature vanish when the +great principle of order pervading and regulating all her processes is +given up, but all that imparts the deepest interest in the investigation +of her wonders will have departed too. Under such influences a man soon +goes back to the marvelling stare of childhood at the centaurs and +hippogriffs of fancy, or if he is of a philosophic turn, he comes like +Oken to write a scheme of creation under "a sort of inspiration"; but it +is the frenzied inspiration of the inhaler of mephitic gas. The whole +world of nature is laid for such a man under a fantastic law of glamour, +and he becomes capable of believing anything: to him it is just as +probable that Dr. Livingstone will find the next tribe of negroes with +their heads growing under their arms as fixed on the summit of the +cervical vertebrae; and he is able, with a continually growing neglect +of all the facts around him, with equal confidence and equal delusion, +to look back to any past and to look on to any future. + + + + +ON CARDINAL NEWMAN + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1864] + +_Apologia pro Vita sua_. By JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, D.D. + +Few books have been published of late years which combine more distinct +elements of interest than the "Apologia" of Dr. Newman. As an +autobiography, in the highest sense of that word, as the portraiture, +that is, and record of what the man was, irrespective of those common +accidents of humanity which too often load the biographer's pages, it is +eminently dramatic. To produce such a portrait was the end which the +writer proposed to himself, and which he has achieved with a rare +fidelity and completeness. Hardly do the "Confessions of St. Augustine" +more vividly reproduce the old African Bishop before successive +generations in all the greatness and struggles of his life than do these +pages the very inner being of this remarkable man--"the living +intelligence," as he describes it, "by which I write, and argue, and +act" (p. 47). No wonder that when he first fully recognised what he had +to do, he + + shrank from both the task and the exposure which it would entail. I + must, I said, give the true key to my whole life; I must show what I + am, that it may be seen what I am not, and that the phantom may be + extinguished which gibbers instead of me. I wish to be known as a + living man, and not as a scarecrow which is dressed up in my + clothes.... I will draw out, as far as may be, the history of my mind; + I will state the point at which I began, in what external suggestion + or accident each opinion had its rise, how far and how they were + developed from within, how they grew, were modified, were combined, + were in collision with each other, and were changed. Again, how I + conducted myself towards them; and how, and how far, and for how long + a time, I thought I could hold them consistently with the + ecclesiastical engagements which I had made, and with the position + which I filled.... It is not at all pleasant for me to be egotistical + nor to be criticised for being so. It is not pleasant to reveal to + high and low, young and old, what has gone on within me from my early + years. It is not pleasant to be giving to every shallow or flippant + disputant the advantage over me of knowing my most private thoughts, I + might even say the intercourse between myself and my Maker. + --pp. 47-51. + +Here is the task he set himself, and the task which he has performed. +There is in these pages an absolute revealing of the hidden life in its +acting, and its processes, which at times is almost startling, which is +everywhere of the deepest interest. For the life thus revealed is well +worthy of the pen by which it is portrayed. Of all those who, in these +later years, have quitted the Church of England for the Roman communion +--esteemed, honoured, and beloved, as were many of them--no one, save +Dr. Newman, appears to us to possess the rare gift of undoubted genius. + +That life, moreover, which anywhere and at any time must have marked its +own character on his fellows, was cast precisely at the time and place +most favourable for stamping upon others the impress of itself. The +plate was ready to receive and to retain every line of the image which +was thrown so vividly upon it. The history, therefore, of this life in +its shifting scenes of thought, feeling, and purpose, becomes in fact +the history of a school, a party, and a sect. From its effect on us, +who, from without, judge of it with critical calmness, we can form some +idea of what must be its power on those who were within the charmed +ring; who were actually under the wand of the enchanter, for whom there +was music in that voice, fascination in that eye, and habitual command +in that spare but lustrous countenance; and who can trace again in this +retrospect the colours and shadows which in those years which fixed +their destiny, passed, though in less distinct hues, into their own +lives, and made them what they are. + +Again, in another aspect, the "Apologia" will have a special interest +for most of our readers. Almost every page of it will throw some light +upon the great controversy which has been maintained for these three +hundred years, and which now spreads itself throughout the world, +between the Anglican Church and her oldest and greatest antagonist, the +Papal See.... + +The first names to which it introduces us indicate the widely-differing +influences under which was formed that party within our Church which has +acted so powerfully and in such various directions upon its life and +teaching. They are those of Mr.--afterwards Archbishop--Whately and Dr. +Hawkins, afterwards and still the Provost of Oriel College. To +intercourse with both of whom Dr. Newman attributes great results in the +formation of his own character: the first emphatically opening his mind +and teaching him to use his reason, whilst in religious opinion he +taught him the existence of a church, and fixed in him Anti-Erastian +views of Church polity; the second being a man of most exact mind, who +through a course of severe snubbing taught him to weigh his words and be +cautious in his statements. + +To an almost unknown degree, Oriel had at that time monopolised the +active speculative intellect of Oxford. Her fellowships being open, +whilst those of other Colleges were closed, drew to her the ablest men +of the University: whilst the nature of the examination for her +fellowships, which took no note of ordinary University honours, and +stretched boldly out beyond inquiries as to classical and mathematical +attainments in everything which could test the dormant powers of the +candidates, had already impressed upon the Society a distinctive +character of intellectual excellence. The late Lord Grenville used at +this time to term an Oriel Fellowship the Blue Ribbon of the University; +and, undoubtedly, the results of those examinations have been +marvellously confirmed by the event, if we think to what an extent the +mind, and opinions, and thoughts of England have been moulded by them +who form the list of those "Orielenses," of whom it was said in an +academic squib of the time, with some truth, flavoured perhaps with a +spice of envy, that they were wont to enter the academic circle "under a +flourish of trumpets." Such a "flourish" certainly has often preceded +the entry of far lesser men than E. Coplestone, E. Hawkins, J. Davison, +J. Keble, R. Whately, T. Arnold, E.B. Pusey, J. H. Newman, H. Froude, R. +J. Wilberforce, S. Wilberforce, G. A. Denison, &c., &c. + +Into a Society leavened with such intellectual influences as these, Dr. +Newman, soon after taking his degree, was ushered. It could at this time +have borne no distinctively devout character in its religious aspect. +Rather must it have been marked by the opposite of this. Whately, whose +powerful and somewhat rude intellect must almost have overawed the +common room when the might of Davison had been taken from it, was, with +all his varied excellences, never by any means an eminently devout, +scarcely perhaps an orthodox man. All his earlier writings bristle with +paradoxes, which affronted the instincts of simpler and more believing +minds. Whately, accordingly, appears in these pages as "generous and +warmhearted--particularly loyal to his friends" (p. 68); as teaching +his pupil "to see with my own eyes and to walk with my own feet"; yet as +exercising an influence over him (p. 69) which, "in a higher respect +than intellectual advance, had not been satisfactory," under which he +"was beginning to prefer intellectual excellence to moral, was drifting +in the direction of liberalism"; a "dream" out of which he was "rudely +awakened at the end of 1827, by two great blows--illness and +bereavement" (p. 72). + +Though this change in his views is traced by Dr. Newman to the action of +these strictly personal causes of illness and bereavement, yet other +influences, we suspect, were working strongly in the same direction. It +is plain that, so far as regards early permanent impression on the +character of his religious opinions, the influence of Whately was +calculated rather to stir up reaction than to win a convert. "Whately's +mind," he says himself (p. 68), "was too different from mine for us to +remain long on one line." The course of events round him impelled him in +the same direction, and furnished him with new comrades, on whom +henceforth he was to act, and who were to react most powerfully on him. +The torrent of reform was beginning its full rush through the land; and +its turbulent waters threatened not only to drown the old political +landmarks of the Constitution, but also to sweep away the Church of the +nation. Abhorrence of these so-called liberal opinions was the electric +current which bound together the several minds which speedily appeared +as instituting and directing the great Oxford Church movement. Not that +it was in any sense the offspring of the old cry of "the Church in +danger." The meaning of that alarm was the apprehension of danger to the +emoluments or position of the Church as the established religion in the +land. From the very first the Oxford movement pointed more to the +maintenance of the Church as a spiritual society, divinely incorporated +to teach certain doctrines, and do certain acts which none other could +do, than to the preservation of those temporal advantages which had been +conferred by the State. From the first there was a tendency to +undervalue these external aids, which made the movement an object of +suspicion to thorough Church-and-State men. This suspicion was repaid by +the members of the new school with a return of contempt. They believed +that in struggling for the temporal advantages of the Establishment, men +had forgotten the essential characteristics of the Church, and had been +led to barter their divine birthright for the mess of pottage which Acts +of Parliament secured them. Thus we find Dr. Newman remembering his +early Oxford dislike of "the bigoted two-bottle orthodox." He records +(p. 73) the characteristic mode in which on the appearance of the first +symptoms of his "leaving the clientela" of Dr. Whately he was punished +by that rough humorist. "Whately was considerably annoyed at me; and he +took a humorous revenge, of which he had given me due notice +beforehand.... He asked a set of the least intellectual men in Oxford to +dinner, and men most fond of port; he made me one of the party; placed +me between Provost this and Principal that, and then asked me if I was +proud of my friends" (p. 73). It is easy to conceive how he liked them. +He had, indeed, though formerly a supporter of Catholic Emancipation, +"acted with them in opposing Mr. Peel's re-election in 1829, on 'simple +academical grounds,' because he thought that a great University ought +not to be bullied even by a great Duke of Wellington" (p. 172); but he +soon parted with his friends of "two-bottle orthodoxy," and joined the +gathering knot of men of an utterly different temper, who "disliked the +Duke's change of policy as dictated by liberalism" (p. 72). + +This whole company shared the feelings which even yet, after so many +years and in such altered circumstances, break forth from Dr. Newman +like the rumblings and smoke of a long extinct volcano, in such +utterances as this: "The new Bill for the suppression of the Irish Sees +was in prospect, and had filled my mind. I had fierce thoughts against +the Liberals. It was the success of the Liberal cause which fretted me +inwardly. I became fierce against its instruments and its +manifestations. A French vessel was at Algiers; I would not even look at +the tricolor" (97). This was the temper of the whole band. Most of these +men appear in Dr. Newman's pages; and from their common earnestness and +various endowments a mighty band they were. + + * * * * * + +Here then was the band which have accomplished so much; which have +failed in so much; which have added a new party-name to our vocabulary; +which have furnished materials for every scribbling or declaiming +political Protestant, from the writer of the Durham Letter down to Mr. +Whalley and Mr. Harper; which aided so greatly in reawakening the +dormant energies of the English Church; which carried over to the ranks +of her most deadly opponent some of the ablest and most devoted of her +sons. The language of these pages has never varied concerning this +movement. We have always admitted its many excellences--we have always +lamented its evils. As long ago as in 1839, whilst we protested openly +and fully against what we termed at the time the "strange and +lamentable" publication of Mr. Froude's "Remains,"[1] we declared our +hope that "the publication of the Oxford Tracts was a very seasonable +and valuable contribution to the cause both of the Church and the +State." And in 1846, even after so many of our hopes had faded away, we +yet spoke in the same tone of "this religious movement in our Church," +as one "from which, however clouded be the present aspect, we doubt not +that great blessings have resulted and will result, unless we forfeit +them by neglect or wilful abuse."[2] + +[1] "Quarterly Review," vol. lxiii, p. 551. +[2] Ibid., vol. lxxviii, p. 24. + +The history of the progress of the movement lies scattered through these +pages. All that we can collect concerning its first intention confirms +absolutely Mr. Perceval's Statements, 1843, that it was begun for two +leading objects: "first, the firm and practical maintenance of the +doctrine of the apostolical succession.... secondly, the preservation in +its integrity of the Christian doctrine in our Prayerbooks."[1] Its +unity of action was shaken by the first entrance of doubts into its +leader's mind. His retirement from it tended directly to break it up as +an actual party. But it would be a monstrous error to suppose that the +influence of this movement was extinguished when its conductors were +dispersed as a party. So far from it, the system of the Church of +England took in all the more freely the elements of truth which it had +all along been diffusing, because they were no longer scattered abroad +by the direct action of an organised party under ostensible chiefs. +Where, we may ask, is not at this moment the effect of that movement +perfectly appreciable within our body? Look at the new-built and +restored churches of the land; look at the multiplication of schools; +the greater exactness of ritual observance; the higher standard of +clerical life, service, and devotion; the more frequent celebrations; +the cathedrals open; the loving sisterhoods labouring, under episcopal +sanction, with the meek, active saintliness of the Church's purest time; +look--above all, perhaps--at the raised tone of devotion and doctrine +amongst us, and see in all these that the movement did not die, but +rather flourished with a new vigour when the party of the movement was +so greatly broken up. It is surely one of the strangest objections which +can be urged against a living spiritual body, that the loss of many of +its foremost sons still left its vital strength unimpaired. Yet this was +Dr. Newman's objection, and his witness, fourteen years ago, when he +complained of the Church of England, that though it had given "a hundred +educated men to the Catholic Church, yet the huge creature from which +they went forth showed no consciousness of its loss, but shook itself, +and went about its work as of old time."[2] + +[1] "Collection of Papers connected with the Theological Movement of + 1833." By the Hon. and Rev. A.P. Perceval. 1843. Second Edition. +[2] "Lectures on Anglican Difficulties," p. 9. + +As the unity of the party was broken up, the fire which had burned +hitherto in but a single beacon was scattered upon a thousand hills. +Nevertheless, the first breaking up of the party was eminently +disheartening to its living members. But it was not by external violence +that it was broken, but by the development within itself of a +distinctive Romeward bias. Dr. Newman lays his hand upon a particular +epoch in its progress, at which, he says, it was crossed by a new set of +men, who imparted to it that leaning to Romanism which ever after +perceptibly beset it. "A new school of thought was rising, as is usual +in such movements, and was sweeping the original party of the movement +aside, and was taking its place" (p. 277). This is a curious instance of +self-delusion. He was, as we maintain, throughout, the Romanising +element in the whole movement. But for him it might have continued, as +its other great chiefs still continue, the ornament and strength of the +English Church. These younger men, to whom he attributes the change, +were, in fact, the minds whom he had consciously or unconsciously +fashioned and biassed. Some of them, as is ever the case, had outrun +their leader. Some of them were now, in their sensitive spiritual +organism, catching the varying outline of the great leader whom they +almost worshipped, and beginning at once to give back his own altering +image. Instead of seeing in their changing minds this reflection of +himself, he dwelt upon it as an original element, and read in its +presence an indication of its being the will of God that the stream +should turn its flow towards the gulf to which he himself had unawares, +it may be, directed its waters. Those who remember how at this time he +was followed will know how easily such a result might follow his own +incipient change. Those who can still remember how many often +involuntarily caught his peculiar intonation--so distinctively singular, +and therefore so attractive in himself and so repulsive in his copyists +--will understand how the altering fashion of the leader's thoughts was +appropriated with the same unconscious fidelity. + +One other cause acted powerfully on him and on them to give this bias to +the movement, and that was the bitterness and invectives of the Liberal +party. Dr. Newman repeatedly reminds us that it was the Liberals who +drove him from Oxford. The four tutors--the after course of one of whom, +at least, was destined to display so remarkable a Nemesis--and the pack +who followed them turned by their ceaseless baying the noble hart who +led the rest towards this evil covert. He and they heard incessantly +that they were Papists in disguise: men dishonoured by professing one +thing and holding another; until they began to doubt their own fidelity, +and in that doubt was death. Nor was this all. The Liberals ever (as is +their wont), most illiberal to those who differ from them, began to use +direct academic persecution; until, in self-distrust and very weariness, +the great soul began to abandon the warfare it had waged inwardly +against its own inclinations and the fascinations of its enemy, and to +yield the first defences to the foe. It will remain written, as Dr. +Newman's deliberate judgment, that it was the Liberals who forced him +from Oxford. How far, if he had not taken that step, he might have again +shaken off the errors which were growing on him--how far therefore in +driving him from Oxford they drove him finally to Rome--man can never +know. + +In the new light thrown upon it from the pages of the "Apologia," we see +with more distinctness than was ever shown before, how greatly this +tendency to Rome, which at last led astray so many of the masters of the +party, was infused into it by the single influence of Dr. Newman +himself. We do not believe that, in spite of his startling speeches, the +bias towards Rome was at all as strong even in H. Froude himself. Let +his last letter witness for him:--"If," he says, "I was to assign my +reasons for belonging to the Church of England in preference to any +other religious community, it would be simply this, that she has +retained an apostolical clergy, and enacts no sinful terms of communion; +whereas, on the other hand, the Romanists, though retaining an +apostolical clergy, do exact sinful terms of communion."[1] This was the +tone of the movement until it was changed in Dr. Newman. We believe that +in tracing this out we shall be using these pages entirely as their +author intended them to be used. They were meant to exhibit to his +countrymen the whole secret of his moral and spiritual anatomy; they +were intended to prove that he was altogether free from that foul and +disgraceful taint of innate dishonesty, the unspoken suspicion of which +in so many quarters had so long troubled him; the open utterance of +which, from the lips of a popular and respectable writer, was so +absolutely intolerable to him. From that imputation it is but bare +justice to say he does thoroughly clear himself. The post-mortem +examination of his life is complete; the hand which guided the +dissecting-knife has trembled nowhere, nor shrunk from any incision. All +lies perfectly open, and the foul taint is nowhere. And yet, looking +back with the writer on the changes which this strange narrative +records, from his subscribing, in 1828, towards the first start of the +"Record" newspaper to his receiving on the 9th of October, 1845, at +Littlemore, the "remarkable-looking man, evidently a foreigner, shabbily +dressed in black,"[2] who received him into the Papal Communion, we see +abundant reason, even without the action of that prevalent suspicion of +secret dishonesty somewhere, which in English minds inevitably connects +itself with the spread of Popery, for the widely-diffused impression of +that being true which it is so pleasant to find unfounded. + +[1] "Collection of Papers, &c." p. 16. +[2] "Historical Notes of the Tractarian Movement," by Canon Oakley. + Dublin Review, No. v, p. 190. + +From first to last these pages exhibit the habit of Dr. Newman's mind as +eminently subjective. It might almost be described as the exact opposite +of that of S. Athanasius: with a like all-engrossing love for truth; +with ecclesiastical habits often strangely similar; with cognate gifts +of the imperishable inheritance of genius, the contradiction here is +almost absolute. The abstract proposition, the rightly-balanced +proposition, is everything to the Eastern, it is well-nigh nothing to +the English Divine. When led by circumstances to embark in the close +examination of Dogma, as in his "History of the Arians," his Nazarite +locks of strength appear to have been shorn, and the giant, at whose +might we have been marvelling, becomes as any other man. The dogmatic +portion of this work is poor and tame; it is only when the writer +escapes from dogma into the dramatic representation of the actors in the +strife that his powers reappear. For abstract truth it is true to us +that he has no engrossing affection: his strength lay in his own +apprehension of it, in his power of defending it when once it had been +so apprehended and had become engrafted into him; and it is to this as +made one with himself, and to his own inward life as fed and nourished +by it, that he perpetually reverts. + +All this is the more remarkable because he conceives himself to have +been, even from early youth, peculiarly devoted to dogma in the +abstract; he returns continually to this idea, confounding, as we +venture to conceive, his estimate of the effect of truth when he +received it, on himself, with truth as it exists in the abstract. And as +this affected him in regard to dogma, so it reached to his relations to +every part of the Church around him. It led him to gather up in a +dangerous degree, into the person of his "own Bishop," the deference due +to the whole order. "I did not care much for the Bench of Bishops, nor +should I have cared much for a Provincial Council.... All these matters +seemed to me to be jure ecclesiastico; but what to me was jure divino +was the voice of my Bishop in his own person. My own Bishop was my +Pope."--(p. 123.) His intense individuality had substituted the personal +bond to the individual for the general bond to the collective holders of +the office: and so when the strain became violent it snapped at once. +This doubtless natural disposition seems to have been developed, and +perhaps permanently fixed, as the law of his intellectual and spiritual +being, by the peculiarities of his early religious training. Educated in +what is called the "Evangelical" school, early and consciously +converted, and deriving his first religious tone, in great measure, from +the vehement but misled Calvinism, of which Thomas Scott, of Aston +Sandford, was one of the ablest and most robust specimens, he was early +taught to appreciate, and even to judge of, all external truth mainly in +its ascertainable bearings on his own religious experience. In many a +man the effect of this teaching is to fix him for life in a hard, +narrow, and exclusive school of religious thought and feeling, in which +he lives and dies profoundly satisfied with himself and his +co-religionists, and quite hopeless of salvation for any beyond the +immediate pale in which his own Shibboleth is pronounced with the +exactest nicety of articulation. But Dr. Newman's mind was framed upon a +wholly different idea, and the results were proportionally dissimilar. +With the introvertive tendency which we have ascribed to him, was joined +a most subtle and speculative intellect, and an ambitious temper. The +"Apologia" is the history of the practical working out of those various +conditions. His hold upon any truth external to and separate from +himself, was so feeble when placed in comparison with his perception of +what was passing within himself, that the external truth was always +liable to corrections which would make its essential elements harmonize +with what was occurring within his own intellectual or spiritual being. +We think that we can distinctly trace in these pages a twofold +consequence from all this: first, an inexhaustible mutability in his +views on all subjects; and secondly, a continually recurring temptation +to entire scepticism as to everything external to himself. Every page +gives illustrations of the first of these. He votes for what was called +Catholic Emancipation, and is drifting into the ranks of liberalism. But +the external idea of liberty is very soon metamorphosed, in his view, +from the figure of an angel of light into that of a spirit of darkness; +first, by his academical feeling that a great University ought not to be +bullied even by a great Duke, and then by the altered temper of his own +feelings, as they are played upon by the alternate vibrations of the +gibes of "Hurrell Froude," and the deep tones of Mr. Keble's +ministrelsy. + +The history of his religious alternations is in exact keeping with all +this. At every separate stage of his course, he constructs for himself a +tabernacle in which for a while he rests. This process he repeats with +an incessant simplicity of renewed commencements, which is almost like +the blind acting of instinct leading the insect, which is conscious of +its coming change, to spin afresh and afresh its ever-broken cocoon. He +is at one time an Anglo-Catholic, and sees Antichrist in Rome; he falls +back upon the Via Media--that breaks down, and left him, he says (p. +211), "very nearly a pure Protestant"; and again he has a "new theory +made expressly for the occasion, and is pleased with his new view" (p. +269); he then rests in "Samaria" before he finds his way over to Rome. +For the time every one of these transient tabernacles seems to +accomplish its purpose. He finds certain repose for his spirit. Whilst +sheltered by it, all the great unutterable phenomena of the external +world are viewed by him in relation to himself and to his home of +present rest. The gourd has grown up in a night, and shelters him by its +short-lived shadow from the tyrannous rays of the sunshine. But some +sudden irresistible change in his own inward preceptions alters +everything. The idea shoots across his mind that the English Church is +in the position of the Monophysite heretics of the fifth century (p. +209). At once all his views of truth are changed. He moves on to a new +position; pitches anew his tent; builds himself up a new theory; and +finds the altitudes of the stars above him, and the very forms of the +heavenly constellations, change with the change of his earthly +habitation. + + * * * * * + +In October the final step is taken, and in the succeeding January the +mournful history is closed in the following most touching words:-- + + Jan. 20, 1846.--You may think how lonely I am. _Obliviscere populum + tuum et domum patris tui_, has been in my ears for the last twelve + hours. I realize more that we are leaving Littlemore, and it is like + going on the open sea. + + I left Oxford for good on Monday, February 23, 1846. On the Saturday + and Sunday before, I was in my house at Littlemore simply by myself, + as I had been for the first day or two when I had originally taken + possession of it. I slept on Sunday night at my dear friend's, Mr. + Johnson's, at the Observatory. Various friends came to see the last of + me--Mr. Copeland, Mr. Church, Mr. Buckle, Mr. Pattison, and Mr. Lewis. + Dr. Pusey, too, came up to take leave of me; and I called on Dr. Ogle, + one of my very oldest friends, for he was my private tutor when I was + an undergraduate. In him I took leave of my first College, Trinity, + which was so dear to me, and which held on its foundation so many who + have been kind to me, both when I was a boy and all through my Oxford + life. Trinity had never been unkind to me. There used to be much + snapdragon growing on the walls opposite my freshman's rooms there, + and I had for years taken it as the emblem of my own perpetual + residence, even unto death, in my University. + + On the morning of the 23rd I left the Observatory. I have never seen + Oxford since, excepting its spires, as they are seen from the railway. + +What an exceeding sadness is gathered up in these words! And yet the +impress of this time left upon some of Dr. Newman's writings seems, like +the ruin which records what was the violence of the throes of the +long-passed earthquake, even still more indicative of the terrible +character of the struggle through which at this time he passed. We have +seen how keenly he felt the suspicious intrusions upon his privacy which +haunted his last years in the Church of England. But in "Loss and Gain" +there is a yet more expressive exhibition of the extremity of that +suffering. He denies as "utterly untrue" the common belief that he +"introduced friends or partisans into the tale"; and of course he is to +be implicitly believed. And yet ONE there is whom no one who reads the +pages can for a moment doubt is there, and that is Dr. Newman himself. +The weary, unresting, hunted condition of the leading figure in the +tale, with all its accompaniment of keen, flashing wit, always seemed to +us the history of those days when a well-meant but impertinent series of +religious intrusions was well-nigh driving the wise man mad. + +We have followed out these steps thus in detail, not only because of +their intense interest as an autobiography, but also because the +narrative itself seems to throw the strongest possible light on the +mainly-important question how far this defection of one of her greatest +sons does really tend to weaken the argumentative position of the +English Church in her strife with Rome. What has been said already will +suffice to prove that in our opinion no such consequence can justly +follow from it. We acknowledge freely the greatness of the individual +loss. But the causes of that defection are, we think, clearly shown to +have been the peculiarities of the individual, not the weakness of the +side which he abandoned. His steps mark no path to any other. He sprang +clear over the guarding walls of the sheepfold, and opened no way +through them for other wanderers. Men may have left the Church of +England because their leader left it; but they could not leave it as he +left it, or because of his reasons for leaving it. In truth, he appears +never to have occupied a thoroughly real Church-of-England position. He +was at first, by education and private judgment, a Calvinistic Puritan; +he became dissatisfied with the coldness and barrenness of this theory, +and set about finding a new position for himself, and in so doing he +skipped over true, sound English Churchmanship into a course of feeling +and thought allied with and leading on to Rome. Even the hindrances +which so long held him back can scarcely be said to have been indeed the +logical force of the unanswerable credentials of the English Church. On +the contrary they were rather personal impressions, feelings, and +difficulties. His faithful, loving nature made him cling desperately to +early hopes, friendships, and affections. Even to the end Thomas Scott +never loses his hold upon him. His narrative is not the history of the +normal progress of a mind from England to Rome; it is so thoroughly +exceptional that it does not seem calculated to seduce to Rome men +governed in such high matters by argument and reason rather than by +impulse and feeling. We do not therefore think that the mere fact of +this secession tells with any force against that communion whose claims +satisfied to their dying day such men as Hooker and Andrewes, and Ussher +and Hammond, and Bramhall and Butler. + +But, beyond this, his present view of the English Church appears to be +incompatible with that fierce and internecine hostility to the claim +upon the loyalty of her children which is really essential to clear the +act of perverting others from her ranks from the plainest guilt of +schism. It is not merely that the nobleness and tenderness of his nature +make his tone so unlike that of many of those who have taken the same +step with himself. It is not that every provocation--and how many they +have been!--every misunderstanding--and they have been all but +universal; every unworthy charge or insinuation--down to those of +Professor Kingsley, failed to embitter his feelings against the +communion he has deserted and the friends whom he has left. It is not +this to which we refer, for this is personal to himself, and the fruit +of his own generosity and true greatness of soul. But we refer to his +calm, deliberate estimate of the forsaken Church. He says, indeed, that +since his change he has "had no changes to record, no anxiety of heart +whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment. I never had one +doubt" (p. 373). But, as we have seen already, this was always the +temporary condition in which every new phase of opinion landed him. He +was always able to build up these tabernacles of rest. The difference +between this and those former resting-places is clear. In those he was +still a searcher after truth: he needed and required conviction, and a +new conviction might shake the old comfort. But his present +resting-place is built upon the denial of all further enquiry. "I have," +he says (p. 374), "no further history of religious opinions to narrate": +and some following words show how entirely it is this abandonment of the +idea of the actual conviction of truth for the blind admission of the +dictates of a despotic external authority on which he rests. + + * * * * * + +There is another deeply interesting question raised by Dr. Newman's +work, on which, if our limits did not absolutely prevent, we should be +glad to enter. We mean the present position of the Church of Rome with +that great rationalistic movement with which we, too, are called to +contend. Everywhere in Europe this contest is proceeding, and the +relations of the Church of Rome towards it are becoming daily more and +more embarrassed. Mr. Ffoulkes tells us that "the 'Home and Foreign +Review' is the _only_ publication professing to emanate from Roman +Catholics in this country that can be named in the same breath with the +leading Protestant Reviews."[1] Since he wrote these words its course +has been closed by Pontifical authority. M. Montalembert has barely +escaped censure with the payment of the penalty--so heavy to his +co-religionists--of an enforced silence; and Dr. Newman "interprets recent +acts of authority as tying the hands of a controversialist such as I +should be,"[2] and so is prevented completing the great work which has +occupied so much of his thoughts, and which promised, more than any +other work this country is likely to see, to set some limiting boundary +line between the provinces of a humble faith in Revelation and an ardent +love of advancing science. This is an evil inflicted by Rome on this +whole generation. But in truth, whenever the mind of Christendom is +active, the attitude of the Papal communion before this new enemy is +that of a startled, trembling minaciousness, which invites the deadly +combat it can so ill maintain. + +[1] "Union Review," ix, 294. +[2] "Apol." 405. + +These facts are patent to every one who knows anything whatever of the +present state of religious thought throughout Roman Catholic Europe. +Almost every one knows further that the struggle between those who would +subject all science and all the actings of the human mind to the +authority of the Church, and those who would limit the exercise of that +authority more or less to the proper subject-matter of theology, is rife +and increasing. The words of, perhaps, the ablest living member of the +Roman Catholic communion have rung through Europe, and many a heart in +all religious communions has been saddened by the thought of Dr. +Doellinger's virtual censure. And yet it is at such a time as this that +Dr. Manning ventures to put forth his "Letters to a Friend," painting +all as peace, unanimity, and obedient faith within the Roman Church; all +dissension, unbelief, and letting slip of the ancient faith within our +own communion. Surely such are not the weapons by which the cause of +God's truth can be advanced! + +But we must bring our remarks on the "Apologia" to a close. + +Some lessons there are, and those great ones, which this book is +calculated to instil into members of our own communion. Pre-eminently it +shows the rottenness of that mere Act-of-Parliament foundation on which +some, now-a-days, would rest our Church. Dr. Newman suggests, more than +once, that such a course must rob us of all our present strength. Dr. +Manning sings his paean with wild and premature delight, as if the evil +was already accomplished. In his first letter he triumphed in the +silence of Convocation, but that silence has since been broken. A solemn +synodical judgment, couched in the most explicit language, has condemned +the false teaching which had been our Church's scandal. But because a +"very exalted person in the House of Lords"[1] (p. 4), with an ignorance +or an ignoring of law, as was shown in the debate, which was simply +astonishing, chose, in a manner which even Dr. Manning condemns, to +assert, without a particle of real evidence, that the Convocation had +exceeded its legitimate powers, Dr. Manning is in ecstasies. The "very +exalted person" becomes "a righteous judge, a learned judge, a Daniel +come to judgment--yea, a Daniel." These shouts of joy ought to be enough +to show men where the real danger lies. Our present position is +impregnable. But if we abandon it for the new one proposed to us by the +Rationalist party, how shall we be able to stand? How could a national +religious Establishment which should seek to rest its foundations--not +on God's Word; on the ancient Creeds; on a true Apostolic ministry; on +valid Sacraments; on a living, even though it be an obscured, unity with +the Universal Church, and so on the presence with her of her Lord, and +on the gifts of His Spirit--but upon the critical reason of individuals, +and the support of Acts of Parliament--ever stand in the coming +struggle? How could it meet Rationalism on the one hand? How could it +withstand Popery on the other? After such a fatal change its career +might be easily foreshadowed. Under the assaults of Rationalism, it +would year by year lose some parts of the great deposit of the Catholic +faith. Under the attacks of Rome, it would lose many of those whom it +can ill spare, because they believe most firmly in the verities for +which she is ready to witness. Thus it might continue until our ministry +were filled with the time-serving, the ignorant, and the unbelieving; +and, when this has come to pass, the day of final doom cannot be far +distant. How such evils are to be averted is the anxious question of the +present day. The great practical question seems to us to be that to +which we have before this alluded,[2]--How the Supreme Court of Appeal +can be made fitter for the due discharge of its momentous functions? We +cannot enter here upon that great question. But solved it must be, and +solved upon the principles of the great Reformation statutes of our +land, which maintain, in the supremacy of the Crown, our undoubted +nationality; which, besides maintaining this great principle of national +life, save us from all the terrible practical evils of appeals to Rome, +and yet which maintain the spirituality of the land, as the guardians +under God of the great deposit of the Faith, in the very terms in which +the Catholic Church of Christ has from the beginning received, and to +this day handed down in its completeness, the inestimable gift. + +[1] Hansard's "House of Lord's Debates," July 15, 1864 +[2] "Quarterly Review," vol. cxv. p. 560 + + + + +ANONYMOUS ON "WAVERLEY" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1814] + +_Waverley; or, 'tis Sixty Years since_. 3 vols. 12mo. Edinburgh, 1814. + +We have had so many occasions to invite our readers' attention to that +species of composition called Novels, and have so often stated our +general views of the principles of this very agreeable branch of +literature, that we shall venture on the consideration of our present +subject with but a few observations, and those applicable to a class of +novels, of which it is a favourable specimen. + +The earlier novelists wrote at periods when society was not perfectly +formed, and we find that their picture of life was an embodying of their +own conceptions of the "_beau ideal_."--Heroes all generosity and ladies +all chastity, exalted above the vulgarities of society and nature, +maintain, through eternal folios, their visionary virtues, without the +stain of any moral frailty, or the degradation of any human necessities. +But this high-flown style went out of fashion as the great mass of +mankind became more informed of each other's feelings and concerns, and +as a nearer intercourse taught them that the real course of human life +is a conflict of duty and desire, of virtue and passion, of right and +wrong; in the description of which it is difficult to say whether +uniform virtue or unredeemed vice would be in the greater degree tedious +and absurd. + +The novelists next endeavoured to exhibit a general view of society. The +characters in Gil Blas and Tom Jones are not individuals so much as +specimens of the human race; and these delightful works have been, are, +and ever will be popular, because they present lively and accurate +delineations of the workings of the human soul, and that every man who +reads them is obliged to confess to himself, that in similar +circumstances with the personages of Le Sage and Fielding, he would +probably have acted in the way in which they are described to have done. + +From this species the transition to a third was natural. The first class +was theory--it was improved into a _generic_ description, and that again +led the way to a more particular classification--a copying not of man in +general, but of men of a peculiar nation, profession, or temper, or, to +go a step further--of _individuals_. + +Thus Alcander and Cyrus could never have existed in human society--they +are neither French, nor English, nor Italian, because it is only +allegorically that they are _men_. Tom Jones might have been a +Frenchman, and Gil Blas an Englishman, because the essence of their +characters is human nature, and the personal situation of the individual +is almost indifferent to the success of the object which the author +proposed to himself: while, on the other hand, the characters of the +most popular novels of later times are Irish, or Scotch, or French, and +not in the abstract, _men_.--The general operations of nature are +circumscribed to her effects on an individual character, and the modern +novels of this class, compared with the broad and noble style of the +earlier writers, may be considered as Dutch pictures, delightful in +their vivid and minute details of common life, wonderfully entertaining +to the close observer of peculiarities, and highly creditable to the +accuracy, observation and humour of the painter, but exciting none of +those more exalted feelings, giving none of those higher views of the +human soul which delight and exalt the mind of the spectator of Raphael, +Correggio, or Murillo. + +But as in a gallery we are glad to see every style of excellence, and +are ready to amuse ourselves with Teniers and Gerard Dow, so we derive +great pleasure from the congenial delineations of Castle Rack-rent and +Waverley; and we are well assured that any reader who is qualified to +judge of the illustration we have borrowed from a sister art, will not +accuse us of undervaluing, by this comparison, either Miss Edgeworth or +the ingenious author of the work now under consideration. We mean only +to say, that the line of writing which they have adopted is less +comprehensive and less sublime, but not that it is less entertaining or +less useful than that of their predecessors. On the contrary, so far as +utility constitutes merit in a novel, we have no hesitation in +preferring the moderns to their predecessors. We do not believe that any +man or woman was ever improved in morals or manners by the reading of +Tom Jones or Peregrine Pickle, though we are confident that many have +profited by the Tales of Fashionable Life, and the Cottagers of +Glenburnie. + +We have heard Waverley called a Scotch Castle Rack-rent; and we have +ourselves alluded to a certain resemblance between these works; but we +must beg leave to explain that the resemblance consists only in this, +that the one is a description of the peculiarities of Scottish manners +as the other is of those of Ireland; and that we are far from placing on +the same level the merits and qualities of the works. Waverley is of a +much higher strain, and may be safely placed far above the amusing +vulgarity of Castle Rack-rent, and by the side of Ennui or the Absentee, +the best undoubtedly of Miss Edgeworth's compositions. + + * * * * * + +We shall conclude this article, which has grown to an immoderate length, +by observing what, indeed, our readers must have already discovered, +that Waverley, who gives his name to the story, is far from being its +hero, and that in truth the interest and merit of the work is derived, +not from any of the ordinary qualities of a novel, but from the truth of +its facts, and the accuracy of its delineations. + +We confess that we have, speaking generally, a great objection to what +may be called historical romance, in which real and fictitious +personages, and actual and fabulous events are mixed together to the +utter confusion of the reader, and the unsettling of all accurate +recollections of past transactions; and we cannot but wish that the +ingenious and intelligent author of Waverley had rather employed himself +in recording _historically_ the character and transactions of his +countrymen _Sixty Years since_, than in writing a work, which, though it +may be, in its facts, almost true, and in its delineations perfectly +accurate, will yet, in sixty years _hence_, be regarded, or rather, +probably, _disregarded_, as a _mere_ romance, and the gratuitous +invention of a facetious fancy. + + + + +ON SCOTT'S "TALES OF MY LANDLORD" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1817] + +_Tales of My Landlord_. 4 vols. 12mo. Third Edition. Blackwood, +Edinburgh. John Murray, London. 1817. + +These Tales belong obviously to a class of novels which we have already +had occasion repeatedly to notice, and which have attracted the +attention of the public in no common degree,--we mean Waverley, Guy +Mannering, and the Antiquary, and we have little hesitation to pronounce +them either entirely, or in a great measure, the work of the same +author. Why he should industriously endeavour to elude observation by +taking leave of us in one character, and then suddenly popping out upon +us in another, we cannot pretend to guess without knowing more of his +personal reasons for preserving so strict an incognito that has hitherto +reached us. We can, however, conceive many reasons for a writer +observing this sort of mystery; not to mention that it has certainly had +its effect in keeping up the interest which his works have excited. + +We do not know if the imagination of our author will sink in the opinion +of the public when deprived of that degree of invention which we have +been hitherto disposed to ascribe to him; but we are certain that it +ought to increase the value of his portraits, that human beings have +actually sate for them. These coincidences between fiction and reality +are perhaps the very circumstances to which the success of these novels +is in a great measure to be attributed: for, without depreciating the +merit of the artist, every spectator at once recognizes in those scenes +and faces which are copied from nature an air of distinct reality, which +is not attached to fancy-pieces however happily conceived and +elaborately executed. By what sort of freemasonry, if we may use the +term, the mind arrives at this conviction, we do not pretend to guess, +but every one must have felt that he instinctively and almost insensibly +recognizes in painting, poetry, or other works of imagination, that +which is copied from existing nature, and that he forthwith clings to it +with that kindred interest which thinks nothing which is human +indifferent to humanity. Before therefore we proceed to analyse the work +immediately before us, we beg leave briefly to notice a few +circumstances connected with its predecessors. + +Our author has told us it was his object to present a succession of +scenes and characters connected with Scotland in its past and present +state, and we must own that his stories are so slightly constructed as +to remind us of the showman's thread with which he draws up his pictures +and presents them successively to the eye of the spectator. He seems +seriously to have proceeded on Mr. Bays's maxim--"What the deuce is a +plot good for, but to bring in fine things?"--Probability and +perspicuity of narrative are sacrificed with the utmost indifference to +the desire of producing effect; and provided the author can but contrive +to "surprize and elevate," he appears to think that he has done his duty +to the public. Against this slovenly indifference we have already +remonstrated, and we again enter our protest. It is in justice to the +author himself that we do so, because, whatever merit individual scenes +and passages may possess, (and none have been more ready than ourselves +to offer our applause), it is clear that their effect would be greatly +enhanced by being disposed in a clear and continued narrative. We are +the more earnest in this matter, because it seems that the author errs +chiefly from carelessness. There may be something of system in it, +however: for we have remarked, that with an attention which amounts even +to affectation, he has avoided the common language of narrative, and +thrown his story, as much as possible, into a dramatic shape. In many +cases this has added greatly to the effect, by keeping both the actors +and action continually before the reader, and placing him, in some +measure, in the situation of the audience at a theatre, who are +compelled to gather the meaning of the scene from what the _dramatis +personae_ say to each other, and not from any explanation addressed +immediately to themselves. But though the author gain this advantage, +and thereby compel the reader to think of the personages of the novel +and not of the writer, yet the practice, especially pushed to the extent +we have noticed, is a principal cause of the flimsiness and incoherent +texture of which his greatest admirers are compelled to complain. Few +can wish his success more sincerely than we do, and yet without more +attention on his own part, we have great doubts of its continuance. + +In addition to the loose and incoherent style of the narration, another +leading fault in these novels is the total want of interest which the +reader attaches to the character of the hero. Waverley, Brown, or +Bertram in Guy Mannering, and Lovel in the Antiquary, are all brethren +of a family; very amiable and very insipid sort of young men. We think +we can perceive that this error is also in some degree occasioned by the +dramatic principle upon which the author frames his plots. His chief +characters are never actors, but always acted upon by the spur of +circumstances, and have their fates uniformly determined by the agency +of the subordinate persons. This arises from the author having usually +represented them as foreigners to whom every thing in Scotland is +strange,--a circumstance which serves as his apology for entering into +many minute details which are reflectively, as it were, addressed to the +reader through the medium of the hero. While he is going into +explanations and details which, addressed directly to the reader, might +appear tiresome and unnecessary, he gives interest to them by exhibiting +the effect which they produce upon the principal person of his drama, +and at the same time obtains a patient hearing for what might otherwise +be passed over without attention. But if he gains this advantage, it is +by sacrificing the character of the hero. No one can be interesting to +the reader who is not himself a prime agent in the scene. This is +understood even by the worthy citizen and his wife, who are introduced +as prolocutors in Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle. When they are +asked what the principal person of the drama shall do?--the answer is +prompt and ready--"Marry, let him come forth and kill a giant." There is +a good deal of tact in the request. Every hero in poetry, in fictitious +narrative, ought to come forth and do or say something or other which no +other person could have done or said; make some sacrifice, surmount some +difficulty, and become interesting to us otherwise than by his mere +appearance on the scene, the passive tool of the other characters. + +The insipidity of this author's heroes may be also in part referred to +the readiness with which the twists and turns his story to produce some +immediate and perhaps temporary effect. This could hardly be done +without representing the principal character either as inconsistent or +flexible in his principles. The ease with which Waverley adopts and +after forsakes the Jacobite party in 1745 is a good example of what we +mean. Had he been painted as a steady character, his conduct would have +been improbable. The author was aware of this; and yet, unwilling to +relinquish an opportunity of introducing the interior of the Chevalier's +military court, the circumstances of the battle of Preston-pans, and so +forth, he hesitates not to sacrifice poor Waverley, and to represent him +as a reed blown about at the pleasure of every breeze: a less careless +writer would probably have taken some pains to gain the end proposed in +a more artful and ingenious manner. But our author was hasty, and has +paid the penalty of his haste. + +We have hinted that we are disposed to question the originality of these +novels in point of invention, and that in doing so, we do not consider +ourselves as derogating from the merit of the author, to whom, on the +contrary, we give the praise due to one who has collected and brought +out with accuracy and effect, incidents and manners which might +otherwise have slept in oblivion. We proceed to our proofs.[1] + +[1] It will be readily conceived that the curious MSS. and other + information of which we have availed ourselves were not accessible + to us in this country; but we have been assiduous in our inquiries; + and are happy enough to possess a correspondent whose researches on + the spot have been indefatigable, and whose kind, and ready + communications have anticipated all our wishes. + + * * * * * + +The traditions and manners of the Scotch were so blended with +superstitious practices and fears, that the author of these novels seems +to have deemed it incumbent on him, to transfer many more such incidents +to his novels, than seem either probable or natural to an English +reader. It may be some apology that his story would have lost the +national cast, which it was chiefly his object to preserve, had this +been otherwise. There are few families of antiquity in Scotland, which +do not possess some strange legends, told only under promise of secrecy, +and with an air of mystery; in developing which, the influence of the +powers of darkness is referred to. The truth probably is, that the +agency of witches and demons was often made to account for the sudden +disappearance of individuals and similar incidents, too apt to arise out +of the evil dispositions of humanity, in a land where revenge was long +held honourable--where private feuds and civil broils disturbed the +inhabitants for ages--and where justice was but weakly and irregularly +executed. Mr. Law, a conscientious but credulous clergyman of the Kirk +of Scotland, who lived in the seventeenth century, has left behind him a +very curious manuscript, in which, with the political events of that +distracted period, he has intermingled the various portents and +marvellous occurrences which, in common with his age, he ascribed to +supernatural agency. The following extract will serve to illustrate the +taste of this period for the supernatural. When we read such things +recorded by men of sense and education, (and Mr. Law was deficient in +neither), we cannot help remembering the times of paganism, when every +scene, incident, and action, had its appropriate and presiding deity. It +is indeed curious to consider what must have been the sensations of a +person, who lived under this peculiar species of hallucination, +believing himself beset on all hands by invisible agents; one who was +unable to account for the restiveness of a nobleman's carriage horses +otherwise than by the immediate effect of witchcraft: and supposed that +the _sage femme_ of the highest reputation was most likely to devote the +infants to the infernal spirits, upon their very entrance into life. + + * * * * * + +To the superstitions of the North Britons must be added their peculiar +and characteristic amusements; and here we have some atonement to make +to the memory of the learned Paulus Pleydell, whose compotatory +relaxations, better information now inclines us to think, we mentioned +with somewhat too little reverence. Before the new town of Edinburgh (as +it is called) was built, its inhabitants lodged, as is the practice of +Paris at this day, in large buildings called _lands_, each family +occupying a story, and having access to it by a stair common to all the +inhabitants. These buildings, when they did not front the high street of +the city, composed the sides of little, narrow, unwholesome _closes_ or +lanes. The miserable and confined accommodation which such habitations +afforded, drove _men of business_, as they were called, that is, people +belonging to the law, to hold their professional rendezvouses in +taverns, and many lawyers of eminence spent the principal part of their +time in some tavern of note, transacted their business there, received +the visits of clients with their writers or attornies, and suffered no +imputation from so doing. This practice naturally led to habits of +conviviality, to which the Scottish lawyers, till of very late years, +were rather too much addicted. Few men drank so hard as the counsellors +of the old school, and there survived till of late some veterans who +supported in that respect the character of their predecessors. To vary +the humour of a joyous evening many frolics were resorted to, and the +game of _high jinks_ was one of the most common.[1] In fact, high jinks +was one of the _petits jeux_ with which certain circles were wont to +while away the time; and though it claims no alliance with modern +associations, yet, as it required some shrewdness and dexterity to +support the characters assumed for the occasion, it is not difficult to +conceive that it might have been as interesting and amusing to the +parties engaged in it, as counting the spots of a pack of cards, or +treasuring in memory the rotation in which they are thrown on the table. +The worst of the game was what that age considered as its principal +excellence, namely, that the forfeitures being all commuted for wine, it +proved an encouragement to hard drinking, the prevailing vice of the +age. + +[1] We have learned, with some dismay, that one of the ablest lawyers + Scotland ever produced, and who lives to witness (although in + retirement) the various changes which have taken place in her courts + of judicature, a man who has filled with marked distinction the + highest offices of his profession, _tush'd_ (pshaw'd) extremely at + the delicacy of our former criticism. And certainly he claims some + title to do so, having been in his youth not only a witness of such + orgies as are described as proceeding under the auspices of Mr. + Pleydell, but himself a distinguished performer. + +On the subject of Davie Gellatley, the fool of the Baron of +Bradwardine's family, we are assured there is ample testimony that a +custom, referred to Shakespeare's time in England, had, and in remote +provinces of Scotland, has still its counterpart, to this day. We do not +mean to say that the professed jester with his bauble and his +party-coloured vestment can be found in any family north of the Tweed. Yet +such a personage held this respectable office in the family of the Earls +of Strathemore within the last century, and his costly holiday dress, +garnished with bells of silver, is still preserved in the Castle of +Glamis. But we are assured, that to a much later period, and even to +this moment, the habits and manners of Scotland have had some tendency +to preserve the existence of this singular order of domestics. There are +(comparatively speaking) no poor's rates in the country parishes of +Scotland, and of course no work-houses to immure either their worn out +poor or the "moping idiot and the madman gay," whom Crabbe characterizes +as the happiest inhabitants of these mansions, because insensible of +their misfortunes. It therefore happens almost necessarily in Scotland, +that the house of the nearest proprietor of wealth and consequence +proves a place of refuge for these outcasts of society; and until the +pressure of the times, and the calculating habits which they have +necessarily generated had rendered the maintenance of a human being +about such a family an object of some consideration, they usually found +an asylum there, and enjoyed the degree of comfort of which their +limited intellect rendered them susceptible. Such idiots were usually +employed in some simple sort of occasional labour; and if we are not +misinformed, the situation of turn-spit was often assigned them, before +the modern improvement of the smoke-jack. But, however employed, they +usually displayed towards their benefactors a sort of instinctive +attachment which was very affecting. We knew one instance in which such +a being refused food for many days, pined away, literally broke his +heart, and died within the space of a very few weeks after his +benefactor's decease. We cannot now pause to deduce the moral inference +which might be derived from such instances. It is however evident, that +if there was a coarseness of mind in deriving amusement from the follies +of these unfortunate beings, a circumstance to the disgrace of which +they were totally insensible, their mode of life was, in other respects, +calculated to promote such a degree of happiness as their faculties +permitted them to enjoy. But besides the amusement which our forefathers +received from witnessing their imperfections and extravagancies, there +was a more legitimate source of pleasure in the wild wit which they +often flung around them with the freedom of Shakespeare's licensed +clowns. There are few houses in Scotland of any note or antiquity where +the witty sayings of some such character are not occasionally quoted at +this very day. The pleasure afforded to our forefathers by such +repartees was no doubt heightened by their wanting the habits of more +elegant amusement. But in Scotland the practice long continued, and in +the house of one of the very first noblemen of that country (a man whose +name is never mentioned without reverence) and that within the last +twenty years, a jester such as we have mentioned stood at the side-table +during dinner, and occasionally amused the guests by his extemporaneous +sallies. Imbecility of this kind was even considered as an apology for +intrusion upon the most solemn occasions. All know the peculiar +reverence with which the Scottish of every rank attend on funeral +ceremonies. Yet within the memory of most of the present generation, an +idiot of an appearance equally hideous and absurd, dressed, as if in +mockery, in a rusty and ragged black coat, decorated with a cravat and +weepers made of white paper in the form of those worn by the deepest +mourners, preceded almost every funeral procession in Edinburgh, as if +to turn into ridicule the last rites paid to mortality. + +It has been generally supposed that in the case of these as of other +successful novels, the most prominent and peculiar characters were +sketched from real life. It was only after the death of Smollet, that +two barbers and a shoemaker contended about the character of Strap, +which each asserted was modelled from his own: but even in the lifetime +of the present author, there is scarcely a dale in the pastoral +districts of the southern counties but arrogates to itself the +possession of the original Dandie Dinmont. As for Baillie Mac Wheeble, a +person of the highest eminence in the law perfectly well remembers +having received fees from him. + + * * * * * + +Although these strong resemblances occur so frequently, and with such +peculiar force, as almost to impress us with the conviction that the +author sketched from nature, and not from fancy alone; yet we hesitate +to draw any positive conclusion, sensible that a character dashed off as +the representative of a certain class of men will bear, if executed with +fidelity to the general outlines, not only that resemblance which he +ought to possess as "knight of the shire," but also a special affinity +to some particular individual. It is scarcely possible it should be +otherwise. When Emery appears on the stage as a Yorkshire peasant, with +the habit, manner, and dialect peculiar to the character, and which he +assumes with so much truth and fidelity, those unacquainted with the +province or its inhabitants see merely the abstract idea, the beau ideal +of a Yorkshireman. But to those who are intimate with both, the action +and manner of the comedian almost necessarily recall the idea of some +individual native (altogether unknown probably to the performer) to whom +his exterior and manners bear a casual resemblance. We are therefore on +the whole inclined to believe, that the incidents are frequently copied +from _actual_ occurrences, but that the characters are either entirely +fictitious, or if any traits have been borrowed from real life, as in +the anecdote which we have quoted respecting Invernahyle, they have been +carefully disguised and blended with such as are purely imaginary. We +now proceed to a more particular examination of the volumes before us. + +They are entitled "Tales of my Landlord": why so entitled, excepting to +introduce a quotation from Don Quixote, it is difficult to conceive: for +Tales of my Landlord they are _not_, nor is it indeed easy to say whose +tales they ought to be called. There is a proem, as it is termed, +supposed to be written by Jedediah Cleishbotham, the schoolmaster and +parish clerk of the village of Gandercleugh, in which we are given to +understand that these Tales were compiled by his deceased usher, Mr. +Peter Pattieson, from the narratives or conversations of such travellers +as frequented the Wallace Inn, in that village. Of this proem we shall +only say that it is written in the quaint style of that prefixed by Gay +to his Pastorals, being, as Johnson terms it, "such imitation as he +could obtain of obsolete language, and by consequence in a style that +was never written nor spoken in any age or place." + + * * * * * + +We have given these details partly in compliance with the established +rules which our office prescribes, and partly in the hope that the +authorities we have been enabled to bring together might give additional +light and interest to the story. From the unprecedented popularity of +the work, we cannot flatter ourselves that our summary has made any one +of our readers acquainted with events with which he was not previously +familiar. The causes of that popularity we may be permitted shortly to +allude to; we cannot even hope to exhaust them, and it is the less +necessary that we should attempt it, since we cannot suggest a +consideration which a perusal of the work has not anticipated in the +minds of all our readers. + +One great source of the universal admiration which this family of Novels +has attracted, is their peculiar plan, and the distinguished excellence +with which it has been executed. The objections that have frequently +been stated against what are called Historical Romances, have been +suggested, we think, rather from observing the universal failure of that +species of composition, than from any inherent and constitutional defect +in the species of composition itself. If the manners of different ages +are injudiciously blended together,--if unpowdered crops and slim and +fairy shapes are commingled in the dance with volumed wigs and +far-extending hoops,--if in the portraiture of real character the truth +of +history be violated, the eyes of the spectator are necessarily averted +from a picture which excites in every well regulated and intelligent +mind the hatred of incredulity. We have neither time nor inclination to +enforce our remark by giving illustrations of it. But if those +unpardonable sins against good taste can be avoided, and the features of +an age gone by can be recalled in a spirit of delineation at once +faithful and striking, the very opposite is the legitimate conclusion: +the composition itself is in every point of view dignified and improved; +and the author, leaving the light and frivolous associates with whom a +careless observer would be disposed to ally him, takes his seat on the +bench of the historians of his time and country. In this proud assembly, +and in no mean place of it, we are disposed to rank the author of these +works; for we again express our conviction--and we desire to be +understood to use the term as distinguished from _knowledge_--that they +are all the offspring of the same parent. At once a master of the great +events and minuter incidents of history, and of the manners of the times +he celebrates, as distinguished from those which now prevail,--the +intimate thus of the living and of the dead, his judgment enables him to +separate those traits which are characteristic from those that are +generic; and his imagination, not less accurate and discriminating than +vigorous and vivid, presents to the mind of the reader the manners of +the times, and introduces to his familiar acquaintance the individuals +of his drama as they thought and spoke and acted. We are not quite sure +that any thing is to be found in the manner and character of the Black +Dwarf which would enable us, without the aid of the author's +information, and the facts he relates, to give it to the beginning of +the last century; and, as we have already remarked, his free-booting +robber lives, perhaps, too late in time. But his delineation is perfect. +With palpable and inexcusable defects in the _denouement_, there are +scenes of deep and overwhelming interest; and every one, we think, must +be delighted with the portrait of the Grandmother of Hobbie Elliott, a +representation soothing and consoling in itself, and heightened in its +effect by the contrast produced from the lighter manners of the younger +members of the family, and the honest but somewhat blunt and boisterous +bearing of the shepherd himself. + +The second tale, however, as we have remarked, is more adapted to the +talents of the author, and his success has been proportionably +triumphant. We have trespassed too unmercifully on the time of our +gentle readers to indulge our inclination in endeavouring to form an +estimate of that melancholy but, nevertheless, most attractive period in +our history, when by the united efforts of a corrupt and unprincipled +government, of extravagant fanaticism, want of education, perversion of +religion, and the influence of ill-instructed teachers, whose hearts and +understandings were estranged and debased by the illapses of the wildest +enthusiasm, the liberty of the people was all but extinguished, and the +bonds of society nearly dissolved. Revolting as all this is to the +Patriot, it affords fertile materials to the Poet. As to the _beauty_ of +the delineation presented to the reader in this tale, there is, we +believe, but one opinion: and we are persuaded that the more carefully +and dispassionately it is contemplated, the more perfect will it appear +in the still more valuable qualities of fidelity and truth. We have +given part of the evidence on which we say this, and we will again recur +to the subject. The opinions and language of the _honest party_ are +detailed with the accuracy of a witness; and he who could open to our +view the state of the Scottish peasantry, perishing in the field or on +the scaffold, and driven to utter and just desperation, in attempting to +defend their first and most sacred rights; who could place before our +eyes the leaders of these enormities, from the notorious Duke of +Lauderdale downwards to the fellow mind that executed his behest, +precisely as they lived and looked,--such a chronicler cannot justly be +charged with attempting to extenuate or throw into the shade the +corruptions of a government that soon afterwards fell a victim to its +own follies and crimes. + +Independently of the delineation of the manners and characters of the +times to which the story refers, it is impossible to avoid noticing, as +a separate excellence, the faithful representation of general nature. +Looking not merely to the litter of novels that peep out for a single +day from the mud where they were spawned, but to many of more ambitious +pretensions--it is quite evident that in framing them, the authors have +first addressed themselves to the involutions and developement of the +story, as the principal object of their attention; and that in +entangling and unravelling the plot, in combining the incidents which +compose it, and even in depicting the characters, they sought for +assistance chiefly in the writings of their predecessors. Baldness, and +uniformity, and inanity are the inevitable results of this slovenly and +unintellectual proceeding. The volume which this author has studied is +the great book of Nature. He has gone abroad into the world in quest of +what the world will certainly and abundantly supply, but what a man of +great discrimination alone will find, and a man of the very highest +genius will alone depict after he has discovered it. The characters of +Shakespeare are not more exclusively human, not more perfectly men and +women as they live and move, than those of this mysterious author. It is +from this circumstance that, as we have already observed, many of his +personages are supposed to be sketched from real life. He must have +mixed much and variously in the society of his native country; his +studies must have familiarized him to systems of manners now forgotten; +and thus the persons of his drama, though in truth the creatures of his +own imagination, convey the impression of individuals who we are +persuaded must exist, or are evoked from their graves in all their +original freshness, entire in their lineaments, and perfect in all the +minute peculiarities of dress and demeanour. + + * * * * * + +Admitting, however, that these portraits are sketched with spirit and +effect, two questions arise of much more importance than any thing +affecting the merits of the novels--namely, whether it is safe or +prudent to imitate, in a fictitious narrative, and often with a view to +a ludicrous effect, the scriptural style of the zealots of the +seventeenth century; and secondly, whether the recusant presbyterians, +collectively considered, do not carry too reverential and sacred a +character to be treated by an unknown author with such insolent +familiarity. + +On the first subject, we frankly own we have great hesitation. It is +scarcely possible to ascribe scriptural expressions to hypocritical or +extravagant characters without some risk of mischief, because it will be +apt to create an habitual association between the expression and the +ludicrous manner in which it is used, unfavourable to the reverence due +to the sacred text. And it is no defence to state that this is an error +inherent in the plan of the novel. Bourdaloue, a great authority, +extends this restriction still farther, and denounces all attempts to +unmask hypocrisy by raillery, because in doing so the satirist is +necessarily compelled to expose to ridicule the religious vizard of +which he has divested him. Yet even against such authority it may be +stated, that ridicule is the friend both of religion and virtue, when +directed against those who assume their garb, whether from hypocrisy or +fanaticism. The satire of Butler, not always decorous in these +particulars, was yet eminently useful in stripping off their borrowed +gravity and exposing to public ridicule the affected fanaticism of the +times in which he lived. It may also be remembered, that in the days of +Queen Anne a number of the Camisars or Huguenots of Dauphine arrived as +refugees in England, and became distinguished by the name of the French +prophets. The fate of these enthusiasts in their own country had been +somewhat similar to that of the Covenanters. Like them, they used to +assemble in the mountains and desolate places, to the amount of many +hundreds, in arms, and like them they were hunted and persecuted by the +military. Like them, they were enthusiasts, though their enthusiasm +assumed a character more decidedly absurd. The fugitive Camisars who +came to London had convulsion-fits, prophesied, made converts, and +attracted the public attention by an offer to raise the dead. The +English minister, instead of fine and imprisonment and other inflictions +which might have placed them in the rank and estimation of martyrs, and +confirmed in their faith their numerous disciples, encouraged a dramatic +author to bring out a farce on the subject which, though neither very +witty nor very delicate, had the good effect of laughing the French +prophets out of their audience and putting a stop to an inundation of +nonsense which could not have failed to disgrace the age in which it +appeared. The Camisars subsided into their ordinary vocation of +psalmodic whiners, and no more was heard of their sect or their +miracles. It would be well if all folly of the kind could be so easily +quelled: for enthusiastic nonsense, whether of this day or of those +which have passed away, has no more title to shelter itself under the +veil of religion than a common pirate to be protected by the reverence +due to an honoured and friendly flag. + +Still, however, we must allow that there is great delicacy and +hesitation to be used in employing the weapon of ridicule on any point +connected with religion. Some passages occur in the work before us for +which the writer's sole apology must be the uncontroulable disposition +to indulge the peculiarity of his vein of humour--a temptation which +even the saturnine John Knox was unable to resist either in narrating +the martyrdom of his friend Wisheart or the assassination of his enemy +Beatson, and in the impossibility of resisting which his learned and +accurate biographer has rested his apology for this mixture of jest and +earnest. + + "There are writers," he says (rebutting the charge of Hume against + Knox), "who can treat the most sacred subjects with a levity bordering + on profanity. Must we at once pronounce them profane, and is nothing + to be set down to the score of natural temper inclining them to wit + and humour? The pleasantry which Knox has mingled with his narrative + of his (Cardinal Beatson's) death and burial is unseasonable and + unbecoming. But it is to be imputed not to any pleasure which he took + in describing a bloody scene, but to the strong propensity which he + had to indulge his vein of humour. Those who have read his history + with attention must have perceived that he is not able to check this + even on the very serious occasions."--_Macrie's Life of Knox_, p. 147. + +Indeed Dr. Macrie himself has given us a striking instance of the +indulgence which the Presbyterian clergy, even of the strictest +persuasion, permit to the _vis comica_. After describing a polemical +work as "ingeniously constructed and occasionally enlivened with strokes +of humour," he transfers, to embellish his own pages, (for we can +discover no purpose of edification which the tale serves), a ludicrous +parody made by an ignorant parish-priest on certain words of a Psalm, +too sacred to be here quoted. Our own innocent pleasantry cannot, in +this instance, be quite reconciled with that of the learned biographer +of John Knox, but we can easily conceive that his authority may be +regarded in Scotland as decisive of the extent to which a humourist may +venture in exercising his wit upon scriptural expressions without +incurring censure even from her most rigid divines. + +It may however be a very different point how far the author is entitled +to be acquitted upon the second point of indictment. To use too much +freedom with things sacred is a course much more easily glossed over +than that of exposing to ridicule the persons of any particular sect. +Every one knows the reply of the great Prince of Conde to Louis XIV when +this monarch expressed his surprize at the clamour excited by Moliere's +Tartuffe, while a blasphemous farce called _Scaramouche Hermite_ was +performed without giving any scandal: "C'est parceque Scaramouche ne +jouoit que le ciel et la religion, dont les devots se soucioient +beaucoup moins que d'eux-memes." We believe, therefore, the best service +we can do our author in the present case is to shew that the odious part +of his satire applies only to that fierce and unreasonable set of +extra-presbyterians, whose zeal, equally absurd and cruel, afforded +pretexts for the severities inflicted on non-conformists without +exception, and gave the greatest scandal and offence to the wise, sober, +enlightened, and truly pious among the Presbyterians. + +The principal difference betwixt the Cameronians and the rational +presbyterians has been already touched upon. It may be summed in a very +few words. + +After the restoration of Charles II episcopacy was restored in Scotland, +upon the unanimous petition of the Scottish parliament. Had this been +accompanied with a free toleration of the presbyterians, whose +consciences preferred a different mode of church-government, we do not +conceive there would have been any wrong done to that ancient kingdom. +But instead of this, the most violent means of enforcing conformity were +resorted to without scruple, and the ejected presbyterian clergy were +persecuted by penal statutes and prohibited from the exercise of their +ministry. These rigours only made the people more anxiously seek out and +adhere to the silenced preachers. Driven from the churches, they held +conventicles in houses. Expelled from cities and the mansions of men, +they met on the hills and deserts like the French Huguenots. Assailed +with arms, they repelled force by force. The severity of the rulers, +instigated by the episcopal clergy, increased with the obstinacy of the +recusants, until the latter, in 1666, assumed arms for the purpose of +asserting their right to worship God in their own way. They were +defeated at Pentland; and in 1669 a gleam of common sense and justice +seems to have beamed upon the Scottish councils of Charles. They granted +what was called an _indulgence_ (afterwards repeatedly renewed) to the +presbyterian clergy, assigned them small stipends, and permitted them to +preach in such deserted churches as should be assigned to them by the +Scottish Privy Council. This "indulgence," though clogged with harsh +conditions and frequently renewed or capriciously recalled, was still an +acceptable boon to the wiser and better part of the presbyterian clergy, +who considered it as an opening to the exercise of their ministry under +the lawful authority, which they continued to acknowledge. But fiercer +and more intractable principles were evinced by the younger ministers of +that persuasion. They considered the submitting to exercise their +ministry under the controul of any visible authority as absolute +erastianism, a desertion of the great invisible and divine Head of the +church, and a line of conduct which could only be defended, says one of +their tracts, by nullifidians, time-servers, infidels, or the Archbishop +of Canterbury. They held up to ridicule and abhorrence such of their +brethren as considered mere toleration as a boon worth accepting. Every +thing, according to these fervent divines, which fell short of +re-establishing presbytery as the sole and predominating religion, all +that did not imply a full restoration of the Solemn League and Covenant, +was an imperfect and unsound composition between God and mammon, +episcopacy and prelacy. The following extracts from a printed sermon by +one of them, on the subject of "soul-confirmation," will at once exemplify +the contempt and scorn with which these high-flyers regarded their more +sober-minded brethren, and serve as a specimen of the homely eloquence +with which they excited their followers. The reader will probably be of +opinion that it is worthy of Kettledrummle himself, and will serve to +clear Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham of the charge of exaggeration. + + There is many folk that has a face to the religion that is in fashion, + and there is many folk, they have ay a face to the old company, they + have a face for godly folk, and they have a face for persecutors of + godly folk, and they will be daddies bairns and minnies bairns both; + they will be _prelates_ bairns and they will be _malignants_ bairns + and they will be the people of God's bairns. And what think ye of that + bastard temper? Poor Peter had a trial of this soupleness, but God + made Paul an instrument to take him by the neck and shake it from him: + And O that God would take us by the neck and shake our soupleness from + us. + + Therefore you that keeps only your old job-trot, and does not mend + your pace, you will not wone at _soul-confirmation,_ there is a whine + (i.e., _a few_) old job-trot, and does not mend your pace, you will + not wone at _soul-confirmation,_ there is a whine old job-trot + ministers among us, a whine old job-trot professors, they have their + own pace, and faster they will not go; O therefore they could never + wine to _soul-confirmation_ in the mettere of God. And our old + job-trot ministers is turned _curates_, and our old job-trot + professors is joined with them, and now this way God has turned them + inside out, and has made it manifest and when their heart is hanging + upon this braw, I will not give a gray groat for them and their + profession both. + + The devil has the ministers and professors of Scotland, now in a sive, + and O as he sifts, and O as he riddles, and O as he rattles, and O the + chaff he gets; And I fear there be more chaff nor there be good corn, + and that will be found among us or all be done: but the + _soul-confirmed_ man leaves ever the devil at two more, and he has ay + the matter gadged, and leaves ay the devil in the lee side,--Sirs O + work in the day of the cross. + +The more moderate presbyterian ministers saw with pain and resentment +the lower part of their congregation, who had least to lose by taking +desperate courses, withdrawn from their flocks, by their more zealous +pretenders to purity of doctrine, while they themselves were held up to +ridicule, old jog trot professors and chaff-winnowed out and flung away +by Satan. They charged the Cameronian preachers with leading the deluded +multitude to slaughter at Bothwell, by prophesying a certainty of +victory, and dissuading them from accepting the amnesty offered by +Monmouth. "All could not avail," says Mr. Law, himself a presbyterian +minister, "with McCargill, Kidd, Douglas, and other witless men amongst +them, to hearken to any proposals of peace. Among others that Douglas, +sitting on his horse, and preaching to the confused multitude, told them +that they would come to terms with them, and like a drone was always +droning on these terms with them: 'they would give us a half Christ, but +we will have a whole Christ,' and such like impertinent speeches as +these, good enough to feed those that are served with wind and not with +the sincere milk of the word of God." Law also censures these irritated +and extravagant enthusiasts, not only for intending to overthrow the +government, but as binding themselves to kill all that would not accede +to their opinion, and he gives several instances of such cruelty being +exercised by them, not only upon straggling soldiers whom they shot by +the way or surprized in their quarters, but upon those who, having once +joined them, had fallen away from their principles. Being asked why they +committed these cruelties in cold blood, they answered, 'they were +obliged to do it by their sacred bond.' Upon these occasions they +practised great cruelties, mangling the bodies of their victims that +each man might have his share of the guilt. In these cases the +Cameronians imagined themselves the direct and inspired executioners of +the vengeance of heaven. Nor did they lack the usual incentives of +enthusiasm. Peden and others among them set up a claim to the gift of +prophecy, though they seldom foretold any thing to the purpose. They +detected witches, had bodily encounters with the enemy of mankind in his +own shape, or could discover him as, lurking in the disguise of a raven, +he inspired the rhetoric of a Quaker's meeting. In some cases, celestial +guardians kept guard over their field-meetings. At a conventicle held on +the Lomond-hills, the Rev. Mr. Blacader was credibly assured, under the +hands of four honest men, that at the time the meeting was disturbed by +the soldiers, some women who had remained at home, "clearly perceived as +the form of a tall man, majestic-like, stand in the air in stately +posture with the one leg, as it were, advanced before the other, +standing above the people all the time of the soldiers shooting." +Unluckily this great vision of the Guarded Mount did not conclude as +might have been expected. The divine sentinel left his post too soon, +and the troopers fell upon the rear of the audience, plundered and +stripped many, and made eighteen prisoners. + +But we have no delight to dwell either upon the atrocities or +absurdities of a people whose ignorance and fanaticism were rendered +frantic by persecution. It is enough for our present purpose to observe +that the present Church of Scotland, which comprizes so much sound +doctrine and learning, and has produced so many distinguished +characters, is the legitimate representative of the indulged clergy of +the days of Charles II, settled however upon a comprehensive basis. That +after the revolution, it should have succeeded episcopacy as the +national religion, was natural and regular, because it possessed all the +sense, learning, and moderation fit for such a change, and because among +its followers were to be found the only men of property and influence +who acknowledged presbytery. But the Cameronians continued long as a +separate sect, though their preachers were bigoted and ignorant, and +their hearers were gleaned out of the lower ranks of the peasantry. +Their principle, so far as it was intelligible, asserted that paramount +species of presbyterian church-government which was established in the +year 1648, and they continued to regard the established church as +erastian and time-serving, because they prudently remained silent upon +certain abstract and delicate topics, where there might be some +collision between the absolute liberty asserted by the church and the +civil government of the state. The Cameronians, on the contrary, +disowned all kings and government whatsoever, which should not take the +Solemn League and Covenant; and long retained hopes of re-establishing +that great national engagement, a bait which was held out to them by all +those who wished to disturb the government during the reign of William +and Anne, as is evident from the Memoirs of Ker of Kersland, and the +Negotiations of Colonel Hooke with the Jacobites and disaffected of the +year. + +A party so wild in their principles, so vague and inconsistent in their +views, could not subsist long under a free and unlimited toleration. +They continued to hold their preachings on the hills, but they lost much +of their zeal when they were no longer liable to be disturbed by +dragoons, sheriffs, and lieutenants of Militia.--The old fable of the +Traveller's Cloak was in time verified, and the fierce sanguinary +zealots of the days of Claverhouse sunk into such quiet and peaceable +enthusiasts as Howie of Lochgoin, or Old Mortality himself. It is, +therefore, upon a race of sectaries who have long ceased to exist, that +Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham has charged all that is odious, and almost all +that is ridiculous, in his fictitious narrative; and we can no more +suppose any moderate presbyterian involved in the satire, than we should +imagine that the character of Hampden stood committed by a little +raillery on the person of Ludovic Claxton, the Muggletonian. If, +however, there remain any of those sectaries who, confining the beams of +the Gospel to the Goshen of their own obscure synagogue, and with James +Mitchell, the intended assassin, giving their sweeping testimony against +prelacy and popery, The Whole Duty of Man and bordles, promiscuous +dancing and the Common Prayer-book, and all the other enormities and +backslidings of the time, may perhaps be offended at this idle tale, we +are afraid they will receive their answer in the tone of the revellers +to Malvolio, who, it will be remembered, was something a kind of +Puritan: "Doest thou think because thou art virtuous, there shall be no +more cakes and ale?--Aye, by Saint Anne, and ginger will be hot in the +mouth too." + + + + +ON LEIGH HUNT + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, January, 1816] + +_The Story of Rimini, a Poem_. By LEIGH HUNT. fc. 8vo. pp. 111. London, +1816. + +A considerable part of this poem was written in Newgate, where the +author was some time confined, we believe for a libel which appeared in +a newspaper, of which he is said to be the conductor. Such an +introduction is not calculated to make a very favourable impression. +Fortunately, however, we are as little prejudiced as possible on this +subject: we have never seen Mr. Hunt's newspaper; we have never heard +any particulars of his offence; nor should we have known that he had +been imprisoned but for his own confession. We have not, indeed, ever +read one line that he has written, and are alike remote from the +knowledge of his errors or the influence of his private character. We +are to judge him solely from the work now before us; and our criticism +would be worse than uncandid if it were swayed by any other +consideration. + +The poem is not destitute of merit; but--and this, we confess, was our +main inducement to notice it--it is written on certain pretended +_principles_, and put forth as a pattern for imitation, with a degree of +arrogance which imposes on us the duty of making some observations on +this new theory, which Mr. Leigh Hunt, with the weight and authority of +his venerable name, has issued, ex cathedra, as the canons of poetry and +criticism. + +These canons Mr. Hunt endeavours to explain and establish in a long +preface, written in a style which, though Mr. Hunt implies that it is +meant to be perfectly natural and unaffected, appears to us the most +strange, laboured, uncouth, and unintelligible species of prose that we +ever read, only indeed to be exceeded in these qualities by some of the +subsequent verses; and both the prose and the verse are the first +eruptions of this disease with which Mr. Leigh Hunt insists upon +inoculating mankind. + +Mr. Hunt's _first_ canon is that there should be a _great freedom_ _of +versification_--this is a proposition to which we should have readily +assented; but when Mr. Hunt goes on to say that by _freedom of +versification_ he means something which neither Pope nor Johnson +possessed, and of which even "they knew less than any poets perhaps who +ever wrote," we check our confidence; and, after a little consideration, +find that by freedom Mr. Hunt means only an inaccurate, negligent, and +harsh style of versification, which our early poets fell into from want +of polish, and such poets as Mr. Hunt still practise from want of ease, +of expression, and of taste. + + "_License_ he means, when he cries _liberty_." + +Mr. Hunt tells us that Dryden, Spenser and Ariosto, Shakespeare and +Chaucer (so he arranges them), are the greatest masters of _modern_ +versification; but he, in the next few sentences, leads us to suspect +that he really does not think much more reverently of these great names +than of Pope and of Johnson; and that, if the whole truth were told, he +is decidedly of opinion that the only good master of versification, in +modern times, is--Mr. Leigh Hunt. + +Dryden, Mr. Hunt thinks, is apt to be _artificial_ in his style; or, in +other words, he has improved the harmony of our language from the +rudeness of Chaucer, whom Mr. Hunt (in a sentence which is not grammar, +p. xv) says that Dryden (though he spoke of and borrowed from him) +neither relished nor understood. Spenser, he admits, was musical from +pure taste, but Milton was only, as he elegantly expresses it, +"_learnedly_ so." Being _learned in music_, is intelligible, and, of +Milton, true; but what can Mr. Hunt mean by saying that Milton had +"_learnedly_ a _musical ear_"? "Ariosto's fine ear and _animal spirits_ +gave a _frank_ and exquisite tone to all he said"--what does this mean?-- +a fine ear may, perhaps, be said to _give_, as it contributes to, an +exquisite tone; but what have _animal spirits_ to do here? and what, in +the matter of _tones_ and _sounds_, is the effect of _frankness_? We +shrewdly suspect that Mr. Hunt, with all his affectation of Italian +literature, knows very little of Ariosto; it is clear that he knows +nothing of Tasso. Of Shakespeare he tells us, "that his versification +escapes us because he _over-informed_ it with knowledge and sentiment," +by which it appears (as well, indeed, as by his own verses), that this +new Stagyrite thinks that good versification runs a risk of being +spoiled by having _too much meaning_ included in its lines. + +To wind up the whole of this admirable, precise, and useful criticism by +a recapitulation as useful and precise, he says, "all these are about as +different from Pope as the church organ is from the bell in the steeple, +or, to give him a more decorous comparison, the song of the nightingale +from that of the cuckoo."--p. xv. + +Now we own that what there is so _indecorous_ in the first comparison, +or so especially _decorous_ in the second, we cannot discover; neither +can we make out whether Pope is the organ or the bell--the nightingale +or the cuckoo; we suppose that Mr. Hunt knows that Pope was called by +his contemporaries the _nightingale_, but we never heard Milton and +Dryden called _cuckoos_; or, if the comparison is to be taken the other +way, we apprehend that, though Chaucer may be to Mr. Hunt's ears a +_church organ_, Pope cannot, to any ear, sound like the _church bell_. + +But all this theory, absurd and ignorant as it is, is really nothing to +the practice of which it effects to be the defence. + +Hear the warblings of Mr. Hunt's nightingales. + +A horseman is described-- + + The patting hand, that best persuades the check, + _And makes the quarrel up with a proud neck_, + The thigh broad pressed, the spanning palm _upon it_, + And the jerked feather _swaling_ in the _bonnet_.--p. 15. + +Knights wear ladies' favours-- + + Some tied about their arm, some at the breast, + _Some, with a drag, dangling from the cap's crest_.--p. 14. + +Paulo pays his compliments to the destined bride of his brother-- + + And paid them with an air so frank and bright, + As to a friend _appreciated at sight_; + That air, in short, which sets you at your ease, + Without _implying_ your perplexities, + That _what with the surprize in every way_, + The hurry of the time, the appointed day,-- + She knew _not how to object_ in her confusion.--p. 29. + +The meeting of the brothers, on which the catastrophe turns, is +excellent: the politeness with which the challenge is given would have +delighted the heart of old Caranza. + + May I request, Sir, said the prince, and frowned, + Your ear a moment in the tilting ground? + _There_, brother? answered Paulo with an _air_ + Surprized and _shocked_. Yes, _brother_, cried he, _there_. + The word smote _crushingly_.--p. 92. + +Before the duel, the following spirited explanation takes place: + + The prince spoke low, + And said: Before _you answer what you can_, + I wish to tell you, _as a gentleman_, + That what you may confess-- + Will implicate no person known to you, + More than disquiet in _its_ sleep may do.--p. 93. + +Paulo falls--and the event is announced in these exquisite lines: + + Her _aged_ nurse-- + Who, shaking her _old_ head, and pressing close + Her withered _lips_ to _keep the tears_ that rose--p. 101. + +"By the way," does Mr. Leigh Hunt suppose that the aged nurses of Rimini +weep with their mouths? or does he mistake crying for drivelling?--In +fact, the young lady herself seems to have adopted the same mode of +weeping: + + With that, a _keen_ and _quivering glance of_ tears + Scarce moves her _patient mouth_, and disappears. + +But to the nurse.--She introduces the messenger of death to the +princess, who communicates his story, in pursuance of her command-- + + Something, I'm sure, has happened--tell me what-- + I can bear all, though _you may fancy not_. + Madam, replied the squire, you are, I know, + All sweetness--_pardon me for saying so_. + My Master bade _me_ say then, resumed _he_, + That _he_ spoke firmly, when he told it _me_,-- + That I was also, madam, to your ear + Firmly to speak, and you firmly to hear,-- + That he was forced this day, _whether or no_, + To combat with the prince;--'--p. 103. + +The _second_ of Mr. Hunt's new principles he thus announces: + + With the endeavour to recur to a freer spirit of versification, I have + joined one of still greater importance--that of having a _free and + idiomatic_ cast of language. There is a cant of art as well as of + nature, though the former is not so unpleasant as the latter, which + affects non-affectation.--(What does all this mean?)--But the proper + _language of poetry_ is in fact nothing different from that of real + life, and depends for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of + what it speaks. It is only adding _musical modulation_ to what a _fine + understanding_ might actually utter in the midst of its griefs or + enjoyments. The poet therefore should do as Chaucer or Shakespeare + did,--not copy what is obsolete or peculiar in either, any more than + they copied from their predecessors,--but use as much as possible an + _actual, existing language,_--omitting of course _mere vulgarisms_ and + _fugitive phrases_, which are the cant of ordinary discourse, just as + tragedy phrases, _dead idioms,_ and exaggerations of dignity, are of + the artificial style, and yeas, verilys, and exaggerations of + simplicity, are of the natural.--p. xvi. + +This passage, compared with the verses to which it preludes, affords a +more extraordinary instance of self-delusion than even Mr. Hunt's notion +of the merit of his versification; for if there be one fault more +eminently conspicuous and ridiculous in Mr. Hunt's work than another, it +is,--that it is full of _mere vulgarisms_ and _fugitive phrases_, and +that in every page the language is--not only not _the actual, existing +language_, but an ungrammatical, unauthorised, chaotic jargon, such as +we believe was never before spoken, much less written. + +In what vernacular tongue, for instance, does Mr. Hunt find a lady's +waist called _clipsome_ (p. 10)--or the shout of a mob "enormous" (p. +9)--or a fit, _lightsome_;--or that a hero's nose is "_lightsomely_ +brought down from a forehead of clear-spirited thought" (p. 46)--or that +his back "drops" _lightsomely in_ (p. 20). Where has he heard of a +_quoit-like drop_--of _swaling_ a jerked feather--of _unbedinned_ music +(p. 11)--of the death of _leaping_ accents (p. 32)--of the _thick +reckoning_ of a hoof (p. 33)--of a _pin-drop_ silence (p. 17)--a +_readable_ look (p. 20)--a _half indifferent wonderment_ (p. 37)--or of + + _Boy-storied_ trees and _passion-plighted_ spots,--p. 38. + +of + + Ships coming up with _scattery_ light,--p. 4. + +or of self-knowledge being + + _Cored_, after all, in our complacencies?--p. 38. + +We shall now produce a few instances of what "_a fine understanding +might utter_," with "the addition of _musical modulation_," and of the +_dignity_ and _strength_ of Mr. Hunt's sentiments and expressions. + +A crowd, which divided itself into groups, is-- + + --the multitude, + Who _got_ in clumps----p. 26. + +The impression made on these "clumps" by the sight of the Princess, is +thus "musically" described: + + There's not in all that croud one _gallant_ being, + Whom, if his heart were whole, and _rank agreeing_, + It would not _fire to twice of what he is_,--p. 10. + +"Dignity and strength"-- + + First came the trumpeters-- + And as they _sit along_ their easy way, + Stately and _heaving_ to the croud below.--p. 12. + +This word is deservedly a great favourite with the poet; he _heaves_ it +in upon all occasions. + + The deep talk _heaves_.--p. 5. + With _heav'd_ out tapestry the windows glow.--p. 6. + Then _heave_ the croud.--_id_. + And after a rude _heave_ from side to side.--p. 7. + The marble bridge comes _heaving_ forth below.--p. 28. + +"Fine understanding"-- + + The youth smiles _up_, and with a _lowly_ grace, + _Bending_ his _lifted_ eyes--p. 22. + +This is very neat: + + No peevishness there was-- + But a _mute_ gush of _hiding_ tears from one, + Clasped to the _core_ of him who yet shed none.--p. 83. + +The heroine is suspected of wishing to have some share in the choice of +her own husband, which is thus elegantly expressed: + + She had stout notions on the marrying _score_.--p. 27. + +This noble use of the word _score_ is afterwards carefully repeated in +speaking of the Prince, her husband-- + + --no suspicion could have touched him more, + Than that of _wanting_ on the generous _score_.--p. 48. + +But though thus punctilious on the _generous score_, his Highness had +but a bad temper, + + And kept no reckoning with his _sweets and sours_.--p. 47. + +This, indeed, is somewhat qualified by a previous observation, that-- + + _The worst of Prince Giovanni_, as his bride + Too quickly found, was an ill-tempered pride. + +How nobly does Mr. Hunt celebrate the combined charms of the fair sex, +and the country! + + _The two divinest things this world_ HAS GOT, + A lovely woman in a rural spot!--p. 58. + +A rural spot, indeed, seems to inspire Mr. Hunt with peculiar elegance +and sweetness: for he says, soon after, of Prince Paulo-- + + For welcome grace, there rode not such another, + Nor yet for strength, except his lordly brother. + Was there a court day, or a sparkling feast, + Or better still--_to my ideas, at least!_-- + A summer party in the green wood shade.--p. 50. + +So much for this new invented _strength_ and _dignity_: we shall add a +specimen of his syntax: + + But fears like these he never entertain'd, + And had they crossed him, would have been disdain'd.--p. 50. + + * * * * * + +After these extracts, we have but one word more to say of Mr. Hunt's +poetry; which is, that amidst all his vanity, vulgarity, ignorance, and +coarseness, there are here and there some well-executed descriptions, +and occasionally a line of which the sense and the expression are good-- +The interest of the story itself is so great that we do not think it +wholly lost even in Mr. Hunt's hands. He has, at least, the merit of +telling it with decency; and, bating the qualities of versification, +expression, and dignity, on which he peculiarly piques himself, and in +which he has utterly failed, the poem is one which, in our opinion at +least, may be read with satisfaction after GALT'S Tragedies. + +Mr. Hunt prefixes to his work a dedication to Lord Byron, in which he +assumes a high tone, and talks big of his "_fellow-dignity_" and +independence: what fellow-dignity may mean, we know not; perhaps the +_dignity_ of a _fellow_; but this we will say, that Mr. Hunt is not more +unlucky in his pompous pretension to versification and good language, +than he is in that which he makes, in this dedication, to _proper +spirit_, as he calls it, and _fellow-dignity_; for we never, in so few +lines, saw so many clear marks of the vulgar impatience of a low man, +conscious and ashamed of his wretched vanity, and labouring, with coarse +flippancy, to scramble over the bounds of birth and education, and +fidget himself into the _stout-heartedness_ of being familiar with a +LORD. + + + + +OF SHAKESPEARE + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1816] + +_Shakespeare's Himself Again! or the Language of the Poet asserted; +being a full and dispassionate Examen of the Readings and +Interpretations of the several Editors. Comprised in a Series of Notes, +Sixteen Hundred in Number, illustrative of the most difficult Passages +in his Plays_--_to the various editions of which the present Volumes +form a complete and necessary Supplement_. By ANDREW BECKET. 2 vols. +8vo. pp. 730. 1816. + +If the dead could be supposed to take any interest in the integrity of +their literary reputation, with what complacency might we not imagine +our great poet to contemplate the labours of the present writer! Two +centuries have passed away since his death--the mind almost sinks under +the reflection that he has been all that while exhibited to us so +"transmographied" by the joint ignorance and malice of printers, +critics, etc., as to be wholly unlike himself. But--_post nubila, +Phoebus!_ Mr. Andrew Becket has at length risen upon the world, and +Shakespeare is about to shine forth in genuine and unclouded glory! + +What we have at present is a mere scantling of the great work _in +procinctu_--[Greek: _pidakos ex ieraes oligaelizas_]--sixteen hundred +"restorations," and no more! But if these shall be favourably received, +a complete edition of the poet will speedily follow. Mr. Becket has +taken him to develop; and it is truly surprizing to behold how beautiful +he comes forth as the editor proceeds in unrolling those unseemly and +unnatural rags in which he has hitherto been so disgracefully wrapped: + + Tandem aperit vultum, et tectoria prima reponit,-- + Incipit agnosci!-- + +Mr. Becket has favoured us, in the Preface, with a comparative estimate +of the merits of his predecessors. He does not, as may easily be +conjectured, rate any of them very highly; but he places Warburton at +the top of the scale, and Steevens at the bottom: this, indeed, was to +be expected. "Warburton," he says, "is the _best_, and Steevens the +_worst_ of Shakespeare's commentators"; (p. xvii) and he ascribes it +solely to his forbearance that the latter is not absolutely crushed: it +not being in his nature, as he magnanimously insinuates, "to break a +butterfly upon a wheel!" Dr. Johnson is shoved aside with very little +ceremony; Mr. Malone fares somewhat better; and the rest are dismissed +with the gentle valediction of Pandarus to the Trojans--"asses, fools, +dolts! chaff and bran! porridge after meat!" With respect to our author +himself, it is but simple justice to declare, that he comes to the great +work of "restoring Shakespeare"--not only with more negative advantages +than the unfortunate tribe of critics so cavalierly dismissed, but than +all who have aspired to illumine the page of a defunct writer since the +days of Aristarchus. As far as we are enabled to judge, Mr. Becket never +examined an old play in his life:--he does not seem to have the +slightest knowledge of any writer, or any subject, or any language that +ever occupied the attention of his contemporaries; and he possesses a +mind as innocent of all requisite information as if he had dropped, with +the last thunderstone, from the moon. + +"Addison has well observed, that 'in works of criticism it is absolutely +necessary to have a _clear and logical head_.'" (p.v.) In this position, +Mr. Becket cheerfully agrees with him; and, indeed, it is sufficiently +manifest, that without the internal conviction of enjoying that +indispensable advantage, he would not have favoured the public with +those matchless "restorations"; a few specimens of which we now proceed +to lay before them. Where all are alike admirable, there is no call for +selection; we shall therefore open the volumes at random, and trust to +fortune. + + "_Hamlet_. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?" + +This reading, Mr. Becket says, he cannot admit; and he says well: since +it appears that Shakespeare wrote-- + + "For who would bear the _scores_ of _weapon'd_ time?" + +using _scores_ in the sense of stripes. Formerly, _i.e.,_ when Becket +was _in his sallad days_, he augured, he says, that the true reading +was-- + + --"the scores of _whip-hand_ time." + +Time having always the _whip-hand,_ the advantage; but he now reverts to +the other emendation; though, as he modestly hints, the epithet +_whip-hand_ (which he still regards with parental fondness) will perhaps +be thought to have much of the manner of Shakespeare.--Vol. i, p. 43. + + "_Horatio_.--While they, distill'd + Almost to jelly with the act of fear, + Stand dumb, and speak not to him!" + +We had been accustomed to find no great difficulty here: the words +seemed, to us, at least, to express the usual effect of inordinate +terror--but we gladly acknowledge our mistake. "The passage is not to be +understood." How should it, when both the pointing and the language are +corrupt? Read, as Shakespeare gave it-- + + --"While they _bestill'd_ + Almost to _gelee_ with the act. Of fear + Stand dumb," &c.--that is, petrified (or rather icefied) p. 13. + + + "_Lear_. And my poor fool is hang'd!" + +With these homely words, which burst from the poor old king on reverting +to the fate of his loved Cordelia, whom he then holds in his arms, we +have been always deeply affected, and therefore set them down as one of +the thousand proofs of the poet's intimate knowledge of the human heart. +But Mr. Becket has made us ashamed of our simplicity and our tears. +Shakespeare had no such "lenten" language in his thoughts; he wrote, as +Mr. Becket tells us, + + "And my _pure soot_ is hang'd!" + +Poor, he adds, might be easily mistaken for _pure_; while the _s_ in +_soot_ (sweet) was scarcely discernible from the _f_, or the _t_ from +the _l_.--p. 176. + +We are happy to find that so much can be offered in favour of the old +printers. And yet--were it not that the genuine text is always to be +preferred--we could almost wish that the critic had left their blunder +as it stood. + + "_Wolsey_.--that his bones + May have a tomb of orphans' tears wept on them." + + A tomb of tears is ridiculous. I read--a _coomb_ of tears--a _coomb_ + is a liquid measure containing forty gallons. Thus the expression, + which was before absurd, becomes forcible and just.--vol. ii, p. 134. + +It does indeed! + + "_Sir Andrew_. I sent thee six-pence for thy leman (mistress): had'st + it?" Read as Shakespeare wrote: "I sent thee sixpence for thy + _lemma_"--_lemma_ is properly an _argument_, or _proposition assumed_, + and is used by Sir Andrew Aguecheek for a story.--p. 335. + + + "_Viola_. She pined in thought, + And with a green and yellow melancholy."--Correct it thus: + + "She pined in thought + And with _agrein_ and _hollow_ melancholy."--p. 339. + + "_Iago_. I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense, + And he grows angry"-- + +that is, or rather _was_, according to our homely apprehension, I have +rubb'd this pimple (Roderigo) almost to bleeding:--but, no; Mr. Becket +has furnished us not only with the genuine words, but the meaning of +Shakespeare-- + + I have _fubb'd_ this young _quat_--_Quat_, or cat, appears to be a + contraction of cater-cousin--and this reading will be greatly + strengthened when it is remembered that Roderigo was really the + intimate of Iago.--p. 204. + +In a subsequent passage, "I am as melancholy as a gibb'd cat"--we are +told that _cat_ is not the domestic animal of that name, but a +contraction of _catin_, a woman of the town. But, indeed, Mr. Becket +possesses a most wonderful faculty for detecting these latent +contractions and filling them up. Thus, + + "_Parolles_. Sir, he will steal an egg out of a cloister." Read (as + Shakespeare wrote), "Sir, he will steal an _Ag_ (i.e., an _Agnes_) out + of a cloister." _Agnes_ is the name of a woman, and may easily stand + for chastity.--p. 325. + +No doubt. + + "_Carter_. Prithee, Tom, put a few flocks in Cut's saddle; the poor + beast is wrung in the withers out of all cess." + +Out of all cess, we used to think meant, in vulgar phraseology, out of +all measure, very much, &c.--but see how foolishly! + + _Cess_ is a mere contraction of _cessibility_, which signifies the + _quality of receding_, and may very well stand for _yielding_, as + spoken of a tumour.--p. 5. + + + "_Hamlet_. A cry of players." + + +This we once thought merely a sportive expression for a _company of_ +players, but Mr. Becket has undeceived us--"_Cry_ (he tells us) is +contracted from _cryptic_, and cryptic is precisely of the same import +as mystery."--p. 53. How delightful it is when learning and judgment +walk thus hand in hand! But enough-- + + --"the sweetest honey + Is loathsome in its own deliciousness"-- + +and we would not willingly cloy our readers. Sufficient has been +produced to encourage them--not perhaps to contend for the possession of +the present volumes, though Mr. Becket conscientiously affirms, in his +title-page, that "they form a complete and _necessary_ supplement to +every former edition"--but, with us, to look anxiously forward to the +great work in preparation. + +Meanwhile we have gathered some little consolation from what is already +in our hands. Very often, on comparing the dramas of the present day +(not even excepting Mr. Tobin's) with those of Elizabeth's age, we have +been tempted to think that we were born too late, and to exclaim with +the poet-- + + "Infelix ego, non illo qui tempore natus, + Quo facilis natura fuit; sors O mea laeva + Nascendi, miserumque genus!" &c. + +but we now see that unless Mr. Andrew Becket had also been produced at +that early period, we should have derived no extraordinary degree of +satisfaction from witnessing the first appearance of Shakespeare's +plays, since it is quite clear that we could not have understood them. + +One difficulty yet remains. We scarcely think that the managers will +have the confidence, in future, to play Shakespeare as they have been +accustomed to do; and yet, to present him, as now so happily "restored," +would, for some time at least, render him _caviare to the general_. We +know that Livius Andronicus, when grown hoarse with repeated +declamation, was allowed a second rate actor, who stood at his back and +spoke while he gesticulated, or gesticulated while he spoke. A hint may +be borrowed from this fact. We therefore propose that Mr. Andrew Becket +be forthwith taken into the pay of the two theatres, and divided between +them. He may then be instructed to follow the _dramatis personae_ of our +great poet's plays on the stage, and after each of them has made his +speech in the present corrupt reading, to pronounce aloud the words as +"restored" by himself. This may have an awkward effect at first; but a +season or two will reconcile the town to it; Shakespeare may then be +presented in his genuine language, or, as our author better expresses +it, be HIMSELF AGAIN. + + + + +ON MOXON'S SONNETS + + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, July, 1837] + +_Sonnets by_ EDWARD MOXON. Second Edition. London, 1837. + +This is quite a _dandy_ of a book. Some seventy pages of drawing-paper-- +fifty-five of which are impressed each with a single sonnet in all the +luxury of type, while the rest are decked out with vignettes of nymphs +in clouds and bowers, and Cupids in rose-bushes and cockle-shells. And +all these coxcombries are the appendages of, as it seems to us, as +little intellect as the rings and brooches of the Exquisite in a modern +novel. We shall see presently, by what good fortune so moderate a poet +has found so liberal a publisher. + +We are no great admirers of the sonnet at its best--concurring in Dr. +Johnson's opinion that it does not suit the genius of our language, and +that the great examples of Shakespeare and Milton have failed to +domesticate it with us. It seems to be, even in master hands, that +species of composition which is at once the most artificial and the +least effective, which bears the appearance of the greatest labour and +produces the least pleasure. Its peculiar and unvaried construction must +inevitably inflict upon it something of pedantry and monotony, and +although some powerful minds have used it as a form for condensing and +elaborating a particular train of thought--_an Iliad in a nutshell_--yet +the vast majority of sonneteers employ it as an economical expedient, by +which one idea can be expanded into fourteen lines--fourteen lines into +one page--and, as we see, fifty-four pages into a costly volume. + +The complex construction, which at first sight seems a difficulty, is, +in fact, like all mechanism, a great saving of labour to the operator. A +sonnet almost makes itself, as a musical snuff-box plays a tune, or +rather as a cotton _Jenny_ spins twist. When a would-be poet has +collected in his memory a few of what may have struck him as poetical +ideas, he puts them into his machine, and after fourteen turns, out +comes a sonnet, or--if it be his pleasure to spin out his reminiscences +very fine--a dozen sonnets. + +Mr. Moxon inscribes as a motto on his title-page four lines of Mr. +Wordsworth's vindication of his own use of the sonnet-form-- + + In truth, the prison, into which we doom + Ourselves, no prison is: and hence to _me_, + In sundry moods 'twas pastime to be bound + Within the _sonnet's_ scanty plot of ground. + +Yes, Mr. Moxon, to _him_ perhaps, but not to every one--the "plot of +ground" which is "_scanty_" to an elephant is a wilderness to a mouse; +and the garment in which Wordsworth might feel straitened hangs flabby +about a puny imitator. There seems no great modesty in the estimate +which Mr. Moxon thus exhibits of his own superior powers, but we fear +there is, at least, as much modesty as truth--for really, so far from +being "_bound_" within the narrow limit of the sonnet, it seems to us to +be + + --a world too wide + For his shrunk shank. + +Ordinary sonneteers, as we have said, will spin a single thought through +the fourteen lines. Mr., Moxon will draw you out a single thought into +fourteen sonnets:--and these are his best--for most of the others appear +to us mere soap bubbles, very gay and gaudy, but which burst at the +fourteenth line and leave not the trace of an idea behind. Of two or +three Mr. Moxon has kindly told us the meaning, which, without that +notice, we confess we should never have guessed. + + * * * * * + +Another of the same genus--though, he had just told us + + My love I can _compare_ with _nought_ on earth-- + +is like _nought on earth_ we ever read but Dean Swift's song of similes. +I _will prove_, he says, that + + A swan-- + A fawn-- + An artless lamb-- + A hawthorn tree-- + A willow-- + A laburnum-- + A dream-- + A rainbow-- + Diana-- + Aurora-- + A dove that _singeth_-- + A lily,--and finally, + Venus herself! + --I in truth will prove + These are not _half_ so _fair_ as she I love. + +_Sonnet_ iii, p. 43. + + +Such heterogeneous compliments remind us of Shacabac's gallantry to +_Beda_ in _Blue Beard:_ "Ah, you little rogue, you have a prettier mouth +_than an elephant_, and you know it!"--A _fawn-coloured_ countenance +rivalling in _fairness a laburnum_ blossom, seems to us a more dubious +type of female beauty than even an elephant's mouth. + +_Love_, it may be said, has carried away better poets and graver men +than Mr. Moxon seems to be, into such namby-pamby nonsense; but Mr. +Moxon is just as absurd in his _grief_ or his _musings_, as in his +_love_. + +When he hears a nightingale--"sad Philomel!"--he concludes that the bird +was originally created for no other purpose than to prophesy in Paradise +_the fall of man_, or, as he chooses to collocate the words, + + _Prophetic_ to have mourned of _man_ the _fall_,--p. 9. + +but he does not tell us what she has been doing ever since. + +When he sees two Cumberland streams--the Brathay and Rothay--flowing +down, first to a confluence, and afterwards to the sea, he fancies "a +_soul-knit_ pair," man and wife, mingling their waters and gliding to +their final haven-- + + in kindred love, + The haven Contemplation sees _above_! + +_Below_, he would--following his allegory--have said; but rhyme forbade-- +and _allegories_ are not _so headstrong_ on the banks of the Brathay as +on those of the _Nile_. + +A sonnet on Thomson's grave is a fine specimen of empty sounds and solid +nonsense:-- + + Whene'er I linger, Thomson, near thy tomb, + Where _Thamis_-- + +"_Classic Cam_" will be somewhat amazed to hear his learned brother +called _Thamis_-- + + Where Thamis urges his majestic way, + And the Muse loves at twilight hour to stray, + I think how in thy theme ALL _seasons_ BLOOM;-- + +What, all four?--_autumn_, nay, _winter_--blooming? + + What _heart_ so cold that of thy fame has _heard_, + And _pauses_ not to _gaze_ upon each scene. + +We are inclined to be very indulgent to what is called a confusion of +metaphors, when it arises from a rush of ideas--but when it is produced +by an author's having no idea at all, we can hardly forgive him for +equipping the _Heart_ with eyes, ears, and legs:--he might just as well +have said that on entering Twickenham church to visit the tomb, every +_Heart_ would take off _its hat_, and on going out again would put _its +hand_ in _its pockets_ to fee the sexton. + + And pauses not to gaze upon each scene + That was familiar to thy raptured view, + Those walks beloved by thee while I pursue, + Musing upon the years that intervene-- + +Why this line _intervenes_ or what it means we do not see--it seems +inserted just to make up the number-- + + Methinks, as eve descends, a hymn of praise + To thee, their bard, the _sister Seasons_ raise! + +That is, as we understand it, ALL the _Seasons meet together_ on one or +more evenings of the year, to sing a hymn to the memory of Thompson. +This _simultaneous entree_ of the Four Seasons would be a much more +appropriate fancy for the opera stage than for Twickenham meadows. + +Such are the tame extravagances--the vapid affectations--the unmeaning +mosaic which Mr. Moxon has laboriously tesselated into fifty and four +sonnets. If he had been--as all this childishness at first led us to +believe--a very young man--we should have discussed the matter with him +in a more conciliatory and persuasive tone; but we find that he is, what +we must call, an old offender. We have before us two little volumes of +what he entitles poetry--one dated 1826, and the other 1829--which, +though more laughable, are not in substance more absurd than his new +production. From the first of these we shall extract two or three +stanzas of the introductory poem, not only on account of their intrinsic +merit, but because they state, pretty roundly, Mr. Moxon's principles of +poetry. He modestly disclaims all rivalry with Pope, Byron, Moore, +Campbell, Scott, Rogers, Goldsmith, Dryden, Gray, Spenser, Milton, and +Shakespeare; but he, at the same time, intimates that he follows, what +he thinks, a truer line of poetry than the before-named illustrious, +but, in this point, _mistaken_ individuals. + + 'Tis not a poem with learning fraught, + To that I ne'er pretended; + Nor yet with Pope's fine touches wrought, + _From that my time prevented_. + +We skip four intermediate stanzas; then comes + + Milton divine and great Shakespeare + With reverence I mention; + My name with theirs shall ne'er appear, + _'Tis far from my intention!_ + If poetry, as one _pretends, + Be all imagination!_ + Why then, at once, _my bardship ends-- + 'Mong prose I take my station._ + + _Moxon's Poems, p. 81, Ed. 1826._ + +But as _"common sense"_ must see, says Mr. Moxon, that _imagination_ can +have nothing to do with _poetry_, he engages to pursue his tuneful +vocation, subject to _one_ condition-- + + You'll hear no more from me, + If _critics prove unkind;_ + My next _in simple prose_ must be, + _Unless I favour find!_ + +We regret that some _kind_--or, as Mr. Moxon would have thought it, +_unkind_--critic, did not, on the appearance of this first volume, +confirm his own misgivings that he had been all this time, like the man +in the farce, talking not only _prose_, but _nonsense_ into the bargain: +this disagreeable information the pretension of his recent publication +obliges us to convey to him. The fact is, that the volume at first +struck us with serious alarm. Its typographical splendour led us to fear +that this style of writing was getting into fashion; and the hints about +_"classic Cam"_ seemed to impute the production to one of our +Universities: on turning, with some curiosity, to the title-page, for +the name of the too indulgent bookseller who had bestowed such unmerited +embellishment on a work which we think of so little value--_we found +none_; and on further inquiry learned that _Dover Street, Piccadilly_, +and not the banks of _"classic Cam"_ is the seat of this sonneteering +muse--in short, that Mr. Moxon, the bookseller, is his own poet, and +that Mr. Moxon, the poet, is his own bookseller. This discovery at once +calmed both our anxieties--it relieved the university of Cambridge from +an awful responsibility, which might have called down upon it the +vengeance of Lord Radnor; and it accounted--without any imputation on +the public taste--for the extraordinary care and cost with which the +paternal solicitude of the poet-publisher had adorned his own volume. +Mr. Moxon seems to be--like most sonneteers--a man of amiable +disposition, and to have an ear--as he certainly has a _memory_--for +poetry; and--if he had not been an old hand--we should not have presumed +to say that he is incapable of anything better than this tumid +commonplace. But, however that may be, we do earnestly exhort him to +abandon the self-deluding practice of being his own publisher. Whatever +may have been said in disparagement of the literary taste of the +booksellers, it will at least be admitted that their experience of +public opinion and a due attention to their own pecuniary interest, +enable them to operate as a salutary check upon the blind and +presumptive vanity of small authors. The necessity of obtaining the +_"imprimatur"_ of a publisher is a very wholesome restraint, from which +Mr. Moxon--unluckily for himself and for us--found himself relieved. If +he could have looked at his own work with the impartiality, and perhaps +the good taste, that he would have exercised on that of a stranger, _he_ +would have saved himself a good deal of expense and vexation--and _we_ +should have been spared the painful necessity of contrasting the +ambitious pretensions of his volume with its very moderate literary +merit. + + + + +ON "VANITY FAIR" AND "JANE EYRE" + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, December, 1848] + +1. _Vanity Fair; a Novel without a Hero._ By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE +THACKERAY. London, 1848. + +2. _Jane Eyre; an Autobiography._ Edited by CURRER BELL. In 3 vols. +London. 1847. + +A remarkable novel is a great event for English society. It is a kind of +common friend, about whom people can speak the truth without fear of +being compromised, and confess their emotions without being ashamed. We +are a particularly shy and reserved people, and set about nothing so +awkwardly as the simple art of getting really acquainted with each +other. We meet over and over again in what is conventionally called +"easy society," with the tacit understanding to go so far and no +farther; to be as polite as we ought to be, and as intellectual as we +can; but mutually and honourably to forbear lifting those veils which +each spreads over his inner sentiments and sympathies. For this purpose +a host of devices have been contrived by which all the forms of +friendship may be gone through, without committing ourselves to one +spark of the spirit. We fly with eagerness to some common ground in +which each can take the liveliest interest, without taking the slightest +in the world in his companion. Our various fashionable manias, for +charity one season, for science the next, are only so many clever +contrivances for keeping our neighbour at arm's length. We can attend +committees, and canvass for subscribers, and archaeologise, and +geologise, and take ether with our fellow Christians for a twelvemonth, +as we might sit cross-legged and smoke the pipe of fraternity with a +Turk for the same period--and know at the end of the time as little of +the real feelings of the one as we should about the domestic relations +of the other. But there are ways and means for lifting the veil which +equally favour our national idiosyncrasy; and a new and remarkable novel +is one of them--especially the nearer it comes to real life. We invite +our neighbour to a walk with the deliberate and malicious object of +getting thoroughly acquainted with him. We ask no impertinent questions-- +we proffer no indiscreet confidences--we do not even sound him, ever so +delicately, as to his opinion of a common friend, for he would be sure +not to say, lest we should go and tell; but we simply discuss Becky +Sharp, or Jane Eyre, and our object is answered at once. + +There is something about these two new and noticeable characters which +especially compels everybody to speak out. They are not to be dismissed +with a few commonplace moralities and sentimentalities. They do not fit +any ready-made criticism. They give the most stupid something to think +of, and the most reserved something to say; the most charitable too are +betrayed into home comparisons which they usually condemn, and the most +ingenious stumble into paradoxes which they can hardly defend. Becky and +Jane also stand well side by side both in their analogies and their +contrasts. Both the ladies are governesses, and both make the same move +in society; the one, in Jane Eyre phraseology, marrying her "master," +and the other her master's son. Neither starts in life with more than a +moderate capital of good looks--Jane Eyre with hardly that--for it is +the fashion now-a-days with novelists to give no encouragement to the +insolence of mere beauty, but rather to prove to all whom it may concern +how little a sensible woman requires to get on with in the world. Both +have also an elfish kind of nature, with which they divine the secrets +of other hearts, and conceal those of their own; and both rejoice in +that peculiarity of feature which Mademoiselle de Luzy has not +contributed to render popular, viz., green eyes. Beyond this, however, +there is no similarity either in the minds, manners, or fortunes of the +two heroines. They think and act upon diametrically opposite principles-- +at least so the author of "Jane Eyre" intends us to believe--and each, +were they to meet, which we should of all things enjoy to see them do, +would cordially despise and abominate the other. Which of the two, +however, would most successfully _dupe_ the other is a different +question, and one not so easy to decide; though we have our own ideas +upon the subject. + +We must discuss "Vanity Fair" first, which, much as we were entitled to +expect from its author's pen, has fairly taken us by surprise. We were +perfectly aware that Mr. Thackeray had of old assumed the jester's +habit, in order the more unrestrainedly to indulge the privilege of +speaking the truth;--we had traced his clever progress through "Fraser's +Magazine" and the ever-improving pages of "Punch"--which wonder of the +time has been infinitely obliged to him--but still we were little +prepared for the keen observation, the deep wisdom, and the consummate +art which he has interwoven in the slight texture and whimsical pattern +of "Vanity Fair." Everybody, it is to be supposed, has read the volume +by this time; and even for those who have not, it is not necessary to +describe the order of the story. It is not a novel, in the common +acceptation of the word, with a plot purposely contrived to bring about +certain scenes, and develop certain characters, but simply a history of +those average sufferings, pleasures, penalties, and rewards to which +various classes of mankind gravitate as naturally and certainly in this +world as the sparks fly upward. It is only the same game of life which +every player sooner or later makes for himself--were he to have a +hundred chances, and shuffle the cards of circumstance every time. It is +only the same busy, involved drama which may be seen at any time by any +one, who is not engrossed with the magnified minutiae of his own petty +part, but with composed curiosity looks on to the stage where his +fellow-men and women are the actors; and that not even heightened by the +conventional colouring which Madame de Stael philosophically declares +that fiction always wants in order to make up for its not being truth. +Indeed, so far from taking any advantage of this novelist's licence, Mr. +Thackeray has hardly availed himself of the natural average of +remarkable events that really do occur in this life. The battle of +Waterloo, it is true, is introduced; but, as far as regards the story, +it brings about only one death and one bankruptcy, which might either of +them have happened in a hundred other ways. Otherwise the tale runs on, +with little exception, in that humdrum course of daily monotony, out of +which some people coin materials to act, and others excuses to doze, +just as their dispositions may be. + +It is this reality which is at once the charm and the misery here. With +all these unpretending materials it is one of the most amusing, but also +one of the most distressing books we have read for many a long year. We +almost long for a little exaggeration and improbability to relieve us of +that sense of dead truthfulness which weighs down our hearts, not for +the Amelias and Georges of the story, but for poor kindred human nature. +In one light this truthfulness is even an objection. With few exceptions +the personages are too like our every-day selves and neighbours to draw +any distinct moral from. We cannot see our way clearly. Palliations of +the bad and disappointments in the good are perpetually obstructing our +judgment, by bringing what should decide it too close to that common +standard of experience in which our only rule of opinion is charity. For +it is only in fictitious characters which are highly coloured for one +definite object, or in notorious personages viewed from a distance, that +the course of the true moral can be seen to run straight--once bring the +individual with his life and circumstances closely before you, and it is +lost to the mental eye in the thousand pleas and witnesses, unseen and +unheard before, which rise up to overshadow it. And what are all these +personages in "Vanity Fair" but feigned names for our own beloved +friends and acquaintances, seen under such a puzzling cross-light of +good in evil, and evil in good, of sins and sinnings against, of little +to be praised virtues, and much to be excused vices, that we cannot +presume to moralise upon them--not even to judge them,--content to +exclaim sorrowfully with the old prophet, "Alas! my brother!" Every +actor on the crowded stage of "Vanity Fair" represents some type of that +perverse mixture of humanity in which there is ever something not wholly +to approve or to condemn. There is the desperate devotion of a fond +heart to a false object, which we cannot respect; there is the vain, +weak man, half good and half bad, who is more despicable in our eyes +than the decided villain. There are the irretrievably wretched +education, and the unquenchably manly instincts, both contending in the +confirmed _roue_, which melt us to the tenderest pity. There is the +selfishness and self-will which the possessor of great wealth and +fawning relations can hardly avoid. There is the vanity and fear of the +world, which assist mysteriously with pious principles in keeping a man +respectable; there are combinations of this kind of every imaginable +human form and colour, redeemed but feebly by the steady excellence of +an awkward man, and the genuine heart of a vulgar woman, till we feel +inclined to tax Mr. Thackeray with an under estimate of our nature, +forgetting that Madame de Stael is right after all, and that without a +little conventional rouge no human conplexion can stand the stage-lights +of fiction. + +But if these performers give us pain, we are not ashamed to own, as we +are speaking openly, that the chief actress herself gives us none at +all. For there is of course a principal pilgrim in Vanity Fair, as much +as in its emblematical original, Bunyan's "Progress"; only unfortunately +this one is travelling the wrong way. And we say "unfortunately" merely +by way of courtesy, for in reality we care little about the matter. No, +Becky--our hearts neither bleed for you, nor cry out against you. You +are wonderfully clever, and amusing, and accomplished, and intelligent, +and the Soho _ateliers_ were not the best nurseries for a moral +training; and you were married early in life to a regular blackleg, and +you have had to live upon your wits ever since, which is not an +improving sort of maintenance; and there is much to be said for and +against; but still you are not one of us, and there is an end to our +sympathies and censures. People who allow their feelings to be lacerated +by such a character and career as yours, are doing both you and +themselves great injustice. No author could have openly introduced a +near connexion of Satan's into the best London society, nor would the +moral end intended have been answered by it; but really and honestly, +considering Becky in her human character, we know of none which so +thoroughly satisfies our highest _beau ideal_ of feminine wickedness, +with so slight a shock to our feelings and properties. It is very +dreadful, doubtless, that Becky neither loved the husband who loved her, +nor the child of her own flesh and blood, nor indeed any body but +herself; but, as far as she is concerned, we cannot pretend to be +scandalized--for how could she without a heart? It is very shocking of +course that she committed all sorts of dirty tricks, and jockeyed her +neighbours, and never cared what she trampled under foot if it happened +to obstruct her step; but how could she be expected to do otherwise +without a conscience? The poor little woman was most tryingly placed; +she came into the world without the customary letters of credit upon +those two great bankers of humanity, "Heart and Conscience," and it was +no fault of hers if they dishonoured all her bills. All she could do in +this dilemma was to establish the firmest connexion with the inferior +commercial branches of "Sense and Tact," who secretly do much business +in the name of the head concern, and with whom her "fine frontal +development" gave her unlimited credit. She saw that selfishness was the +metal which the stamp of heart was suborned to pass; that hypocrisy was +the homage that vice rendered to virtue; that honesty was, at all +events, acted, because it was the best policy; and so she practised the +arts of selfishness and hypocrisy like anybody else in Vanity Fair, only +with this difference, that she brought them to their highest possible +pitch of perfection. For why is it that, looking round in this world, we +find plenty of characters to compare with her up to a certain pitch, but +none which reach her actual standard? Why is it that, speaking of this +friend or that, we say in the tender mercies of our hearts, "No, she is +not _quite_ so bad as Becky?" We fear not only because she has more +heart and conscience, but also because she has less cleverness. + +No; let us give Becky her due. There is enough in this world of ours, as +we all know, to provoke a saint, far more a poor little devil like her. +She had none of those fellow-feelings which make us wondrous kind. She +saw people around her cowards in vice, and simpletons in virtue, and she +had no patience with either, for she was as little the one as the other +herself. She saw women who loved their husbands and yet teazed them, and +ruining their children although they doated upon them, and she sneered +at their utter inconsistency. Wickedness or goodness, unless coupled +with strength, were alike worthless to her. That weakness which is the +blessed pledge of our humanity, was to her only the despicable badge of +our imperfection. She thought, it might be, of her master's words, +"Fallen Cherub! to be weak is to be miserable!" and wondered how we +could be such fools as first to sin and then to be sorry. Becky's light +was defective, but she acted up to it. Her goodness goes as far as good +temper, and her principles as far as shrewd sense, and we may thank her +consistency for showing us what they are both worth. + +It is another thing to pretend to settle whether such a character be +_prima facie_ impossible, though devotion to the better sex might well +demand the assertion. There are mysteries of iniquity, under the +semblance of man and woman, read of in history, or met with in the +unchronicled sufferings of private life, which would almost make us +believe that the powers of Darkness occasionally made use of this earth +for a Foundling Hospital, and sent their imps to us, already provided +with a return-ticket. We shall not decide on the lawfulness or otherwise +of any attempt to depict such importations; we can only rest perfectly +satisfied that, granting the author's premises, it is impossible to +imagine them carried out with more felicitous skill and more exquisite +consistency than in the heroine of "Vanity Fair." At all events, the +infernal regions have no reason to be ashamed of little Becky, nor the +ladies either: she has, at least, all the cleverness of the sex. + +The great charm, therefore, and comfort of Becky is, that we may study +her without any compunctions. The misery of this life is not the evil +that we see, but the good and the evil which are so inextricably twisted +together. It is that perpetual memento ever meeting one-- + + How in this vile world below + Noblest things find vilest using, + +that is so very distressing to those who have hearts as well as eyes. +But Becky relieves them of all this pain--at least in her own person. +Pity would be thrown away upon one who has not heart enough for it to +ache even for herself. Becky is perfectly happy, as all must be who +excel in what they love best. Her life is one exertion of successful +power. Shame never visits her, for "'Tis conscience that makes cowards +of us all"--and she has none. She realizes that _ne plus ultra_ of +sublunary comfort which it was reserved for a Frenchman to define--the +blessed combination of _"le bon estomac et le mauvais coeur"_: for Becky +adds to her other good qualities that of an excellent digestion. + +Upon the whole, we are not afraid to own that we rather enjoy her _ignis +fatuus_ course, dragging the weak and the vain and the selffish +[Transcriber's note: sic], through mud and mire, after her, and acting +all parts, from the modest rushlight to the gracious star, just as it +suits her. Clever little imp that she is! What exquisite tact she +shows!--what unflagging good humour!--what ready self-possession! Becky +never disappoints us; she never even makes us tremble. We know that her +answer will come exactly suiting her one particular object, and +frequently three or four more in prospect. What respect, too, she has +for those decencies which more virtuous, but more stupid humanity, often +disdains! What detection of all that is false and mean! What instinct +for all that is true and great! She is her master's true pupil in that: +she knows what is really divine as well as he, and bows before it. She +honours Dobbin in spite of his big feet; she respects her husband more +than ever she did before, perhaps for the first time, at the very moment +when he is stripping not only her jewels, but name, honour, and comfort +off her. + +We are not so sure either whether we are justified in calling hers _"le +mauvais coeur."_ Becky does not pursue any one vindictively; she never +does gratuitous mischief. The fountain is more dry than poisoned. She is +even generous--when she can afford it. Witness that burst of plain +speaking in Dobbin's favour to the little dolt Amelia, for which we +forgive her many a sin. 'Tis true she wanted to get rid of her; but let +that pass. Becky was a thrifty dame, and liked to despatch two birds +with one stone. And she was honest, too, after a fashion. The part of +wife she acts at first as well, and better than most; but as for that of +mother, there she fails from the beginning. She knew that maternal love +was no business of hers--that a fine frontal development could give her +no help there--and puts so little spirit into her imitation that no one +could be taken in for a moment. She felt that that bill, of all others, +would be sure to be dishonoured, and it went against her conscience--we +mean her sense--to send it in. + +In short, the only respect in which Becky's course gives us pain is when +it locks itself into that of another, and more genuine child of this +earth. No one can regret those being entangled in her nets whose vanity +and meanness of spirit alone led them into its meshes--such are rightly +served; but we do grudge her that real sacred thing called _love_, even +of a Rawdon Crawley, who has more of that self-forgetting, all-purifying +feeling for his little evil spirit than many a better man has for a good +woman. We do grudge Becky _a heart_, though it belong only to a +swindler. Poor, sinned against, vile, degraded, but still true-hearted +Rawdon!--you stand next in our affections and sympathies to honest +Dobbin himself. It was the instinct of a good nature which made the +Major feel that the stamp of the Evil One was upon Becky; and it was the +stupidity of a good nature which made the Colonel never suspect it. He +was a cheat, a black-leg, an unprincipled dog; but still "Rawdon _is_ a +man, and be hanged to him," as the Rector says. We follow him through +the illustrations, which are, in many instances, a delightful +enhancement to the text--as he stands there, with his gentle eyelid, +coarse moustache, and foolish chin, bringing up Becky's coffee-cup with +a kind of dumb fidelity; or looking down at little Rawdon with a more +than paternal tenderness. All Amelia's philoprogenitive idolatries do +not touch us like one fond instinct of "stupid Rawdon." + +Dobbin sheds a halo over all the long-necked, loose-jointed, +Scotch-looking gentlemen of our acquaintance. Flat feet and flap ears +seem henceforth incompatible with evil. He reminds us of one of the +sweetest creations that have appeared from any modern pen--that plain, +awkward, loveable "Long Walter," in Lady Georgina Fullerton's beautiful +novel of "Grantley Manor." Like him, too, in his proper self-respect; for +Dobbin--lumbering, heavy, shy, and absurdly over modest as the ugly fellow +is--is yet true to himself. At one time he seems to be sinking into the +mere abject dangler after Amelia; but he breaks his chains like a man, and +resumes them again like a man, too, although half disenchanted of his +amiable delusion. + +But to return for a moment to Becky. The only criticism we would offer +is one which the author has almost disarmed by making her mother a +Frenchwoman. The construction of this little clever monster is +diabolically French. Such a _lusus naturae_ as a woman without a heart +and conscience would, in England, be a mere brutal savage, and poison +half a village. France is the land for the real Syren, with the woman's +face and the dragon's claws. The genus of Pigeon and Laffarge claims it +for its own--only that our heroine takes a far higher class by not +requiring the vulgar matter of fact of crime to develop her full powers. +It is an affront to Becky's tactics to believe that she could ever be +reduced to so low a resource, or, that if she were, anybody would find +it out. We, therefore, cannot sufficiently applaud the extreme +discretion with which Mr. Thackeray has hinted at the possibly assistant +circumstances of Joseph Sedley's dissolution. A less delicacy of +handling would have marred the harmony of the whole design. Such a +casualty as that suggested to our imagination was not intended for the +light net of Vanity Fair to draw on shore; it would have torn it to +pieces. Besides it is not wanted. Poor little Becky is bad enough to +satisfy the most ardent student of "good books." Wickedness, beyond a +certain pitch, gives no increase of gratification even to the sternest +moralist; and one of Mr. Thackeray's excellences is the sparing quantity +he consumes. The whole _use_, too, of the work--that of generously +measuring one another by this standard--is lost, the moment you convict +Becky of a capital crime. Who can, with any face, liken a dear friend to +a murderess? Whereas now there are no little symptoms of fascinating +ruthlessness, graceful ingratitude, or ladylike selfishness, observable +among our charming acquaintance, that we may not immediately detect to +an inch, and more effectually intimidate by the simple application of +the Becky gauge than by the most vehement use of all ten commandments. +Thanks to Mr. Thackeray, the world is now provided with an _idea_, +which, if we mistake not, will be the skeleton in the corner of every +ball-room and boudoir for a long time to come. Let us leave it intact in +its unique fount and freshness--a Becky, and nothing more. We should, +therefore, advise our readers to cut out that picture of our heroine's +"Second Appearance as Clytemnestra," which casts so uncomfortable a +glare over the latter part of the volume, and, disregarding all hints +and inuendoes, simply to let the changes and chances of this moral life +have due weight in their minds. Jos had been much in India. His was a +bad life; he ate and drank most imprudently, and his digestion was not +to be compared with Becky's. No respectable office would have ensured +"Waterloo Sedley." + +"Vanity Fair" is pre-eminently a novel of the day--not in the vulgar +sense, of which there are too many, but as a literal photograph of the +manners and habits of the nineteenth century, thrown on to paper by the +light of a powerful mind; and one also of the most artistic effect. Mr. +Thackeray has a peculiar adroitness in leading on the fancy, or rather +memory of his readers from one set of circumstances to another by the +seeming chances and coincidences of common life, as an artist leads the +spectator's eye through the subject of his picture by a skilful +repetition of colour. This is why it is impossible to quote from his +book with any justice to it. The whole growth of the narrative is so +matted and interwoven together with tendril-like links and bindings, +that there is no detaching a flower with sufficient length of stalk to +exhibit it to advantage. There is that mutual dependence in his +characters which is the first requisite in painting every-day life: no +one is stuck on a separate pedestal--no one is sitting for his portrait. +There may be one exception--we mean Sir Pitt Crawley, senior; it is +possible, nay, we hardly doubt, that this baronet was closer drawn from +individual life than anybody else in the book; but granting that fact, +the animal was so unique an exception, that we wonder so shrewd an +artist could stick him into a gallery so full of our familiars. The +scenes in Germany, we can believe, will seem to many readers of an +English book hardly less extravagantly absurd--grossly and gratuitously +overdrawn; but the initiated will value them as containing some of the +keenest strokes of truth and humour that "Vanity Fair" exhibits, and not +enjoy them the less for being at our neighbour's expense. For the +thorough appreciation of the chief character they are quite +indispensable too. The whole course of the work may be viewed as the +_Wander-Jahre_ of a far cleverer female, _Wilhelm Meister_. We have +watched her in the ups-and-downs of life--among the humble, the +fashionable, the great, and the pious--and found her ever new, yet ever +the same; but still Becky among the students was requisite to complete +the full measure of our admiration. + +"Jane Eyre," as a work, and one of equal popularity, is, in almost every +respect, a total contrast to "Vanity Fair." The characters and events, +though some of them masterly in conception, are coined expressly for the +purpose of bringing out great effects. The hero and heroine are beings +both so singularly unattractive that the reader feels they can have no +vocation in the novel but to be brought together; and they do things +which, though not impossible, lie utterly beyond the bounds of +probability. On this account a short sketch of the plan seems requisite; +not but what it is a plan familiar enough to all readers of novels-- +especially those of the old school and those of the lowest school of our +own day. For Jane Eyre is merely another Pamela, who, by the force of +her character and the strength of her principles, is carried +victoriously through great trials and temptations from the man she +loves. Nor is she even a Pamela adapted and refined to modern notions; +for though the story is conducted without those derelictions of decorum +which we are to believe had their excuse in the manners of Richardson's +time, yet it stamped with a coarseness of language and laxity of tone +which have certainly no excuse in ours. It is a very remarkable book: we +have no remembrance of another combining such genuine power with such +horrid taste. Both together have equally assisted to gain the great +popularity it has enjoyed; for in these days of extravagant adoration of +all that bears the stamp of novelty and originality, sheer rudeness and +vulgarity have come in for a most mistaken worship. + +The story is written in the first person. Jane begins with her earliest +recollections, and at once takes possession of the readers' intensest +interest by the masterly picture of a strange and oppressed child she +raises up in a few strokes before him. She is an orphan, and a dependant +in the house of a selfish, hard-hearted aunt, against whom the +disposition of the little Jane chafes itself in natural antipathy, till +she contrives to make the unequal struggle as intolerable to her +oppressor as it is to herself. She is, therefore, at eight years of age, +got rid of to a sort of Dothegirls Hall, where she continues to enlist +our sympathies for a time with her little pinched fingers, cropped hair, +and empty stomach. But things improve: the abuses of the institution are +looked into. The Puritan patron, who holds that young orphan girls are +only safely brought up upon the rules of La Trappe, is superseded by an +enlightened committee--the school assumes a sound English character-- +Jane progresses duly from scholar to teacher, and passes ten profitable +and not unhappy years at Lowood. Then she advertises for a situation as +governess, and obtains one immediately in one of the midland counties. +We see her, therefore, as she leaves Lowood, to enter upon a new life--a +small, plain, odd creature, who has been brought up dry upon school +learning, and somewhat stunted accordingly in mind and body, and who is +now thrown upon the world as ignorant of its ways, and as destitute of +its friendships, as a shipwrecked mariner upon a strange coast. + +Thornfield Hall is the property of Mr. Rochester--a bachelor addicted to +travelling. She finds it at first in all the peaceful prestige of an +English gentleman's seat when "nobody is at the hall." The companions +are an old decayed gentlewoman housekeeper--a far away cousin of the +squire's--and a young French child, Jane's pupil, Mr. Rochester's ward +and reputed daughter. There is a pleasing monotony in the summer +solitude of the old country house, with its comfort, respectability, and +dulness, which Jane paints to the life; but there is one circumstance +which varies the sameness and casts a mysterious feeling over the scene. +A strange laugh is heard from time to time in a distant part of the +house--a laugh which grates discordantly upon Jane's ear. She listens, +watches, and inquires, but can discover nothing but a plain matter of +fact woman, who sits sewing somewhere in the attics, and goes up and +down stairs peaceably to and from her dinner with the servants. But a +mystery there is, though nothing betrays it, and it comes in with +marvellous effect from the monotonous reality of all around. After +awhile Mr. Rochester comes to Thornfield, and sends for the child and +her governess occasionally to bear him company. He is a dark, +strange-looking man--strong and large--of the brigand stamp, with fine +eyes and lowering brows--blunt and sarcastic in his manners, with a kind +of misanthropical frankness, which seems based upon utter contempt for +his fellow-creatures and a surly truthfulness which is more rudeness than +honesty. With his arrival disappears all the prestige of country +innocence that had invested Thornfield Hall. He brings the taint of the +world upon him, and none of its illusions. The queer little governess is +something new to him. He talks to her at one time imperiously as to a +servant, and at another recklessly as to a man. He pours into her ears +disgraceful tales of his past life, connected with the birth of little +Adele, which any man with common respect for a woman, and that a mere +girl of eighteen, would have spared her; but which eighteen in this case +listens to as if it were nothing new, and certainly nothing distasteful. +He is captious and Turk-like--she is one day his confidant, and another +his unnoticed dependant. In short, by her account, Mr. Rochester is a +strange brute, somewhat in the Squire Western style of absolute and +capricious eccentricity, though redeemed in him by signs of a cultivated +intellect, and gleams of a certain fierce justice of heart. He has a +_mind_, and when he opens it at all, he opens it freely to her. Jane +becomes attached to her "master," as Pamela-like she calls him, and it +is not difficult to see that solitude and propinquity are taking effect +upon him also. An odd circumstance heightens the dawning romance. Jane +is awoke one night by that strange discordant laugh close to her ear-- +then a noise as if hands feeling along the wall. She rises--opens her +door, finds the passage full of smoke, is guided by it to her master's +room, whose bed she discovers enveloped in flames, and by her timely aid +saves his life. After this they meet no more for ten days, when Mr. +Rochester returns from a visit to a neighbouring family, bringing with +him a housefull of distinguished guests; at the head of whom is Miss +Blanche Ingram, a haughty beauty of high birth, and evidently the +especial object of the Squire's attentions--upon which tumultuous +irruption Miss Eyre slips back into her naturally humble position. + +Our little governess is now summoned away to attend her aunt's death-bed, +who is visited by some compunctions towards her, and she is absent +a month. When she returns Thornfield Hall is quit of all its guests, and +Mr. Rochester and she resume their former life of captious cordiality on +the one side, and diplomatic humility on the other. At the same time the +bugbear of Miss Ingram and of Mr. Rochester's engagement with her is +kept up, though it is easy to see that this and all concerning that lady +is only a stratagem to try Jane's character and affection upon the most +approved Griselda precedent. Accordingly an opportunity for explanation +ere long offers itself, where Mr. Rochester has only to take it. Miss +Eyre is desired to walk with him in shady alleys, and to sit with him on +the roots of an old chestnut-tree towards the close of evening, and of +course she cannot disobey her "master"--whereupon there ensues a scene +which, as far as we remember, is new equally in art or nature; in which +Miss Eyre confesses her love--whereupon Mr. Rochester drops not only his +cigar (which she seems to be in the habit of lighting for him) but his +mask, and finally offers not only heart, but hand. The wedding day is +soon fixed, but strange misgivings and presentiments haunt the young +lady's mind. The night but one before her bed-room is entered by a +horrid phantom, who tries on the wedding veil, sends Jane into a swoon +of terror, and defeats all the favourite refuge of a bad dream by +leaving the veil in two pieces. But all is ready. The bride has no +friends to assist--the couple walk to church--only the clergyman and the +clerk are there--but Jane's quick eye has seen two figures lingering +among the tombstones, and these two follow them into church. The +ceremony commences, when at the due charge which summons any man to come +forward and show just cause why they should not be joined together, a +voice interposes to forbid the marriage. There is an impediment, and a +serious one. The bridegroom has a wife not only living, but living under +the very roof of Thornfield Hall. Hers was that discordant laugh which +had so often caught Jane's ear; she it was who in her malice had tried +to burn Mr. Rochester in his bed--who had visited Jane by night and torn +her veil, and whose attendant was that same pretended sew-woman who had +so strongly excited Jane's curiosity. For Mr. Rochester's wife is a +creature, half fiend, half maniac, whom he had married in a distant part +of the world, and whom now, in self-constituted code of morality, he had +thought it his right, and even his duty, to supersede by a more +agreeable companion. Now follow scenes of a truly tragic power. This is +the grand crisis in Jane's life. Her whole soul is wrapt up in Mr. +Rochester. He has broken her trust, but not diminished her love. He +entreats her to accept all that he still can give, his heart and his +home; he pleads with the agony not only of a man who has never known +what it was to conquer a passion, but of one who, by that same +self-constituted code, now burns to atone for a disappointed crime. There +is no one to help her against him or against herself. Jane had no friends +to stand by her at the altar, and she has none to support her now she is +plucked away from it. There is no one to be offended or disgraced at her +following him to the sunny land of Italy, as he proposes, till the +maniac should die. There is no duty to any one but to herself, and this +feeble reed quivers and trembles beneath the overwhelming weight of love +and sophistry opposed to it. But Jane triumphs; in the middle of the +night she rises--glides out of her room--takes off her shoes as she +passes Mr. Rochester's chamber;--leaves the house, and casts herself +upon a world more desert than ever to her-- + + Without a shilling and without a friend. + +Thus the great deed of self-conquest is accomplished; Jane has passed +through the fire of temptation from without and from within; her +character is stamped from that day; we need therefore follow her no +further into wanderings and sufferings which, though not unmixed with +plunder from Minerva-lane, occupy some of, on the whole, the most +striking chapters in the book. Virtue of course finds her reward. The +maniac wife sets fire to Thornfield Hall, and perishes herself in the +flames. Mr. Rochester, in endeavouring to save her, loses the sight of +his eyes. Jane rejoins her blind master; they are married, after which +of course the happy man recovers his sight. + +Such is the outline of a tale in which, combined with great materials +for power and feeling, the reader may trace gross inconsistencies and +improbabilities, and chief and foremost that highest moral offence a +novel writer can commit, that of making an unworthy character +interesting in the eyes of the reader. Mr. Rochester is a man who +deliberately and secretly seeks to violate the laws both of God and man, +and yet we will be bound half our lady readers are enchanted with him +for a model of generosity and honour. We would have thought that such a +hero had had no chance, in the purer taste of the present day; but the +popularity of Jane Eyre is a proof how deeply the love for illegitimate +romance is implanted in our nature. Not that the author is strictly +responsible for this. Mr. Rochester's character is tolerably consistent. +He is made as coarse and as brutal as can in all conscience be required +to keep our sympathies at a distance. In point of literary consistency +the hero is at all events impugnable, though we cannot say as much for +the heroine. + +As to Jane's character--there is none of that harmonious unity about it +which made little Becky so grateful a subject of analysis--nor are the +discrepancies of that kind which have their excuse and their response in +our nature. The inconsistencies of Jane's character lie mainly not in +her own imperfections, though of course she has her share, but in the +author's. There is that confusion in the relations between cause and +effect, which is not so much untrue to human nature as to human art. The +error in Jane Eyre is, not that her character is this or that, but that +she is made one thing in the eyes of her imaginary companions, and +another in that of the actual reader. There is a perpetual disparity +between the account she herself gives of the effect she produces, and +the means shown us by which she brings that effect about. We hear +nothing but self-eulogiums on the perfect tact and wondrous penetration +with which she is gifted, and yet almost every word she utters offends +us, not only with the absence of these qualities, but with the positive +contrasts of them, in either her pedantry, stupidity, or gross +vulgarity. She is one of those ladies who puts us in the unpleasant +predicament of undervaluing their very virtues for dislike of the person +in whom they are represented. One feels provoked as Jane Eyre stands +before us--for in the wonderful reality of her thoughts and +descriptions, she seems accountable for all done in her name--with +principles you must approve in the main, and yet with language and +manners that offend you in every particular. Even in that _chef-d'oeuvre_ +of brilliant retrospective sketching, the description of her +early life, it is the childhood and not the child that interests you. +The little Jane, with her sharp eyes and dogmatic speeches, is a being +you neither could fondle nor love. There is a hardness in her infantine +earnestness, and a spiteful precocity in her reasoning, which repulses +all our sympathy. One sees that she is of a nature to dwell upon and +treasure up every slight and unkindness, real or fancied, and such +natures we know are surer than any others to meet with plenty of this +sort of thing. As the child, so also the woman--an uninteresting, +sententious, pedantic thing; with no experience of the world, and yet +with no simplicity or freshness in its stead. What are her first answers +to Mr. Rochester but such as would have quenched all interest, even for +a prettier woman, in any man of common knowledge of what was nature--and +especially in a _blase_ monster like him? + + * * * * * + +But the crowning scene is the offer--governesses are said to be sly on +such occasions, but Jane out-governesses them all--little Becky would +have blushed for her. They are sitting together at the foot of the old +chestnut tree, as we have already mentioned, towards the close of +evening, and Mr. Rochester is informing her, with his usual delicacy of +language, that he is engaged to Miss Ingram--"a strapper! Jane, a real +strapper!"--and that as soon as he brings home his bride to Thornfield, +she, the governess, must "trot forthwith"--but that he shall make it his +duty to look out for employment and an asylum for her--indeed, that he +has already heard of a charming situation in the depths of Ireland--all +with a brutal jocoseness which most women of spirit, unless grievously +despairing of any other lover, would have resented, and any woman of +sense would have seen through. But Jane, that profound reader of the +human heart, and especially of Mr. Rochester's, does neither. She meekly +hopes she may be allowed to stay where she is till she has found another +shelter to betake herself to--she does not fancy going to Ireland--Why? + + "It is a long way off, Sir." "No matter--a girl of your sense will not + object to the voyage or the distance." "Not the voyage, but the + distance, Sir; and then the sea is a barrier--" "From what, Jane?" + "From England, and from Thornfield; and--" "Well?" "From _you_, Sir." + --vol. ii, p. 205. + +and then the lady bursts into tears in the most approved fashion. + +Although so clever in giving hints, how wonderfully slow she is in +taking them! Even when, tired of his cat's play, Mr. Rochester proceeds +to rather indubitable demonstrations of affection--"enclosing me in his +arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips"--Jane +has no idea what he can mean. Some ladies would have thought it high +time to leave the Squire alone with his chestnut tree; or, at all +events, unnecessary to keep up that tone of high-souled feminine +obtusity which they are quite justified in adopting if gentlemen will +not speak out--but Jane again does neither. Not that we say she was +wrong, but quite the reverse, considering the circumstances of the case-- +Mr. Rochester was her master, and "Duchess or nothing" was her first +duty--only she was not quite so artless as the author would have us +suppose. + +But if the manner in which she secures the prize be not inadmissible +according to the rules of the art, that in which she manages it when +caught, is quite without authority or precedent, except perhaps in the +servants' hall. Most lover's play is wearisome and nonsensical to the +lookers on--but the part Jane assumes is one which could only be +efficiently sustained by the substitution of Sam for her master. Coarse +as Mr. Rochester is, one winces for him under the infliction of this +housemaid _beau ideal_ of the arts of coquetry. A little more, and we +should have flung the book aside to lie for ever among the trumpery with +which such scenes ally it; but it were a pity to have halted here, for +wonderful things lie beyond--scenes of suppressed feeling, more fearful +to witness than the most violent tornados of passion--struggles with +such intense sorrow and suffering as it is sufficient misery to know +that any one should have conceived, far less passed through; and yet +with that stamp of truth which takes precedence in the human heart +before actual experience. The flippant, fifth-rate, plebeian actress has +vanished, and only a noble, high-souled woman, bound to us by the +reality of her sorrow, and yet raised above us by the strength of her +will, stands in actual life before us. If this be Jane Eyre, the author +has done her injustice hitherto, not we. + + * * * * * + +We have said that this was the picture of a natural heart. This, to our +view, is the great and crying mischief of the book. Jane Eyre is +throughout the personification of an unregenerate and undisciplined +spirit, and more dangerous to exhibit from that prestige of principle +and self-control which is liable to dazzle the eye too much for it to +observe the inefficient and unsound foundation on which it rests. It is +true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength, but it is the +strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself. No Christian +grace is perceptible upon her. She has inherited in fullest measure the +worst sin of our fallen nature--the sin of pride. Jane Eyre is proud, +and therefore she is ungrateful too. It pleased God to make her an +orphan, friendless, and penniless--yet she thanks nobody, and least of +all Him, for the food and raiment, the friends, companions, and +instructors of her helpless youth--for the care and education vouchsafed +to her till she was capable in mind as fitted in years to provide for +herself. On the contrary, she looks upon all that has been done for her +not only as her undoubted right, but as falling far short of it. The +doctrine of humility is not more foreign to her mind than it is +repudiated by her heart. It is by her own talents, virtues, and courage +that she is made to attain the summit of human happiness, and, as far as +Jane Eyre's own statement is concerned, no one would think that she owed +anything either to God above or to man below. She flees from Mr. +Rochester, and has not a being to turn to. Why was this? The excellence +of the present institution at Casterton, which succeeded that of Cowan +Bridge near Kirkby Lonsdale--these being distinctly, as we hear, the +original and the reformed Lowoods of the book--is pretty generally +known. Jane had lived there for eight years with 110 girls and fifteen +teachers. Why had she formed no friendships among them? Other orphans +have left the same and similar institutions, furnished with friends for +life, and puzzled with homes to choose from. How comes it that Jane had +acquired neither? Among that number of associates there were surely some +exceptions to what she so presumptuously stigmatises as "the society of +inferior minds." Of course it suited the author's end to represent the +heroine as utterly destitute of the common means of assistance, in order +to exhibit both her trials and her powers of self-support--the whole +book rests on this assumption--but it is one which, under the +circumstances, is very unnatural and very unjust. + +Altogether the auto-biography of Jane Eyre is pre-eminently an +anti-Christian composition. There is throughout it a murmuring against the +comforts of the rich and against the privations of the poor, which, as +far as each individual is concerned, is a murmuring against God's +appointment--there is a proud and perpetual assertion of the rights of +man, for which we find no authority either in God's word or in God's +providence--there is that pervading tone of ungodly discontent which is +at once the most prominent and the most subtle evil which the law and +the pulpit, which all civilized society in fact has at the present day +to contend with. We do not hesitate to say that the tone of mind and +thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code human and +divine abroad, and fostered Chartism and rebellion at home, is the same +which has also written Jane Eyre. + +Still we say again this is a very remarkable book. We are painfully +alive to the moral, religious, and literary deficiencies of the picture, +and such passages of beauty and power as we have quoted cannot redeem +it, but it is impossible not to be spell-bound with the freedom of the +touch. It would be mere hackneyed courtesy to call it "fine writing." It +bears no impress of being written at all, but is poured out rather in +the heat and hurry of an instinct, which flows ungovernably on to its +object, indifferent by what means it reaches it, and unconscious too. As +regards the author's chief object, however, it is a failure--that, +namely, of making a plain, odd woman, destitute of all the conventional +features of feminine attraction, interesting in our sight. We deny that +he has succeeded in this. Jane Eyre, in spite of some grand things about +her, is a being totally uncongenial to our feelings from beginning to +end. We acknowledge her firmness--we respect her determination--we feel +for her struggles; but, for all that, and setting aside higher +considerations, the impression she leaves on our mind is that of a +decidedly vulgar-minded woman--one whom we should not care for as an +acquaintance, whom we should not seek as a friend, whom we should not +desire for a relation, and whom we should scrupulously avoid for a +governess. + +There seems to have arisen in the novel-reading world some doubts as to +who really wrote this book; and various rumours, more or less romantic, +have been current in Mayfair, the metropolis of gossip, as to the +authorship. For example, Jane Eyre is sentimentally assumed to have +proceeded from the pen of Mr. Thackeray's governess, whom he had himself +chosen as his model of Becky, and who, in mingled love and revenge, +personified him in return as Mr. Rochester. In this case, it is evident +that the author of "Vanity Fair," whose own pencil makes him grey-haired, +has had the best of it, though his children may have had the +worst, having, at all events, succeeded in hitting the vulnerable point +in the Becky bosom, which it is our firm belief no man born of woman, +from her Soho to her Ostend days, had ever so much as grazed. To this +ingenious rumour the coincidence of the second edition of Jane Eyre +being dedicated to Mr. Thackeray has probably given rise. For our parts, +we see no great interest in the question at all. The first edition of +Jane Eyre purports to be edited by Currer Bell, one of a trio of +brothers, or sisters, or cousins, by names Currer, Acton, and Ellis +Bell, already known as the joint-authors of a volume of poems. The +second edition the same--dedicated, however, "by the author," to Mr. +Thackeray; and the dedication (itself an indubitable _chip_ of Jane +Eyre) signed Currer Bell. Author and editor therefore are one, and we +are as much satisfied to accept this double individual under the name of +"Currer Bell," as under any other, more or less euphonious. Whoever it +be, it is a person who, with great mental powers, combines a total +ignorance of the habits of society, a great coarseness of taste, and a +heathenish doctrine of religion. And as these characteristics appear +more or less in the writings of all three, Currer, Acton, and Ellis +alike, for their poems differ less in degree of power than in kind, we +are ready to accept the fact of their identity or of their relationship +with equal satisfaction. At all events there can be no interest attached +to the writer of "Wuthering Heights "--a novel succeeding "Jane Eyre," +and purporting to be written by Ellis Bell--unless it were for the sake +of more individual reprobation. For though there is a decided family +likeness between the two, yet the aspect of the Jane and Rochester +animals in their native state, as Catherine and Heathfield +[Transcriber's note: sic], is too odiously and abominably pagan to be +palatable even to the most vitiated class of English readers. With all +the unscrupulousness of the French school of novels it combines that +repulsive vulgarity in the choice of its vice which supplies its own +antidote. The question of authorship, therefore, can deserve a moment's +curiosity only as far as "Jane Eyre" is concerned, and though we cannot +pronounce that it appertains to a real Mr. Currer Bell and to no other, +yet that it appertains to a man, and not, as many assert, to a woman, we +are strongly inclined to affirm. Without entering into the question +whether the power of the writing be above her, or the vulgarity below +her, there are, we believe, minutiae of circumstantial evidence which at +once acquit the feminine hand. No woman--a lady friend, whom we are +always happy to consult, assures us--makes mistakes in her own _metier_-- +no woman _trusses game_ and garnishes dessert-dishes with the same +hands, or talks of so doing in the same breath. Above all, no woman +attires another in such fancy dresses as Jane's ladies assume--Miss +Ingram coming down, irresistible, "in a _morning_ robe of sky-blue +crape, a gauze azure scarf twisted in her hair!!" No lady, we +understand, when suddenly roused in the night, would think of hurrying +on "_a frock_." They have garments more convenient for such occasions, +and more becoming too. This evidence seems incontrovertible. Even +granting that these incongruities were purposely assumed, for the sake +of disguising the female pen, there is nothing gained; for if we ascribe +the book to a woman at all, we have no alternative but to ascribe it to +one who has, for some sufficient reason, long forfeited the society of +her own sex. + + + + +ON GEORGE ELIOT + +[From _The Quarterly Review_, October, 1860] + +1. _Scenes of Clerical Life_ [containing _The Sad Fortunes of the +Reverend Amos Barton; Mr. Gilfil's Love Story_; and _Janet's +Repentance_]. By GEORGE ELIOT. Second Edition. 2 vols. Edinburgh and +London, 1859. + +2. _Adam Bede_. By GEORGE ELIOT. Sixth Edition, 2 vols. 1859. + +3. _The Mill on the Floss_. By GEORGE ELIOT. 3 vols. 1860. + + +We frequently hear the remark, that in the present day everything is +tending to uniformity--that all minds are taught to think alike, that +the days of novelty have departed. To us, however, it appears that the +age abounds in new and abnormal modes of thought--we had almost said, +forms of being. What could be so new and so unlikely as that the young +and irreproachable maiden daughter of a clergyman should have produced +so extraordinary a work as "Jane Eyre,"--a work of which we were +compelled to express the opinion that the unknown and mysterious "Currer +Bell" held "a heathenish doctrine of religion"; that the ignorance which +the book displayed as to the proprieties of female dress was hardly +compatible with the idea of its having been written by a woman; but +that, if a woman at all, the writer must be "one who had, for some +sufficient reason, long forfeited the society of her own sex." + +In attempting to guess at the character and circumstances of the writer, +a reviewer could only choose among such types of men and women as he had +known, or heard, or read of. An early European settler in Australia, in +conjecturing whether his garden had been ravaged by a bird or by a +quadruped, would not light readily on the conception of an +ornithorhynchus; and assuredly no one accustomed only to ordinary men +and women could have divined the character, the training, and the +position of Charlotte Bronte, as they have been made known to us by her +biographer's unsparing revelations. It was not to be expected that any +one should have imagined the life of Howorth [Trasncriber's note: sic] +parsonage; the gifted, wayward, and unhappy sisterhood in their +cheerless home; the rudeness of the only society which was within their +reach; while their views of anything beyond their own immediate circle, +and certain unpleasing forms of school-life which they had known, were +drawn from the representations of a brother whose abilities they +regarded with awe, but who in other respects appears to have been an +utterly worthless debauchee; lying and slandering, bragging not only of +the sins which he had committed, but of many which he had not committed; +thoroughly depraved himself, and tainting the thoughts of all within his +sphere. There was, therefore, in "Jane Eyre," as the reviewer supposed, +the influence of a corrupt male mind, although this influence had been +exerted through an unsuspected medium. We now know how it was that a +clergyman's daughter, herself innocent, and honourably devoted to the +discharge of many a painful duty, could have written such a book as +"Jane Eyre" but without such explanations as Mrs. Gaskell has placed +(perhaps somewhat too unreservedly) before the world, the thing would +have been inconceivable. Indeed there is very sufficient evidence that +the Quarterly reviewer was by no means alone in entertaining the +opinions we have referred to: for the book was most vehemently cried up-- +the society of the authoress, when she became known, was most eagerly +courted--assiduous attempts were made (greatly to her annoyance) to +enlist her, to exhibit her, to trade on her fame--by the very persons +who would have been most ready to welcome her if she had been such as +the reviewer supposed her to be. And it is clear that the gentleman who +introduced himself to her acquaintance on the ground that each of them +had "written a naughty book" must have drawn pretty much the same +conclusions from the tone of Miss Bronte's first novel as the writer in +this Review. + +In like manner a great and remarkable departure from ordinary forms and +conditions has caused extreme uncertainty and many mistaken guesses as +to the new novelist who writes under the name of George Eliot. One +critic of considerable pretensions, for instance, declared his belief +that "George Eliot" was "a gentleman of high-church tendencies"; next +came the strange mystification which ascribed the "Eliot" tales to one +Mr. Joseph Liggins; and finally, the public learnt on authority that the +"gentleman of high church tendencies" was a lady; and that this lady was +the same who had given a remarkable proof of mastery over both the +German language and her own, but had certainly not established a +reputation for orthodoxy, by a translation of Strauss's "Life of Jesus." + +It is now too late to claim credit for having discovered the female +authorship before this disclosure of the fact. But it seems to us +impossible, when once the idea has been suggested, to read through these +books without finding confirmation of it in almost every page. There is, +indeed, power such as is rarely given to woman (or to man either); there +are traces of knowledge which is not usual among women (although some of +the classical quotations might at least have been more correctly +printed); there is a good deal of coarseness, which it is unpleasant to +think of as the work of a woman; and, as we shall have occasion to +observe more fully hereafter, the influence which these novels are +likely to exercise over the public taste is not altogether such as a +woman should aim at. But, with all this, the tone and atmosphere of the +books are unquestionably feminine. The men are a woman's men--the women +are a woman's women; the points on which the descriptions dwell in +persons of each sex are those which a woman would choose. In matters of +dress we are assured that "George Eliot" avoids the errors of "Jane +Eyre"; for no doubt she has had better opportunities of study than those +which were afforded by the Sunday finery of Howorth church. The sketches +of nature, of character, of life and manners, show female observation; +penetrating where it alone could penetrate, and usually stopping at the +boundaries beyond which it does not advance.... + +On looking at these very slight sketches we cannot but be struck by the +uniformly melancholy ending of the tales. The first culminates in the +death of the heroine (a word which in relation to these stories must be +very loosely interpreted), Mrs. Barton; the second, in the death of the +heroine, Mrs. Gilfil; the third, in the death of the hero, Mr. Tryan; +the fourth, in the death of one of the heroines, Hetty Sorrel; the +fifth, in the simultaneous death of the heroine and her brother, who is, +we suppose, to be regarded as the chief hero. Surely this is an +exaggerated representation of the proportion which sorrow bears to +happiness in human life; and the fact that a popular writer has (whether +consciously or not) brought every one of the five stories which she has +published to a tragical end gives a very uncomfortable idea of the tone +of our present literature. And other such symptoms are only too +plentiful--the announcement of a novel with the title of "Why Paul +Freeoll Killed his Wife" being one of the latest. With all respect for +the talents of the lady who offers us the solution of this question, we +must honestly profess that we would rather not know, and that we regret +such an employment of her pen. + +And in "George Eliot's" writings there is very much of this kind to +regret. She delights in unpleasant subjects--in the representation of +things which are repulsive, coarse, and degrading. Thus, in "Mr. +Gilfil's Story," Tina is only prevented from committing murder by the +opportune death of her intended victim. In "Janet's Repentance," a +drunken husband beats his beautiful but drunken wife, turns her out of +doors at midnight in her night-dress, and dies of "_delirium tremens_ +and _meningitis_." ... + +So, in "Adam Bede" we have all the circumstances of Hetty's seduction +and the birth and murder of her illegitimate child; and in the "Mill on +the Floss" there are the almost indecent details of mere animal passion +in the loves of Stephen and Maggie. If these are, as the writer's more +thorough-going admirers would tell us, the depths of human nature, we do +not see what good can be expected from raking them up,--not for the +benefit of those whom the warnings may concern (for these are not likely +to heed any warnings which may be presented in such a form), but for the +amusement of ordinary readers in hours of idleness and relaxation. +Compare "Adam Bede" with that one of Scott's novels which has something +in common with it as to story--the "Heart of Midlothian." In each a +beautiful young woman of the peasant class is tried and condemned for +child-murder; but, although condemned on circumstancial evidence under a +law of peculiar severity, Effie Deans is really innocent, whereas Hetty +Sorrel is guilty. In the novel of the last generation we see little of +Effie, and our attention is chiefly drawn to the simple heroism of her +sister Jeanie. In the novel of the present day, everything about Hetty +is most elaborately described: her thoughts throughout the whole course +of the seduction, her misery on discovering that there is evidence of +her frailty, her sufferings on the journey to Windsor and back (for it +is the Edie and not the Jeanie of this tale that makes a long solitary +journey to the south), her despairing hardness in the prison, her +confession, her behaviour on the way to the gallows. That all this is +represented with extraordinary force we need not say; and doubtless the +partisans of "George Eliot" would tell us that Scott could not have +written the chapters in question. We do not think it necessary to +discuss that point, but we are sure that in any case he _would_ not have +written them, because his healthy judgment would have rejected such +matters as unfit for the novelist's art. + +The boldness with which George Eliot chooses her subjects is very +remarkable. It is not that, like other writers, she fails in the attempt +to represent people as agreeable and interesting, but she knowingly +forces _dis_agreeable people on us, and insists that we shall be +interested in their story by the skill with which it is told. Mr. Amos +Barton, for instance, is as uninteresting a person as can well be +imagined: a dull, obtuse curate, whose poverty gives him no fair claim +to pity; for he has entered the ministry of the English Church without +any particular conviction of its superiority to other religious bodies; +without any special fitness for its ministry; without anything of the +ability which might reasonably entitle him to expect to rise; and +without the private means which are necessary for the support of most +married men in a profession which, if it is not (as it is sometimes +called) a lottery, has very great inequalities of income, and to the +vast majority of those who follow it gives very little indeed. Mr. +Barton is not a gentleman--a defect which the farmers and tradespeople +of his parish are not slow to discover, and for which they despise him. +He is without any misgivings as to himself or suspicion of his +deficiencies in any way, and his conduct is correctly described in a +lisping speech of the "secondary squire" of his parish, "What an ath +Barton makth of himthelf!" Yet for this stupid man our sympathy is +bespoken, merely because he has a wife so much too good for him that we +are almost inclined to be angry with her for her devotion to him. + +Tina is an undisciplined, abnormal little creature, without good looks +or any attractive quality except a talent for music, and with a temper +capable of the most furious excesses. Although Janet is described as +handsome, amiable, and cultivated, all these good properties are +overwhelmed in our thoughts of her by the degrading vice of which she is +to be cured; while her prophet, Mr. Tryan, although very zealous in his +work, is avowedly a narrow Calvinist, wanting in intellectual culture, +very irritable, not a little bitter and uncharitable, excessively fond +of applause without being very critical as to the quarter from which it +comes, and strongly possessed with the love of domination. Tom Tulliver +is hard, close, unimaginative, self-confident, repelling, with a stern +rectitude of a certain kind, but with no understanding of or toleration +for any character different from his own. Philip Wakem is a personage as +little pleasant as picturesque. Maggie, as a child--although in her +father's opinion "too clever for a gell"--is foolish, vain, self-willed, +and always in some silly scrape or other; and when grown up, her +behaviour is such, even before the climax of the affair with Stephen +Guest, that the dislike of the St. Ogg's ladies for her might have been +very sufficiently accounted for even if they had not had reason to envy +her superior beauty. + +But of all the characters for whom our authoress has been pleased to +bespeak our interest, Hetty Sorrel is the most remarkable for unamiable +qualities. She is represented as "distractingly pretty," and we hear a +great deal about her "kitten-like beauty," and her graceful movements, +looks, and attitudes. But this is all that can be said for her. Her mind +has no room for anything but looks and dress; she has no feeling for +anybody but her little self; and is only too truly declared by Mrs. +Poyser to be "no better than a peacock, as 'ud strut about on the wall, +and spread its tail when the sun shone, if all the folks i' the parish +was dying"--"no better nor a cherry, wi' a hard stone inside it."[1] +Over and over this view of Hetty's character is enforced on us, from the +time when, early in the first volume, we are told that hers "was a +springtide beauty; it was the beauty of young frisking things, +round-limbed, gambolling, circumventing you by a false air of +innocence.[2] ..." + +[1] "Adam Bede," i. 228; ii. 75. +[2] _ibid_., i. 119. + +Her conduct throughout is such as to offend and disgust; and the +authoress does not seem to be sufficiently aware that, while the +descriptions of the little coquette's beauty leave that to be imagined, +her follies and faults and crimes are set before us as matters of hard, +unmistakeable fact, so that the reader is in no danger of being blinded +by the charms which blinded Adam Bede, and Hetty consequently appears as +little else than contemptible when she is not odious. Yet it is on this +silly, heartless, and wicked little thing that the interest of the story +is made to rest. Her agonies, as we have already said, are depicted with +very great power; yet, if they touch our hearts, it is merely because +they _are_ agonies, and our feeling is unmixed with any regard for the +sufferer herself. + +This habit of representing her characters without any concealment of +their faults is, no doubt, connected with that faculty which enables the +authoress to give them so remarkable an air of reality. There are, +indeed, exceptions to this, as there are in almost every work of +fiction. Thus, Sir Christopher and Lady Cheverel strike us as old +acquaintances whom we have known not in real life, but in books. We are +not altogether sure of stately old Mrs. Irwine, and are sceptical as to +Dinah Morris, notwithstanding the very great pains which the authoress +has evidently bestowed on her--perhaps because she is utterly unlike +such female Methodists as have fallen within our own (happily, small) +experience; and Bob Jakin is a grotesque caricature, which would have +been far better done by Mr. Dickens, who is undeniably great in the +production of grotesques, although we do not remember that throughout +the whole of his voluminous works he has ever succeeded in embodying a +single natural and lifelike character. But, with a very few exceptions, +"George Eliot's" personages have that appearance of reality in which +those of Mr. Dickens are so conspicuously wanting. And while Mr. +Dickens's views of English life and society are about as far from the +truth as those of the French dramatists and romancers, "George Eliot" is +able to represent the social circumstances in which her action is laid +with the strongest appearance of verisimilitude. We may not ourselves +have known Shepperton, or Hayslope, or St. Ogg's; but we feel as much at +home in them as if we had.... + +Tulliver may be cited as another well-imagined and well-executed +character, with his downright impetuous honesty, his hatred of +"raskills," and his disposition to see rascality everywhere; his +resolution to stand on his rights, his good-natured contempt for his +wife, his very justifiable dislike of her sisters, his love for his +children, and his determination that they shall have a good education, +cost what it may,--the benefits of education having been impressed on +his mind by his own inability to "wrap up things in words as aren't +actionable," and by the consequent perception that "it's an uncommon +fine thing, that is, when we can let a man know what you think of him +without paying for it."[1] His love of litigation is reconciled with his +belief that "the law is meant to take care o' raskills," and that "Old +Harry made the lawyers" by the principle that the cause which has the +"biggest raskill" for attorney has the best chance of success; so that +honesty need not despair if it can only secure the professional +assistance of accomplished roguery. And when, notwithstanding this, the +law and Mr. Wakem have been too much for him, great skill is shown in +the description of poor Tulliver's latter days; his prostration and +partial recovery; the concentration of his feelings on the desire to +wipe out the dishonour of insolvency, and to avenge himself on the +hostile attorney. Indeed, we confess that, notwithstanding his somewhat +unedifying end, Tulliver is the only person in "The Mill on the Floss" +for whom we can bring ourselves to care much. + +[1] "The Mill on the Floss," i. 32. + +The reality of which we have been speaking is connected with a peculiar +sort of consciousness in the authoress, as if she had actually witnessed +all that she describes, and were resolved to describe it without any +attempt to refine beyond the naked truth. Thus, the most serious +characters make their most solemn and most pathetic speeches in +provincial dialect and ungrammatical constructions, although it must be +allowed that the authoress has not ventured so far in this way as to +play with the use and abuse of the aspirate. And her dialect appears to +be very carefully studied, although we may doubt whether the +Staffordshire provincialisms of "Clerical Life" and "Adam Bede" are +sufficiently varied when the scene is shifted in the latest book to the +Lincolnshire side of the Humber. But where a greater variation than that +between one midland dialect and another is required, "George Eliot's" +conscientiousness is very curiously shown. There is in "Mr. Gilfil's +Story" a gardener of the name of Bates, who is described as a +Yorkshireman, and in "Adam Bede" there is another gardener, Mr. Craig, +whose name would naturally indicate a Scotchman. Each of these +horticulturists is introduced into the dialogue, and of course the +reader would expect the one to talk Yorkshire and the other to talk some +variety of Scotch. But the authoress, apparently, did not feel herself +mistress of either Scotch or Yorkshire to such a degree as would have +warranted her in attempting them, and therefore, before her characters +are allowed to open their mouths, she, in each case, is careful to tell +us that we must moderate our expectations: "Mr. Bates's lips were of a +peculiar cut, and I fancy this had something to do with the peculiarity +of his dialect, which, as we shall see, was individual rather than +provincial."[1] + +[1] "Scenes of Clerical Life," i. 191. + +"I think it was Mr. Craig's pedigree only that had the advantage of +being Scotch, and not his 'bringing up'; for, except that he had a +stronger burr in his accent, his speech differed little from that of the +Loamshire people around him."[2] In short, except that lucifer matches +are twice introduced as familiar things in days when the tinder-box was +the only resource in general use for obtaining a light,[3] we have not +observed anything in which the authoress could be "caught out." + +[2] "Adam Bede," i. 302. +[3] "Adam Bede," i. 219, 362. + +But this conscientious fidelity has very serious drawbacks. It seems as +if the authoress felt herself under an obligation to give everything +literally as it took place; to shut out nothing which is superfluous; to +suppress nothing which is unfit for a work of fiction (for not only have +we a report of Dinah Morris's sermons, but the very words of the prayer +which she put up for Hetty in the prison); to abridge nothing which is +tiresome. People and incidents are described at length, although they +have little or nothing to do with the story. We may mention as instances +the detailed history and character which are given of Tom Tulliver's +tutor, the Reverend Walter Stelling, and the account of Mr. Poyser's +harvest-home, which, however good in itself, is utterly out of place +between the crisis and the conclusion of the story. But most especially +we complain of the fondness which the authoress shows for exhibiting +uninteresting and tiresome people in all their interminable tediousness; +and if the morbid tone which we have already mentioned reminds us of a +French school of novelists, her passion for photographing the minutest +details of dullness reminds us painfully of those American ladies who +contribute so largely to the literature of our railway-stalls, by +flooding their boundless prairies of dingy paper with inexhaustible +masses of blotchy type. We quite admit the naturalness of the +tradespeople and other small folks whom this writer has perhaps explored +more deeply than any earlier novelist; but surely we have far too much +of them. It has indeed been said that we are spoiled by the activity of +the present day for enjoying the faithful picture of what life was in +country parishes and in little country towns fifty years ago; but we +really cannot admit the justice of this attempt to throw the blame on +ourselves. Dullness, we may be sure, has not died out within the last +half century, but is yet to be found in plenty; and, if times were dull +fifty or a hundred years ago, the novelists of those days--Scott and +Fielding, and Smollett, and even Goldsmith in his simple tale--did not +make their readers groan under their dullness.... + +But _are_ we likely to feel more kindly towards such people as those of +whom we are now complaining, because all their triviality, and +smallness, and tediousness are displayed at wearisome length on paper? +If some Dutch painters bestowed their skill on homely old women and +boozy boors, there is no evidence that they were capable of better +things, and their choice of subjects is no justification for one who +certainly can do better. Nor do we complain that we have an old woman or +a coarse merrymaking occasionally, but that such things in their +monotonous meanness fill whole rooms of "George Eliot's" gallery; and, +in truth, the real parallel to her is not to be found in the old +Dutchmen who honestly painted what was before their eyes, but rather in +the perverseness of our modern "pre-Raphaelites." It is of these +gentlemen--who, by the way, in their reactionary affectations are the +most entire opposites of the simple, unaffected, and forward-striving +artists who really lived before Raphael--it is of these gentlemen, with +their choice of disagreeable subjects, uncomely models, and uncouth +attitudes, their bestowal of superfluous labour on trifling details, and +the consequent obtrusiveness of subordinate things so as to mar the +general effect of the work, that "George Eliot" too often reminds us. + +How very wearisome is the conversation of the clique of inferior women +who worship Mr. Tryan! how dismally twaddling is that respectable old +congregationalist, Mr. Jerome, with his tidy little garden and his +"littel chacenut hoss"! We feel for Mr. Tryan when in the society of +such people, although to him it was mitigated by the belief that he was +doing good by associating with them, and that by love of incense from +any quarter which is described as part of his character. But why should +it be inflicted in such fearful doses on us, who have done nothing to +deserve it, who have no "mission" to encounter it, and are entirely +without Mr. Tryan's consolations under the endurance of it? + +Adam Bede's mother is another sore trial of the reader's patience--with +her endless fretful chatter, and all the details of her urging her sons, +one after the other, to refresh themselves with cold potatoes: nay, we +are not reconciled to these vegetables even by the fact that on one +occasion they are recommended as "taters wi' the gravy in 'em."[1] But +it is in "The Mill on the Floss" that the plague of tedious conversation +reaches its height. Mrs. Tulliver is one of four married sisters, whose +maiden name had been Dodson, and in these sisters there is a studious +combination of family likeness with individual varieties of character. +Mrs. Tulliver herself--whose "blond" complexion is generally associated +by our authoress with imbecility of mind and character--belongs to that +class of minds of which Mrs. Quickly may be considered as the chief +intellectual type. Mrs. Pullet--the wife of a gentleman farmer, whose +great characteristic is a habit of sucking lozenges, and whom Tom +Tulliver most justly sets down as a "nincompoop"--is almost sillier than +Mrs. Tulliver. She has the gift of tears ever ready to flow, and sheds +them profusely on the anticipation of imaginary and ridiculous woes. Her +favourite vanity consists in drawing dismal pictures of the future and +in priding herself on the bodily sufferings of her neighbours; that one +had "been tapped no end o' times, and the water--they say you might ha' +swum in it if you'd liked"; that another's "breath was short to that +degree as you could hear him two rooms off"; and her highest religion-- +the loftiest exercise of her faith and self-denial--is the accumulation +of superfluous clothes and linen, in the hope that they may make a +creditable display after her death. Mrs. Deane is "a thin-lipped woman, +who made small well-considered speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating +them afterwards to her husband, and asking him if she had not spoken +very properly"; and of her we see but little. But of the eldest of the +four, Mrs. Glegg, we see so much that we are really made quite +uncomfortable by her; for she is a very formidable person indeed,-- +utterly without kindness, bullying everybody within her reach (her +husband included), holding herself up as a model to everybody, and +shaming all other families--especially those into which she and her +sisters had married--by odious comparisons with the Dodsons. All this we +grant is very cleverly done. The grim Mrs. Glegg and the fatuous Mrs. +Tulliver and Mrs. Pullet talk admirably in their respective kinds; and +we can quite believe that there are people who are not unfairly +represented by the Dodsons--with, the narrow limitation of their +thoughts to their own little circle--the extravagantly high opinion of +their own vulgar family, with the corresponding depreciation of all in +and about their own rank who do not belong to it--their perfect +conviction that their own family traditions (such as the copious eating +of salt in their broth) are the standard of all that is good--their +consecration of all their most elevated feelings to the worship of +furniture, and clothes, and table-linen, and silver spoons--their utter +alienation from all that, in the opinion of educated people, can make +life fit to be enjoyed. The humour of Mrs. Glegg's determination that no +ill desert of a relation shall interfere with the disposal of her +property by will on the most rigidly Dodsonian principles of justice, +according to the several degrees of Dodsonship, is excellent; and so is +the change in her behaviour towards Maggie, whom, after having always +bullied her, she takes up for the sake of Dodsondom's credit when +everybody else has turned against her.... + +[1] "Adam Bede," i. 54. + +The writer does not seem to be aware that the fools and bores of a book, +while they bore the other characters, ought not to bore but to amuse the +reader, and that they will become seriously wearisome to him if there be +too much of them. Shakespeare has contented himself with showing us his +Dogberry and Verges, his Shallow and Slender, and Silence, to such a +degree as may sufficiently display their humours; but he has not filled +whole acts with them, and, even if he had, a five-act play is a small +field for the display of prolix foolishness as compared with a +three-volume novel. Lord Macaulay has been supposed to speak sarcastically +in saying that he "would not advise any person who reads for amusement to +venture on a certain _jeu d'esprit_ of Mr. Sadler's as long as he can +procure a volume of the Statutes at Large";[1] but we are afraid that we +should not be believed if we were to mention the books to which _we_ +have had recourse by way of occasional relief from the task of perusing +"George Eliot's" tales. + +[1] "Miscellaneous Writings," ii. 68. + +In the case of "these emmet-like Dodsons and Tullivers," the authoress +again defends her principle. "I share with you," she says, "the sense of +oppressive narrowness; but it is necessary that we should feel it, if we +care to understand how it acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie."[2] We +must confess that we care very little for Tom and Maggie, who, although +the inscription on their tombstone and the motto on the title-page of +the book tell us that "in their death they were not divided," do not +strike us as having been "lovely and pleasant in their lives." We do not +think the development of the brother and the sister a matter of any +great interest; and, if it were, we believe that a sufficient ground +might have been laid for our understanding it without so severely trying +our patience by the details of the "sordid life" amid which their early +years were spent. + +[2] "The Mill on the Floss," ii. 150. + +Another mistake, as it appears to us, is the too didactic strain into +which the authoress occasionally falls--writing as if for the purpose of +forcing lessons on children or the poor, rather than for grown-up and +educated readers. The story of "Janet's Repentance" might, with the +omission of a few passages such as the satirical flings at Mr. Tryan's +female worshippers, be made into a very edifying little tract for some +"evangelical" society. Mr. Tryan's opponents are all represented as +brutes and monsters, drunkards and unclean, enemies of all goodness; +while, with the usual unscrupulousness of party tract-writers, we are +required to choose between an alliance with such infamous company and +unreserved adhesion to the Calvanistic curate, without being allowed any +possibility of a third course. And, in addition to Mr. Tryan's victory, +there is the conversion of Mrs. Dempster, not only from drunkenness to +teetotalism (which might form the text for a set of illustrations by Mr. +Cruikshank, in the moral style of his later days), but from hatred to +love of the Gospel according to Mr. Tryan. In its place we should not +care to object to such a story, or to a great deal of the needless talk +which it contains both of sinners and of saints; but we _do_ object to +it in a book which is intended for the lighter reading of educated +people, and the more so because we know that it comes from a writer who +can feel nothing of the bitter but conscientious bigotry which the +composition of such a story in good faith implies.... + +In reading of Maggie's early indiscretions, we--hardened, grey-headed +reviewers as we are--feel something like a renewal of the shame and +mortification with which, long decades of years ago, we read of the +weaknesses of Frank and Rosamond,--as if we ourselves were the little +girl who made the mistake of choosing the big, bright-coloured bottle +from the chemist's window, or the little boy who allowed himself to be +deceived by the flattery of the lady in the draper's shop. In order that +her hair may have no chance of appearing in curls on a great occasion +(according to her mother's wish), Maggie plunges her head into a basin +of water. On getting an old dress and a bonnet from her unloved aunt +Glegg, she bastes the frock along with the roast beef on the following +Sunday, and souses the bonnet under the pump. In consequence of the +continual remarks of her mother and aunts, about the un-Dodsonlike +colour of her hair, she cuts it all off. She makes the most deplorable +exhibition of her literary vanity at every turn. Out of spite she pushes +her cousin Lucy, when arrayed in the prettiest of dresses, into the +"cow-trodden mud," and thereupon she runs off to a gang of gipsies, with +the intention of becoming their queen,--an adventure from which we are +glad that she is allowed to escape with less of suffering than Miss +Edgeworth might perhaps have felt it a matter of duty to inflict on her. +For the Toms and Maggies, the Franks and Rosamonds, of real life, such +monitory anecdotes as these may be very good and useful; but it seems to +us that they are out of place in a book intended for readers who have +got beyond the early domestic schoolroom. + +We cannot praise the construction of these tales. The plots are very +slight; the narrative drags painfully in some parts, and in other parts +the authoress has recourse to very violent expedients, as where she +brings in the "startling Adelphi stage-effect" of the flood to drown Tom +and Maggie, in order to escape from the unmanageable complication of her +story. Both in "Adam Bede" and in "The Mill on the Floss" the chief +interest is over long before the tale comes to an end; and in looking at +the whole series together we see something of repetition. Thus, both +Tina and Hetty set their hearts on a young man above their own position, +and turn a deaf ear to a longer-known, more suitable, and worthier +suitor. Each disappears at a critical time, and each, after a +disappointment in the higher quarter, falls back on a marriage with the +humbler admirer; with the difference, however, that, as Hetty had +committed murder, and as Tina had just been saved from doing so, the +marriage in the first case never actually takes place, and in the second +it ends after a few months. And as a smaller instance of repetition, we +may compare the bedroom visit of the seraphic Dinah Morris to the +earthly Hetty with that of the pattern Lucy Deane to the tempestuous +Maggie Tulliver. + +There is less of affectation in these books than in most of our recent +novels, yet there is by far too much. Among the portions which are most +infected by this sin we may mention the description of scenery,--thanks, +doubtless, in no small measure, to the influence of that very dangerous +model Mr. Ruskin.... + +Before concluding our article we must notice the authoress's views on +two important subjects which enter largely into her stories--love and +religion. That ladies, of their own accord and uninvited, fall in love +with gentlemen is a common circumstance in novels written by ladies; and +we are very much obliged to Madame D'Arblay, Miss Austen, and the other +writers of the softer sex, who have let us into the knowledge of the +important fact that such is the way in real life. But the peculiarity of +"George Eliot," among English novelists, is that in her books everybody +falls in love with the wrong person. She seems to be continually on the +point of showing us, with the author of "The Rovers"-- + + How two swains one nymph her vows may give, + And how two damsels with one lover live. + +Love is represented as a passion conceived without any ground of +reasonable preference, and as entirely irresistible in its sway. Tina +bestows her affections on Captain Wybrow, while the Captain, without +caring for anybody but himself, is paying his addresses to Miss Assher; +and Mr. Gilfil is pining for Tina, whom, if he had any discernment at +all, he could not but see to be quite unfitted for him. Adam Bede is in +love with the utterly undeserving Hetty, while Dinah Morris and Mary +Burge are both in love with Adam, Hetty with Arthur Donnithorne, and +Seth Bede with Dinah. At last, Hetty is got out of the way, Dinah comes +to a clearer understanding of her feelings towards Adam, and Adam, on +being made aware of this, is set on by his mother to make a successful +proposal; but "quiet Mary Burge" subsides into a bridesmaid, and Seth, +the "poor wool-gatherin' Methodist," is left without any other +consolation than that of worshipping his sister-in-law. + +But it is in "The Mill on the Floss" that the unwholesome view which we +have mentioned finds its most startling development. Maggie is in love +with Philip, and Philip with Maggie; Stephen Guest is in love with Lucy +Deane, and Lucy with Stephen, while at the same time she has an +undeclared admirer in Tom Tulliver. But as soon as Maggie and Stephen +become acquainted with each other, they exercise a powerful mutual +attraction, and the mischief of love (as the passion is represented by +our authoress) breaks loose in terrible force. The reproach which Tom +Tulliver had coarsely thrown in Philip's teeth, that he had taken +advantage of Maggie's inexperience to secure her affections before she +had had any opportunity of comparing him with other men, turns out to be +entirely just. Stephen is a mere underbred coxcomb, and is intended to +appear as such (for we do not think that the authoress has failed in any +attempt to make him a gentleman); his only merit, in so far as we can +discover, is a foolish talent for singing, and, except as to person, he +is infinitely inferior to Philip. But for this mere physical superiority +the lofty-souled Maggie prefers him to the lover whom she had before +loved for his deformity; and the passion is represented as one which no +considerations of moral or religious principle, no regard to the claims +of others, no training derived from the hardships of her former life or +from the ascetic system to which she had at one time been devoted, can +withstand. Here is a delicate scene, which is described as having taken +place in a conservatory, to which the pair had withdrawn on the night of +a ball:-- + + Maggie bent her arm a little upward towards the large half-opened rose + that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm? + --the unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled + elbow, and the varied gently-lessening curves down to the delicate + wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm + softness? + + A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted towards the arm and + showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist. + + But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glanced at him + like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation. + + "How dare you?" she spoke in a deeply-shaken, half-smothered voice: + "what right have I given you to insult me?" + + She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the + sofa panting and trembling.[1] + +[1] iii. 156. + +We should not have blamed the young lady if, like one of Mr. Trollope's +heroines, she had made her admirer feel not only "the beauty of a +woman's arm," but its weight. But, unwarned by the grossness of his +behaviour on this occasion, she is represented as admitting Stephen to +further intercourse; and, although she rescues herself at last, it is +not until after having occasioned irreparable scandal. A good-natured +ordinary novelist might have found an easy solution for the difficulties +of the case at an earlier stage by marrying Stephen to Maggie, and +handing over Lucy (who is far too amiable to object to such a transfer) +to her admiring cousin Tom; while Philip, left in celibacy, might either +have been invested with a pathetic interest, or represented as justly +punished for the offence of forestalling. But George Eliot has higher +aims than ordinary novelists, and to her the transfer which we have +suggested would appear as a profanation. Her characters, therefore, +plunge into all manner of sacrifices of reputation and happiness; and it +is not until Maggie and Tom have been drowned, and Philip's whole life +embittered, that we catch a final view of Mr. Stephen Guest visiting the +grave of the brother and sister in company with the amiable wife, _nee_ +Lucy Deane. If we are to accept the natural moral of this story, it +shows how coarse and immoral a very fastidious and ultra-refined +morality may become. + +It is with reluctance that we go on to notice the religion of these +books; but since religion appears so largely in them, we must not +decline the task. To us, at least, the theory of the writer's "High-Church +tendencies" could never have appeared plausible; for even in the +"Scenes of Clerical Life" the chief religious personage is the +"evangelical" curate Mr. Tryan, and whatever good there is in his parish +is confined to the circle of his partisans and converts; while in "Adam +Bede" the Methodess preacheress, Dinah Morris, is intended to shine with +spotless and incomparable lustre. Yet, although the highest characters, +in a religious view, are drawn from "evangelicism" and Methodism, we +find that neither of these systems is set forth as enough to secure the +perfection of everybody who may choose to profess it.... + +Mr. Parry, although agreeing with Mr. Tryan in opinion, is represented +as no less unpopular and inefficient than Mr. Tryan was the reverse; and +the Reverend Amos Barton is a hopeless specimen of that variety of +"evangelical" clergymen to which the late Mr. Conybeare gave the name of +"low and slow,"--a variety which, we believe, flourishes chiefly in the +midland counties. On the other hand, Mr. Gilfil and Mr. Irwine, +clergymen of the "old school," are held up as objects for our respect +and love; and Mr. Irwine is not only vindicated by Adam Bede in his old +age, in comparison with his evangelical successor Mr. Ryde, but the +question between high and low church, as represented by these two, is +triumphantly settled by a quotation which Adam brings from our old +friend Mrs. Poyser:-- + + Mrs. Poyser used to say--you know she would have her word about + everything--she said Mr. Irwine was like a good meal o' victual, you + were the better for him without thinking on it; and Mr. Ryde was like + a dose o' physic, he griped and worrited you, and after all he left + you much the same.[1] + +[1] "Adam Bede," i. 269. + +In "The Mill on the Floss," too, the "brazen" Mr. Stelling is +represented as "evangelical," in so far as he is anything; while Dr. +Kenn, a very high Anglican, is spoken of with all veneration; although, +perhaps, "George Eliot's" opinion as to the efficiency of the high +Anglican clergy may be gathered from the circumstance that when the +Doctor interferes for the benefit of Maggie Tulliver, he not only fails +to be of any use, but exposes himself to something like the same kind of +gossip which had arisen from Mr. Amos Barton's hospitality to Madame +Czerlaski. As to Methodism, again, the reader need hardly be reminded of +the sayings which we have quoted from Mrs. Poyser. And while the feeble +and "wool-gathering" Seth Bede becomes a convert, the strong-minded Adam +holds out, even although he is so tolerant as to marry a female +Methodist preacher, and to let her enjoy her "liberty of prophesying" +until stopped by a general order of the Wesleyan Conference. + +From all these things the natural inference would seem to be that the +authoress is neither High-Church nor Low-Church nor Dissenter, but a +tolerant member of what is styled the Broad-Church party--a party in +which we are obliged to say that breadth and toleration are by no means +universal. It would seem that, instead of being exclusively devoted to +any one of the religious types which she has embodied in the persons of +her tales (for as yet she has not presented us with a clergyman of any +liberal school), she regards each of them as containing an element of +pure Christianity, which, although in any one of them it may be alloyed +by its adjuncts and by the faults of individuals, is in itself of +inestimable value, and may be held alike by persons who differ widely +from each other as to the forms of religious polity and as to details of +Christian doctrine. + +But what is to be thought of the fact that the authoress of these tales +is also the translator of Strauss's notorious book? Is the Gospel which +she has represented in so many attractive lights nothing better to her, +after all, than "fabula ista de Christo"? Are the various forms under +which she has exhibited it no more for her than the Mahometan and Hindoo +systems were for the poet of Thalaba and Kehama? Has she been carrying +out in these novels the precepts of that chapter in which Dr. Strauss +teaches his disciples how, while believing the New Testament narrative +to be merely mythical, they may yet discharge the functions of the +Christian preacher without exposing themselves by their language to any +imputation of unsoundness? But, even apart from this distressing +question, there is much to interfere with the hope and the interest with +which we should wish to look forward to the future career of a writer so +powerful and so popular as the authoress of these books--much to awaken +very serious apprehensions as to the probable effect of her influence. +No one who has looked at all into our late fictitious literature can +have failed to be struck with the fondness of many of the writers of the +day for subjects which at an earlier time would not have been thought +of, or would have been carefully avoided. The idea that fiction should +contain something to soothe, to elevate, or to purify seems to be +extinct. In its stead there is a love for exploring what would be better +left in obscurity; for portraying the wildness of passion and the +harrowing miseries of mental conflict; for dark pictures of sin and +remorse and punishment; for the discussion of questions which it is +painful and revolting to think of. By some writers such themes are +treated with a power which fascinates even those who most disapprove the +manner in which it is exercised; by others with a feebleness which shows +that the infection has spread even to the most incapable of the +contributors to our circulating libraries. To us the influence of the +"Jack Shepherd" school of literature is really far less alarming than +that of a class of books which is more likely to find its way into the +circles of cultivated readers, and, most especially, to familiarize the +minds of our young women in the middle and higher ranks with matters on +which their fathers and brothers would never venture to speak in their +presence. It is really frightful to think of the interest which we have +ourselves heard such readers express in criminals like Paul Ferroll, and +in sensual ruffians like Mr. Rochester: and there is much in the +writings of "George Eliot" which, on like grounds, we feel ourselves +bound most earnestly to condemn. Let all honour be paid to those who in +our time have laboured to search out and to make known such evils of our +social condition as Christian sympathy may in some degree relieve or +cure. But we do not believe that any good end is to be effected by +fictions which fill the mind with details of imaginary vice and distress +and crime, or which teach it--instead of endeavouring after the +fulfilment of simple and ordinary duty--to aim at the assurance of +superiority by creating for itself fanciful and incomprehensible +perplexities. Rather we believe that the effect of such fictions must be +to render those who fall under their influence unfit for practical +exertion; while they most assuredly do grievous harm in many cases, by +intruding on minds which ought to be guarded from impurity the +unnecessary knowledge of evil. + + + + +BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE + +In the early days of the nineteenth century Edinburgh certainly aspired +to prouder eminence as a centre of light and learning than it has +continued to maintain. Tory energy, provoked by the arrogance of +Jeffrey, had found its earliest expression in London, but the northern +capital evidently determined not to be left behind in the game of +unprincipled vituperation. _Blackwood_, unlike its rivals in infancy, +was issued monthly, and its closely printed double columns add something +to the impression of heaviness in its satire. + +JOHN WILSON +(1785-1854) + +There is admittedly something incongruous in any association between the +genial and laughter-loving Christopher North and the reputation incurred +by the periodical with which he was long so intimately associated. He +had contributed--as few of his confederates would have been permitted-- +to the _Edinburgh_; but he was Literary Editor to _Blackwood_ from +October, 1817, to September, 1852. Originally a disciple of the Lake +School, at whom he was frequently girding, he migrated to Edinburgh +(where he became Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1820), and attracted +to himself many brilliant men of letters, including De Quincey. + +The "mountain-looking fellow," as Dickens called him, the patron of +"cock-fighting, wrestling, pugilistic contests, boat-racing, and +horse-racing" left his mark on his generation for a unique combination +of +boisterous joviality and hardhitting. Well known in the houses of the +poor; more than one observer has said that he reminded them of the +"first man, Adam." He "swept away all hearts, withersoever he would." +"Thor and Balder in one," "very Goth," "a Norse Demigod," "hair of the +true Sicambrian yellow"; Carlyle describes him as "fond of all +stimulating things; from tragic poetry down to whiskey-punch. He snuffed +and smoked cigars and drank liqueurs, and talked in the most +indescribable style.... He is a broad sincere man of six feet, with long +dishevelled flax-coloured hair, and two blue eyes keen as an eagle's ... +a being all split into precipitous chasms and the wildest volcanic +tumults ... a noble, loyal, and religious nature, not _strong_ enough to +vanquish the perverse element it is born into." + +The foundation of Wilson's criticism, unlike most of his contemporaries, +was generous and wide-minded appreciation, yet he "hacked about him, +distributing blows right and left, delivered sometimes for fun, though +sometimes with the most extraordinary impulse of perversity, in the +impetus of his career." With all a boy's love of a good fight, he shared +with youth its thoughtless indifference to the consequences. + +His not altogether unfriendly criticisms inspired one of Tennyson's +lightest effusions-- + + You did late review my lays, + Crusty Christopher; + You did mingle blame and praise + Rusty Christopher. + When I learnt from whence it came, + I forgave you all the blame, + Musty Christopher; + I could not forgive the praise + Fusty Christopher. + +The _Noctes Ambrosianae_ is certainly a unique production. Though +ostensibly a dialogue mainly between himself, Tickler (i.e., Lockhart), +and Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd--with other occasional dramatis personae; +the main bulk of them (including everything here quoted) was written by +Wilson himself--in this form, to produce an original effect. The +conversations are, for the most part, thoroughly dramatic, and cover +every conceivable subject from politics and literature to the beauty of +scenery, dress, cookery, and the various sports beloved of Christopher. +There is much boisterous interruption for eating, drinking, and personal +chaff. + +Of the longer quotations selected we would particularly draw attention +to the humorous and epigrammatic parody of Wordsworth, on whom Wilson +elsewhere bestows generous enthusiasm; and the broad-minded outlook +which can appreciate the contrasted virility of Byron and Dr. Johnson. +But it would be impossible to give an approximately fair impression of +the _Noctes_, without many examples of those paragraph criticisms +scattered broadcast on every page, which we have presented as "Crumbs" +from the feast. The magnificent recantation to Leigh Hunt--on whom +_Blackwood_ had bestowed even more than its share of abuse--has passed +into a proverb. + +ANONYMOUS + +As in the case of the _Quarterly_ these untraced effusions may be +assigned, with fair confidence, to the principal originators of the +magazine: Wilson himself, Lockhart, and William Maginn (1793-1842), a +thriftless Irishman who helped to start _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1830, and +stood for Captain Shandon in Pendennis; author of _Bob Burke's Duel with +Ensign Brady_, "perhaps the raciest Irish story ever written." + +They almost certainly combined in the heated attack on "The Cockney +School," of which Leigh Hunt's generous, but not always judicious, +advertisement was an obvious temptation to satire, embittered by +political bias. Coleridge, also, provided easy material for scorn from +vigorous manhood; and Shelley, as Wilson remarks elsewhere, was "the +greatest sinner of the oracular school--because the only true poet." + + + + +CHRISTOPHER NORTH ON POPE[1] +[1] A Discussion of the Edition by Bowles. + +[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, March, 1825] + + +_Tickler._ Pope was one of the most amiable men that ever lived. Fine +and delicate as were the temper and temperament of his genius, he had a +heart capable of the warmest human affection. He was indeed a loving +creature. + +_North._ Come, come, Timothy, you know you were sorely cut an hour or +two ago--so do not attempt characteristics. But, after all, Bowles does +not say that Pope was unamiable. + +_Tickler._ Yes, he does--that is to say, no man can read, even now, all +that he has written about Pope, without thinking on the whole, somewhat +indifferently of the man Pope. It is for this I abuse our friend Bowles. + +_Shepherd._ Ay, ay--I recollect now some of the havers o' Boll's about +the Blounts,--Martha and Theresa, I think you call them. Puir wee bit +hunched-backed, windle-strae-legged, gleg-eed, clever, acute, ingenious, +sateerical, weel-informed, warm-hearted, real philosophical, and maist +poetical creature, wi' his sounding translation o' a' Homer's works, +that reads just like an original War-Yepic,--His Yessay on Man that, in +spite o' what a set o' ignoramuses o' theological critics say about +Bolingbroke and Croussass, and heterodoxy and atheism, and like haven, +is just-ane o' the best moral discourses that ever I heard in or out o' +the poupit,--His yepistles about the Passions, and sic like, in the +whilk he goes baith deep and high, far deeper and higher baith than mony +a modern poet, who must needs be either in a diving-bell or a balloon,-- +His Rape o' the Lock o' Hair, wi' a' these Sylphs floating about in the +machinery o' the Rosicrucian Philosophism, just perfectly yelegant and +gracefu', and as gude, in their way, as onything o' my ain about +fairies, either in the _Queen's Wake_ or _Queen Hynde_,--His Louisa to +Abelard is, as I said before, coorse in the subject-matter, but, O sirs! +powerfu' and pathetic in execution--and sic a perfect spate o' +versification! His unfortunate lady, who sticked hersel for love wi' a +drawn sword, and was afterwards seen as a ghost, dim-beckoning through +the shade--a verra poetical thocht surely, and full both of terror and +pity.... + +_North._ Pope's poetry is full of nature, at least of what I have been +in the constant habit of accounting nature for the last threescore and +ten years. But (thank you, James, that snuff is really delicious) +leaving nature and art, and all that sort of thing, I wish to ask a +single question: what poet of this age, with the exception, perhaps, of +Byron, can be justly said, when put in comparison with Pope, to have +written the English language at all.... + +_Tickler._ What would become of Bowles himself, with all his elegance, +pathos, and true feeling? Oh! dear me, James, what a dull, dozing, +disjointed, dawdling, dowdy of a drawe would be his muse, in her very +best voice and tune, when called upon to get up and sing a solo after +the sweet and strong singer of Twickenham! + +_North._ Or Wordsworth--with his eternal--Here we go up, and up, and up, +and here we go down, down, and here we go roundabout, roundabout!--Look +at the nerveless laxity of his _Excursion!_--What interminable prosing!-- +The language is out of condition:--fat and fozy, thick-winded, purfled +and plethoric. Can he be compared with Pope?--Fie on't! no, no, no!-- +Pugh, pugh! + +_Tickler._ Southey--Coleridge--Moore? + +_North._ No; not one of them. They are all eloquent, diffusive, rich, +lavish, generous, prodigal of their words. But so are they all deficient +in sense, muscle, sinew, thews, ribs, spine. Pope, as an artist, beats +them hollow. Catch him twaddling. + +_Tickler._ It is a bad sign of the intellect of an age to depreciate the +genius of a country's classics. But the attempt covers such critics with +shame, and undying ridicule pursues them and their abettors. The Lake +Poets began this senseless clamour against the genius of Pope. + + + + +ON BYRON + +[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, October, 1825] + +_North._ People say, James, that Byron's tragedies are failures. Fools! +Is Cain, the dark, dim, disturbed, insane, hell-haunted Cain, a failure? +Is Sardanapalus, the passionate, princely, philosophical, joy-cheated, +throne-wearied voluptuary, a failure? Is Heaven and Earth, that +magnificent confusion of two worlds, in which mortal beings mingle in +love and hate, joy and despair, with immortal--the children of the dust +claiming alliance with the radiant progeny of the skies, till man and +angel seem to partake of one divine being, and to be essences eternal in +bliss or bale--is Heaven and Earth, I ask you, James, a failure? If so, +then Appollo has stopt payment--promising a dividend of one shilling in +the pound--and all concerned in that house are bankrupts. + +_Tickler._ You have nobly--gloriously vindicated Byron, North, and in +doing so, have vindicated the moral and intellectual character of our +country. Miserable and pernicious creed, that holds possible the lasting +and intimate union of the first, purest, highest, noblest, and most +celestial powers of soul and spirit, with confirmed appetencies, foul +and degrading lust, cowardice, cruelty, meanness, hypocrisy, avarice, +and impiety! You,--in a strong attempt made to hold up to execration the +nature of Byron as deformed by all these hideous vices,--you, my friend, +reverently unveiled the countenance of the mighty dead, and the +lineaments struck remorse into the heart of every asperser. + + + + +ON DR. JOHNSON + +[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, April, 1829] + +_North._ I forgot old Sam--a jewel rough set, yet shining like a star, +and though sand-blind by nature, and bigoted by Education, one of the +truly great men of England, and "her men are of men the chief," alike in +the dominions of the understanding, the reason, the passions, and the +imagination. No prig shall ever persuade me that _Rasselas_ is not a +noble performance--in design and execution. Never were the expenses of a +mother's funeral more gloriously defrayed by son, than the funeral of +Samuel Johnson's mother by the price of _Rasselas_, written for the +pious purpose of laying her head decently and honourably in the dust. + +_Shepherd._ Ay, that was pittin' literature and genius to a glorious +purpose indeed; and therefore nature and religion smiled on the wark, +and have stamped it with immortality. + +_North._ Samuel was seventy years old when he wrote the _Lives of the +Poets_. + +_Shepherd._ What a fine old buck! No unlike yoursel'. + +_North._ Would it were so! He had his prejudicies, and his partialities, +and his bigotries, and his blindnesses,--but on the same fruit-tree you +see shrivelled pears or apples on the same branch with jargonelles or +golden pippins worthy of paradise. Which would ye show to the +Horticultural Society as a fair specimen of the tree? + +_Shepherd._ Good, kit, good--philosophically picturesque. (_Mimicking +the old man's voice and manner._) + +_North._ Show me the critique that beats his on Pope, and on Dryden-- +nay, even on Milton; and hang me if you may not read his essay on +Shakespeare even after having read Charles Lamb, or heard Coleridge, +with increased admiration of the powers of all three, and of their +insight, through different avenues, and as it might seem almost with +different bodily and mental organs, into Shakespeare's "old exhausted," +and his "new imagined worlds." He was a critic and a moralist who would +have been wholly wise, had he not been partly--constitutionally insane. +For there is blood in the brain, James--even in the organ--the vital +principle of all our "eagle-winged raptures"; and there was a taint of +the black drop of melancholy in his. + +_Shepherd._ Wheesht--wheesht--let us keep aff that subject. All men ever +I knew are mad; and but for that law o' natur, never, never, in this +warld had there been a _Noctes Ambrosianae_. + + + + +CRUMBS FROM THE "NOCTES" + +MISS MITFORD + +_North._ Miss Mitford has not in my opinion either the pathos or humour +of Washington Irving; but she excels him in vigorous conception of +character, and in the truth of her pictures of English life and manners. +Her writings breathe a sound, pure, and healthy morality, and are +pervaded by a genuine rural spirit--the spirit of merry England. Every +line bespeaks the lady. + +_Shepherd._ I admire Miss Mitford just excessively. I dinna wunner at +her being able to write sae weel as she does about drawing-rooms wi' +sofas and settees, and about the fine folk in them seeing themsels in +lookin-glasses frae tap to tae; but what puzzles the like o' me, is her +pictures o' poachers, and tinklers, and pottery-trampers, and ither +neerdoweels, and o' huts and hovels without riggin' by the wayside, and +the cottages o' honest puir men, and byres, and barns, and stackyards, +and merry-makins at winter ingles, and courtship aneath trees, and at +the gable-end of farm houses, 'tween lads and lasses as laigh in life as +the servants in her father's ha'. That's the puzzle, and that's the +praise. But ae word explains a'--Genius--Genius, wull a' the +metafhizzians in the warld ever expound that mysterious monosyllable.-- +_Nov, 1826._ + +HAZLITT + +_Shepherd._. He had a curious power that Hazlitt, as he was ca'd, o' +simulatin' sowl. You could hae taen your Bible oath sometimes, when you +were readin him, that he had a sowl--a human sowl--a sowl to be saved-- +but then, heaven preserve us! in the verra middle aiblins o' a +paragraph, he grew transformed afore your verra face into something +bestial,--you heard a grunt that made ye grue, and there was an ill +smell in the room, as frae a pluff o' sulphur.--_April, 1827._ + +WORDSWORTH + +_Shepherd._ Wordsworth tells the world, in ane of his prefaces, that he +is a water-drinker--and its weel seen on him.--There was a sair want of +speerit through the haill o' yon lang "Excursion." If he had just made +the paragraphs about ae half shorter, and at the end of every ane taen a +caulker, like ony ither man engaged in geyan sair and heavy wark, think +na ye that his "Excursion" would hae been far less fatiguesome?--_April, +1827._ + +_North._ I confess that the "Excursion" is the worst poem, of any +character, in the English language. It contains about two hundred +sonorous lines, some of which appear to be fine, even in the sense, as +well as sound. The remaining seven thousand three hundred are quite +ineffectual. Then, what labour the builder of that lofty rhyme must have +undergone! It is, in its own way, a small tower of Babel, and all built +by a single man.--_Sept., 1825._ + +COLERIDGE + +_North._ James, you don't know S.T. Coleridge--do you? He writes but +indifferent books, begging his pardon: witness his "Friend," his "Lay +Sermons," and, latterly, his "Aids to Reflection"; but he becomes +inspired by the sound of his own silver voice, and pours out wisdom like +a sea. Had he a domestic Gurney, he might publish a Moral Essay, or a +Theological Discourse, or a Metaphysical Disquisition, or a Political +Harangue, every morning throughout the year during his lifetime. + +_Tickler._ Mr. Coleridge does not seem to be aware that he cannot write +a book, but opines that he absolutely has written several, and set many +questions at rest. There's a want of some kind or another in his mind; +but perhaps when he awakes out of his dream, he may get rational and +sober-witted, like other men, who are not always asleep. + +_Shepherd._ The author o' "Christabel," and "The Ancient Mariner," had +better just continue to see visions, and dream dreams--for he's no fit +for the wakin' world.--_April, 1827._ + +FASHIONABLE NOVELS + +_North._ James, I wish you would review for Maga all those fashionable +novels--Novels of High Life; such as _Pelham_--the _Disowned_. + +_Shepherd._ I've read thae twa, and they're baith gude. But the mair I +think on't, the profounder is my conviction that the strength o' human +nature lies either in the highest or lowest estate of life. Characters +in books should either be kings, and princes, and nobles, and on a level +with them, like heroes; or peasants, shepherds, farmers, and the like, +includin' a' orders amaist o' our ain working population. The +intermediate class--that is, leddies and gentlemen in general--are no +worth the Muse's while; for their life is made up chiefly o' mainners,-- +mainners,--mainners;--you canna see the human creters for their claes; +and should ane o' them commit suicide in despair, in lookin' on the dead +body, you are mair taen up wi' its dress than its decease.--_March, +1829._ + +WILL CARLETON + +_Shepherd._ What sort o' vols., sir, are the _Traits and Stories of the +Irish Peasantry_ [W. Carleton], published by Curry in Dublin. + +_North._ Admirable. Truly, intensely Irish. The whole book has the +brogue--never were the outrageous whimsicalities of that strange, wild, +imaginative people so characteristically displayed; nor, in the midst of +all the fun, frolic, and folly, is there any dearth of poetry, pathos, +and passion. The author's a jewel, and he will be reviewed next number. +--_May, 1830._ + +BURNS + +_Shepherd._ I shanna say ony o' mine's [songs] are as gude as some sax +or aucht o' Burns's--for about that number o' Robbie's are o' inimitable +perfection. It was heaven's wull that in them he should transcend a' the +minnesingers o' this warld. But they're too perfeckly beautifu' to be +envied by mortal man--therefore let his memory in them be hallowed for +evermair.--_August, 1834._ + +_Shepherd_. I was wrang in ever hintin ae word in disparagement o' +Burn's _Cottar's Saturday Night_. But the truth is, you see, that the +subjeck's sae heeped up wi' happiness, and sae charged wi' a' sort o' +sanctity--sae national and sae Scottish--that beautifu' as the poem is-- +and really, after a', naething can be mair beautifu'--there's nae +satisfying either paesant or shepherd by ony delineation o't, though +drawn in lines o' licht, and shinin' equally w' genius and wi' piety.-- +_Nov., 1834._ + + + + +LEIGH HUNT + +_Shepherd_. Leigh Hunt truly loved Shelley. + +_North_. And Shelley truly loved Leigh Hunt. Their friendship was +honourable to them both, for it was as disinterested as sincere; and I +hope Gurney will let a certain person in the City understand that I +treat his offer of a reviewal of Mr. Hunt's _London Journal_ with +disdain. If he has anything to say against us or against that gentleman, +either conjunctly or severally, let him out with it in some other +channel, and I promise him a touch and taste of the Crutch. He talks to +me of Maga's desertion of principle; but if he were a Christian--nay, a +man--his heart and head too would tell him that the Animosities are +mortal, but the Humanities live for ever--and that Leigh Hunt has more +talent in his little finger than the puling prig, who has taken upon +himself to lecture Christopher North in a scrawl crawling with forgotten +falsehoods. Mr. Hunt's _London Journal_, may dear James, is not only +beyond all comparison, but out of all sight, the most entertaining and +instructive of all the cheap periodicals; and when laid, as it duly is +once a week, on my breakfast table, it lies there--but is not permitted +to lie long--like a spot of sunshine dazzling the snow.--_Aug_., 1834. + + + + +ANONYMOUS ON COLERIDGE + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, October, 1817] + +SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE "BIOGRAPHIA LITERARIA" OF S. T. COLERIDGE, +ESQ., 1817 + +When a man looks back on his past existence, and endeavours to recall +the incidents, events, thoughts, feelings, and passions of which it was +composed, he sees something like a glimmering land of dreams, peopled +with phantasms and realities undistinguishably confused and +intermingled--here illuminated with dazzling splendour, there dim with +melancholy mists,--or it may be shrouded in impenetrable darkness. To +bring, visibly and distinctly before our memory, on the one hand, all +our hours of mirth and joy, and hope and exultation,--and, on the other, +all our perplexities, and fears and sorrows, and despair and agony,-- +(and who has been so uniformly wretched as not to have been often +blest?--who so uniformly blest as not to have been often wretched?)-- +would be as impossible as to awaken, into separate remembrance, all the +changes and varieties which the seasons brought over the material +world,--every gleam of sunshine that beautified the Spring,--every cloud +and tempest that deformed the Winter. In truth, were this power and +domination over the past given unto us, and were we able to read the +history of our lives all faithfully and perspicuously recorded on the +tablets of the inner spirit,--those beings, whose existence had been +most filled with important events and with energetic passions, would be +the most averse to such overwhelming survey--would recoil from trains of +thought which formerly agitated and disturbed, and led them, as it were, +in triumph beneath the yoke of misery or happiness. The soul may be +repelled from the contemplation of the past as much by the brightness +and magnificence of scenes that shifted across the glorious drama of +youth, as by the storms that scattered the fair array into disfigured +fragments; and the melancholy that breathes from vanished delight is, +perhaps, in its utmost intensity, as unendurable as the wretchedness +left by the visitation of calamity. There are spots of sunshine sleeping +on the fields of past existence too beautiful, as there are caves among +its precipices too darksome to be looked on by the eyes of memory; and +to carry on an image borrowed from the analogy between the moral and +physical world, the soul may turn away in sickness from the untroubled +silence of a resplendent Lake, no less than from the haunted gloom of +the thundering Cataract. It is from such thoughts, and dreams, and +reveries, as these, that all men feel how terrible it would be to live +over again their agonies and their transports; that the happiest would +fear to do so as much as the most miserable; and that to look back to +our cradle seems scarcely less awful than to look forward to the grave. + +But if this unwillingness to bring before our souls, in distinct array, +the more solemn and important events of our lives, be a natural and +perhaps a wise feeling, how much more averse must every reflecting man +be to the ransacking of his inmost spirit for all its hidden emotions +and passions, to the tearing away that shroud which oblivion may have +kindly flung over his vices and his follies, or that fine and delicate +veil which Christian humility draws over his virtues and acts of +benevolence. To scrutinize and dissect the character of others is an +idle and unprofitable task; and the most skilful anatomist will often be +forced to withhold his hand when he unexpectedly meets with something he +does not understand--some confirmation of the character of his patient +which is not explicable on his theory of human nature. To become +operators on our own shrinking spirits is something worse; for by +probing the wounds of the soul, what can ensue but callousness or +irritability. And it may be remarked, that those persons who have busied +themselves most with inquiries into the causes, and motives, and +impulses of their actions, have exhibited, in their conduct, the most +lamentable contrast to their theory, and have seemed blinder in their +knowledge than others in their ignorance. + +It will not be supposed that any thing we have now said in any way bears +against the most important duty of self-examination. Many causes there +are existing, both in the best and the worst parts of our nature, which +must render nugatory and deceitful any continued diary of what passes +through the human soul; and no such confessions could, we humbly +conceive, be of use either to ourselves or to the world. But there are +hours of solemn inquiry in which the soul reposes on itself; the true +confessional is not the bar of the public, but it is the altar of +religion; there is a Being before whom we may humble ourselves without +being debased; and there are feelings for which human language has no +expression, and which, in the silence of solitude and of nature, are +known only unto the Eternal. + +The objections, however, which might thus be urged against the writing +and publishing accounts of all our feelings,--all the changes of our +moral constitution,--do not seem to apply with equal force to the +narration of our mere speculative opinions. Their rise, progress, +changes, and maturity may be pretty accurately ascertained; and as the +advance to truth is generally step by step, there seems to be no great +difficulty in recording the leading causes that have formed the body of +our opinions, and created, modified, and coloured our intellectual +character. Yet this work would be alike useless to ourselves and others, +unless pursued with a true magnanimity. It requires, that we should +stand aloof from ourselves, and look down, as from an eminence, on our +souls toiling up the hill of knowledge;--that we should faithfully +record all the assistance we received from guides or brother pilgrims;-- +that we should mask the limit of our utmost ascent, and, without +exaggeration, state the value of our acquisitions. When we consider how +many temptations there are even here to delude ourselves, and by a +seeming air of truth and candour to impose upon others, it will be +allowed, that, instead of composing memoirs of himself, a man of genius +and talent would be far better employed in generalizing the observations +and experiences of his life, and giving them to the world in the form of +philosophic reflections, applicable not to himself alone, but to the +universal mind of Man. + +What good to mankind has ever flowed from the confessions of Rousseau, +or the autobiographical sketch of Hume? From the first we rise with a +confused and miserable sense of weakness and of power--of lofty +aspirations and degrading appetencies--of pride swelling into blasphemy, +and humiliation pitiably grovelling in the dust--of purity of spirit +soaring on the wings of imagination, and grossness of instinct brutally +wallowing in "Epicurus' stye,"--of lofty contempt for the opinion of +mankind, yet the most slavish subjection to their most fatal prejudices-- +of a sublime piety towards God, and a wild violation of his holiest +laws. From the other we rise with feelings of sincere compassion for the +ignorance of the most enlightened. All the prominent features of Hume's +character were invisible to his own eyes; and in that meagre sketch +which has been so much admired, what is there to instruct, to rouse, or +to elevate--what light thrown over the duties of this life or the hopes +of that to come? We wish to speak with tenderness of a man whose moral +character was respectable, and whose talents were of the first order. +But most deeply injurious to every thing lofty and high-toned in human +Virtue, to every thing cheering, and consoling, and sublime in that +Faith which sheds over this Earth a reflection of the heavens, is that +memoir of a worldly-wise Man; in which he seems to contemplate with +indifference the extinction of his own immortal soul, and jibes and +jokes on the dim and awful verge of Eternity. + +We hope that our readers will forgive these very imperfect reflections +on a subject of deep interest, and accompany us now on our examination +of Mr. Coleridge's "Literary Life," the very singular work which caused +our ideas to run in that channel. It does not contain an account of his +opinions and literary exploits alone, but lays open, not unfrequently, +the character of the Man as well as of the Author; and we are compelled +to think, that while it strengthens every argument against the +composition of such Memoirs, it does, without benefiting the cause +either of virtue, knowledge, or religion, exhibit many mournful +sacrifices of personal dignity, after which it seems impossible that Mr. +Coleridge can be greatly respected either by the Public or himself. + +Considered merely in a literary point of view, the work is most +execrable. He rambles from one subject to another in the most wayward +and capricious manner; either from indolence, or ignorance, or weakness, +he has never in one single instance finished a discussion; and while he +darkens what was dark before into tenfold obscurity, he so treats the +most ordinary common-places as to give them the air of mysteries, till +we no longer know the faces of our old acquaintances beneath their cowl +and hood, but witness plain flesh and blood matters of fact miraculously +converted into a troop of phantoms. That he is a man of genius is +certain; but he is not a man of a strong intellect nor of powerful +talents. He has a great deal of fancy and imagination, but little or no +real feeling, and certainly no judgment. He cannot form to himself any +harmonious landscape such as it exists in nature, but beautified by the +serene light of the imagination. He cannot conceive simple and majestic +groupes of human figures and characters acting on the theatre of real +existence. But his pictures of nature are fine only as imaging the +dreaminess, and obscurity, and confusion of distempered sleep; while all +his agents pass before our eyes like shadows, and only impress and +affect us with a phantasmagorial splendour. + +It is impossible to read many pages of this work without thinking that +Mr. Coleridge conceives himself to be a far greater man than the Public +is likely to admit; and we wish to waken him from what seems to us a +most ludicrous delusion. He seems to believe that every tongue is +wagging in his praise--that every ear is open to imbibe the oracular +breathings of his inspiration. Even when he would fain convince us that +his soul is wholly occupied with some other illustrious character, he +breaks out into laudatory exclamations concerning himself; no sound is +so sweet to him as that of his own voice; the ground is hallowed on +which his footsteps tread; and there seems to him something more than +human in his very shadow. He will read no books that other people read; +his scorn is as misplaced and extravagant as his admiration; opinions +that seem to tally with his own wild ravings are holy and inspired; and +unless agreeable to his creed, the wisdom of ages is folly; and wits, +whom the world worship, dwarfed when they approach his venerable side. +His admiration of nature or of man, we had almost said his religious +feelings towards his God, are all narrowed, weakened, and corrupted, and +poisoned by inveterate and diseased egotism; and instead of his mind +reflecting the beauty and glory of nature, he seems to consider the +mighty universe itself as nothing better than a mirror in which, with a +grinning and idiot self-complacency, he may contemplate the Physiognomy +of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Though he has yet done nothing in any one +department of human knowledge, yet he speaks of his theories, and plans, +and views, and discoveries, as if he had produced some memorable +revolution in Science. He at all times connects his own name in Poetry +with Shakespeare, and Spenser, and Milton; in politics with Burke, and +Fox, and Pitt; in metaphysics with Locke, and Hartley, and Berkely, and +Kant--feeling himself not only to be the worthy compeer of those +illustrious Spirits, but to unite, in his own mighty intellect, all the +glorious powers and faculties by which they were separately +distinguished, as if his soul were endowed with all human power, and was +the depository of the aggregate, or rather the essence of all human +knowledge. So deplorable a delusion as this, has only been equalled by +that of Joanna Southcote, who mistook a complaint in the bowels for the +divine afflatus; and believed herself about to give birth to the +regenerator of the world, when sick unto death of an incurable and +loathsome disease. + +The truth is that Mr. Coleridge is but an obscure name in English +literature. In London he is well known in literary society, and justly +admired for his extraordinary loquacity: he has his own little circle of +devoted worshippers, and he mistakes their foolish babbling for the +voice of the world. His name, too, has been often foisted into Reviews, +and accordingly is known to many who never saw any of his works. In +Scotland few know or care any thing about him; and perhaps no man who +has spoken and written so much, and occasionally with so much genius and +ability, ever made so little impression on the public mind. Few people +know how to spell or pronounce his name; and were he to drop from the +clouds among any given number of well informed and intelligent men north +of the Tweed, he would find it impossible to make any intelligible +communication respecting himself; for of him and his writings there +would prevail only a perplexing dream, or the most untroubled ignorance. +We cannot see in what the state of literature would have been different +had he been cut off in childhood, or had he never been born; for except +a few wild and fanciful ballads, he has produced nothing worthy +remembrance. Yet, insignificant as he assuredly is, he cannot put pen to +paper without a feeling that millions of eyes are fixed upon him; and he +scatters his Sibylline Leaves around him, with as majestical an air as +if a crowd of enthusiastic admirers were rushing forward to grasp the +divine promulgations, instead of their being, as in fact they are, +coldly received by the accidental passenger, like a lying lottery puff +or a quack advertisement. + +This most miserable arrogance seems, in the present age, confined almost +exclusively to the original members of the Lake School, and is, we +think, worthy of especial notice, as one of the leading features of +their character. It would be difficult to defend it either in Southey or +Wordsworth; but in Coleridge it is altogether ridiculous. Southey has +undoubtedly written four noble Poems--Thalaba, Madoc, Kehama, and +Roderick; and if the Poets of this age are admitted, by the voice of +posterity, to take their places by the side of the Mighty of former +times in the Temple of Immortality, he will be one of that sacred +company. Wordsworth, too, with all his manifold errors and defects, has, +we think, won to himself a great name, and, in point of originality, +will be considered as second to no man of this age. They are entitled to +think highly of themselves, in comparison with their most highly gifted +contemporaries; and therefore, though their arrogance may be offensive, +as it often is, it is seldom or ever utterly ridiculous. But Mr. +Coleridge stands on much lower ground, and will be known to future times +only as a man who overrated and abused his talents--who saw glimpses of +that glory which he could not grasp--who presumptuously came forward to +officiate as High-Priest at mysteries beyond his ken--and who carried +himself as if he had been familiarly admitted into the Penetralia of +Nature, when in truth he kept perpetually stumbling at the very +Threshold. + +This absurd self-elevation forms a striking contrast with the dignified +deportment of all the other great living Poets. Throughout all the works +of Scott, the most original-minded man of this generation of Poets, +scarcely a single allusion is made to himself; and then it is with a +truly delightful simplicity, as if he were not aware of his immeasurable +superiority to the ordinary run of mankind. From the rude songs of our +forefathers he has created a kind of Poetry, which at once brought over +the dull scenes of this our unimaginative life all the pomp, and glory, +and magnificence of a chivalrous age. He speaks to us like some ancient +Bard awakened from his tomb, and singing of visions not revealed in +dreams, but contemplated in all the freshness and splendour of reality. +Since he sung his bold, and wild, and romantic lays, a more religious +solemnity breathes from our mouldering Abbeys, and a sterner grandeur +frowns over our time-shattered Castles. He has peopled our hills with +Heroes, even as Ossian peopled them; and, like a presiding spirit, his +Image haunts the magnificent cliffs of our Lakes and Seas. And if he be, +as every heart feels, the author of those noble Prose Works that +continue to flash upon the world, to him exclusively belongs the glory +of wedding Fiction and History in delighted union, and of embodying in +imperishable records the manners, character, soul, and spirit of +Caledonia; so that, if all her annals were lost, her memory would in +those tales be immortal. His truly is a name that comes to the heart of +every Briton with a start of exultation, whether it be heard in the hum +of cities or in the solitude of nature. What has Campbell ever obtruded +on the Public of his private history? Yet his is a name that will be +hallowed for ever in the souls of pure, and aspiring, and devout youth; +and to those lofty contemplations in which Poetry lends its aid to +Religion, his immortal Muse will impart a more enthusiastic glow, while +it blends in one majestic hymn all the noblest feelings which can spring +from earth, with all the most glorious hopes that come from the silence +of eternity. Byron indeed speaks of himself often, but his is like the +voice of an angel heard crying in the storm or the whirlwind; and we +listen with a kind of mysterious dread to the tones of a Being whom we +scarcely believe to be kindred to ourselves, while he sounds the depths +of our nature, and illuminates them with the lightnings of his genius. +And finally, who more gracefully unostentatious than Moore, a Poet who +has shed delight, and joy, and rapture, and exultation, through the +spirit of an enthusiastic People, and whose name is associated in his +native Land with every thing noble and glorious in the cause of +Patriotism and Liberty. We could easily add to the illustrious list; but +suffice it to say, that our Poets do in general bear their faculties +meekly and manfully, trusting to their conscious powers, and the +susceptibility of generous and enlightened natures, not yet extinct in +Britain, whatever Mr. Coleridge may think; for certain it is, that a +host of worshippers will crowd into the Temple, when the Priest is +inspired, and the flame he kindles is from Heaven. + +Such has been the character of great Poets in all countries and in all +times. Fame is dear to them as their vital existence--but they love it +not with the perplexity of fear, but the calmness of certain possession. +They know that the debt which nature owes them must be paid, and they +hold in surety thereof the universal passions of mankind. So Milton felt +and spoke of himself, with an air of grandeur, and the voice as of an +Archangel, distinctly hearing in his soul the music of after +generations, and the thunder of his mighty name rolling through the +darkness of futurity. So divine Shakespeare felt and spoke; he cared not +for the mere acclamations of his subjects; in all the gentleness of his +heavenly spirit he felt himself to be their prophet and their king, and +knew, + + When all the breathers of this world are dead, + That he entombed in men's eyes would lie. + +Indeed, who that knows any thing of Poetry could for a moment suppose it +otherwise? Whatever made a great Poet but the inspiration of delight and +love in himself, and an empassioned desire to communicate them to the +wide spirit of kindred existence? Poetry, like Religion, must be free +from all grovelling feelings; and above all, from jealousy, envy, and +uncharitableness. And the true Poet, like the Preacher of the true +religion, will seek to win unto himself and his Faith, a belief whose +foundation is in the depths of love, and whose pillars are the noblest +passions of humanity. + +It would seem that in truly great souls all feeling of self-importance, +in its narrower sense, must be incompatible with the consciousness of a +mighty achievement. The idea of the mere faculty or power is absorbed as +it were in the idea of the work performed. That work stands out in its +glory from the mind of its Creator; and in the contemplation of it, he +forgets that he himself was the cause of its existence, or feels only a +dim but sublime association between himself and the object of his +admiration; and when he does think of himself in conjunction with +others, he feels towards the scoffer only a pitying sorrow for his +blindness--being assured, that though at all times there will be +weakness, and ignorance, and worthlessness, which can hold no communion +with him or with his thoughts, so will there be at all times the pure, +the noble, and the pious, whose delight it will be to love, to admire, +and to imitate; and that never, at any point of time, past, present, or +to come, can a true Poet be defrauded of his just fame. + +But we need not speak of poets alone (though we have done so at present +to expose the miserable pretensions of Mr. Coleridge), but look through +all the bright ranks of men distinguished by mental power, in whatever +department of human science. It is our faith, that without moral there +can be no intellectual grandeur; and surely the self-conceit and +arrogance which we have been exposing, are altogether incompatible with +lofty feelings and majestic principles. It is the Dwarf alone who +endeavours to strut himself into the height of the surrounding company; +but the man of princely stature seems unconscious of the strength in +which nevertheless he rejoices, and only sees his superiority in the +gaze of admiration which he commands. Look at the most inventive spirits +of this country,--those whose intellects have achieved the most +memorable triumphs. Take, for example, Leslie in physical science, and +what airs of majesty does he ever assume? What is Samuel Coleridge +compared to such a man? What is an ingenious and fanciful versifier to +him who has, like a magician, gained command over the very elements of +nature,--who has realized the fictions of Poetry,--and to whom Frost and +Fire are ministering and obedient spirits? But of this enough.--It is a +position that doubtless might require some modification, but in the +main, it is and must be true, that real Greatness, whether in Intellect, +Genius, or Virtue, is dignified and unostentatious; and that no potent +spirit ever whimpered over the blindness of the age to his merits, and, +like Mr. Coleridge, or a child blubbering for the moon, with clamorous +outcries implored and imprecated reputation. + +The very first sentence of this Literary Biography shows how incompetent +Mr. Coleridge is for the task he has undertaken. + + It has been my lot to have had my name introduced both in conversation + and in print, more frequently than I find it easy to explain; _whether + I consider the fewness, unimportance, and limited circulation of my + writings, or the retirement and distance in which I have lived, both + from the literary and political world_. + +Now, it is obvious, that if his writings be few, and unimportant, and +unknown, Mr. Coleridge can have no reason for composing his Literary +Biography. Yet in singular contradiction to himself-- + +"If," says he, at p. 217, vol. i, "_the compositions which I have made +public_, and that too in a form the most certain of an extensive +circulation, though the least flattering to an author's self-love, had +been published in books, they _would have filled a respectable number of +volumes."_ + +He then adds, + + Seldom have I written that in a day, the acquisition or investigation + of which had not cost me _the precious labour of a month!_ + +He then bursts out into this magnificent exclamation, + + Would that the criterion of a scholar's ability were the number and + moral value of the truths which he has been the means of throwing + into general circulation! + +And he sums up all by declaring, + + By what I _have_ effected am I to be judged by my fellow men. + +The truth is, that Mr. Coleridge has lived, as much as any man of his +time, in literary and political society, and that he has sought every +opportunity of keeping himself in the eye of the public, as restlessly +as any charlatan who ever exhibited on the stage. To use his own words, +"In 1794, when I had barely passed the verge of manhood, I published a +small volume of juvenile poems." These poems, by dint of puffing, +reached a third edition; and though Mr. Coleridge pretends now to think +but little of them, it is amusing to see how vehemently he defends them +against criticism, and how pompously he speaks of such paltry trifles. +"They were marked _by an ease and simplicity_ which I have studied, +_perhaps with inferior success,_ to bestow on my latter compositions." +But he afterwards repents of this sneer at his later compositions, and +tells us, that they have nearly reached his standard of perfection! +Indeed, his vanity extends farther back than his juvenile poems; and he +says, "For a school boy, I was _above par in English versification_, and +had already produced two or three compositions, which I may venture to +say, _without reference to my age, were somewhat above mediocrity_." +Happily he has preserved one of those wonderful productions of his +precocious boyhood, and our readers will judge for themselves what a +clever child it was. + + Underneath a huge oak-tree, + There was of swine a huge company; + That grunted as they crunch'd the mast, + For that was ripe and fell full fast. + Then they trotted away for the wind grew high, + One acorn they left and no more might you spy. + +It is a common remark, that wonderful children seldom perform the +promises of their youth, and undoubtedly this fine effusion has not been +followed in Mr. Coleridge's riper years by works of proportionate merit. + +We see, then, that our author came very early into public notice; and +from that time to this, he has not allowed one year to pass without +endeavouring to extend his notoriety. His poems were soon followed (they +may have been preceded) by a tragedy, entitled, the "Fall of +Robespierre," a meagre performance, but one which, from the nature of +the subject, attracted considerable attention. He also wrote a whole +book, utterly incomprehensible to Mr. Southey, we are sure, on that +Poet's Joan of Arc; and became as celebrated for his metaphysical +absurdities, as his friend had become for the bright promise of genius +exhibited by that unequal, but spirited poem. He next published a Series +of political essays, entitled, the "Watchman," and "Conciones ad +Populum." He next started up, fresh from the schools of Germany, as the +principal writer in the Morning Post, a _strong opposition paper_. He +then published various outrageous political poems, some of them of a +gross personal nature. He afterwards assisted Mr. Wordsworth in planning +his Lyrical Ballads; and contributing several poems to that collection, +he shared in the notoriety of the Lake School. He next published a +mysterious periodical work, "The Friend," in which he declared it was +his intention to settle at once, and for ever, the principles of +morality, religion, taste, manners, and the fine arts, but which died of +a galloping consumption in the twenty-eighth week of its age. He then +published the tragedy of "Remorse," which dragged out a miserable +existence of twenty nights, on the boards of Drury-Lane, and then +expired for ever, like the oil of the orchestral lamps. He then forsook +the stage for the pulpit, and, by particular desire of his congregation, +published two "Lay Sermons." He then walked in broad day-light into the +shop of Mr. Murray, Albemarle Street, London, with two ladies hanging on +each arm, Geraldine and Christabel,--a bold step for a person at all +desirous of a good reputation, and most of the trade have looked shy at +him since that exhibition. Since that time, however, he has contrived +means of giving to the world a collected edition of all his poems, and +advanced to the front of the stage with a thick octavo in each hand, all +about himself and other Incomprehensibilities. We had forgot that he was +likewise a contributor to Mr. Southey's Omniana, where the Editor of the +Edinburgh Review is politely denominated an "ass," and then _became +himself a writer in the said Review_. And to sum up "the strange +eventful history" of this modest, and obscure, and retired person, we +must mention, that in his youth he held forth in a vast number of +Unitarian chapels--preached his way through Bristol, and "Brummagem," +and Manchester, in a "blue coat and white waistcoat"; and in after +years, when he was not so much afraid of "the scarlet woman," did, in a +full suit of sables, lecture on Poesy, to "crowded, and, need I add, +highly respectable audiences," at the Royal Institution. After this +slight and imperfect outline of his poetical, oratorical, metaphysical, +political, and theological exploits, our readers will judge, when they +hear him talking of "his retirement and distance from the literary and +political world," what are his talents for autobiography, and how far he +has penetrated into the mysterious non-entities of his own character. + +Mr. Coleridge has written conspicuously on the Association of Ideas, but +his own do not seem to be connected either by time, place, cause and +effect, resemblance, or contrast, and accordingly it is no easy matter +to follow him through all the vagaries of his Literary Life. We are +told, + + At school _I enjoyed the inestimable advantage_ of a very sensible, + though at the same time a very severe master.--I learnt from + him that Poetry, even that of the loftiest and wildest odes, had a + logic of its own as severe as that of science.--Lute, harp, and lyre; + muse, muses, and inspirations; Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hippocrene; + were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him now + exclaiming, _"Harp? Harp? Lyre? Pen and Ink! Boy you mean! Muse! boy! + Muse! your Nurse's daughter you mean! Pierian Spring! O Aye! the + cloister Pump!"_--Our classical knowledge was the least of the good + gifts which we derived from his zealous and conscientious tutorage. + +With the then head-master of the grammar-school, Christ Hospital, we +were not personally acquainted; but we cannot help thinking that he has +been singularly unfortunate in his Eulogist. He seems to have gone out +of his province, and far out of his depth, when he attempted to teach +boys the profoundest principles of Poetry. But we must also add, that we +cannot credit this account of him; for this doctrine of poetry being at +all times logical, is that of which Wordsworth and Coleridge take so +much credit to themselves for the discovery; and verily it is one too +wilfully absurd and extravagant to have entered into the head of an +honest man, whose time must have been wholly occupied with the +instruction of children. Indeed Mr. Coleridge's own poetical practices +render this story incredible; for, during many years of his authorship, +his diction was wholly at variance with such a rule, and the strain of +his poetry as illogical as can be well imagined. When Mr. Bowyer +prohibited his pupils from using, in their themes, the above-mentioned +names, he did, we humbly submit, prohibit them from using the best means +of purifying their taste and exalting their imagination. Nothing could +be so graceful, nothing so natural, as classical allusions, in the +exercises of young minds, when first admitted to the fountains of Greek +and Latin Poetry; and the Teacher who could seek to dissuade their +ingenious souls from such delightful dreams, by coarse, vulgar, and +indecent ribaldry, instead of deserving the name of "sensible," must +have been a low-minded vulgar fellow, fitter for the Porter than the +Master of such an Establishment. But the truth probably is, that all +this is a fiction of Mr. Coleridge, whose wit is at all times most +execrable and disgusting. Whatever the merits of his Master were, Mr. +Coleridge, even from his own account, seems to have derived little +benefit from his instruction, and for the "inestimable advantage," of +which he speaks, we look in vain through this Narrative. In spite of so +excellent a teacher, we find Master Coleridge, + + Even before my fifteenth year, bewildered _in metaphysicks and in + theological controversy_. Nothing else pleased me. _History and + particular facts_ lost all interest in my mind. Poetry itself, yea + novels and romances, became insipid to me. This preposterous pursuit + was beyond doubt _injurious, both to my natural powers and to the + progress of my education._ + +This deplorable condition of mind continued "even unto my seventeenth +year." And now our readers must prepare themselves for a mighty and +wonderful change, wrought, all on a sudden, on the moral and +intellectual character of this metaphysical Greenhorn. _"Mr. Bowles' +Sonnets, twenty in number, and just then published in a quarto volume_ +(a most important circumstance!) _were put into my hand!"_ To those +sonnets, next to the School-master's lectures on Poetry, Mr. Coleridge +attributes the strength, vigour, and extension, of his own very original +Genius. + + By those works, year after year, I was enthusiastically delighted and + inspired. My earliest acquaintances will not have forgotten the + undisciplined eagerness and impetuous zeal with which I labored to + make proselytes, not only _of my companions, but of all with whom I + conversed, of whatever rank, and in whatever place._ As my school + finances did not permit me to purchase copies, I made, within less + than a year and a half, _more than forty transcriptions, as the best + presents I could make to those who had in any way won my regard._ My + obligations to Mr. Bowles were indeed important, and for radical good! + +There must be some grievous natural defect in that mind which, even at +the age of seventeen, could act so insanely; and we cannot but think, +that no real and healthy sensibility could have exaggerated to itself so +grossly the merits of Bowles' Sonnets. They are undoubtedly most +beautiful, and we willingly pay our tribute of admiration to the genius +of the amiable writer; but they neither did nor could produce any such +effects as are here described, except upon a mind singularly weak and +helpless. We must, however, take the fact as we find it; and Mr. +Coleridge's first step, after his worship of Bowles, was to see +distinctly into the defects and deficiencies of Pope (a writer whom +Bowles most especially admires, and has edited), and through all the +false diction and borrowed plumage of Gray! But here Mr. Coleridge drops +the subject of Poetry for the present, and proceeds to other important +matters. + +We regret that Mr. Coleridge has passed over without notice all the +years which he spent "in the happy quiet of ever-honoured Jesus College, +Cambridge." That must have been the most important period of his life, +and was surely more worthy of record than the metaphysical dreams or the +poetical extravagancies of his boyhood. He tells us, that he was sent to +the University "an excellent Greek and Latin scholar, and a tolerable +Hebraist"; and there might have been something rousing and elevating to +young minds of genius and power, in his picture of himself, pursuits, +visions, and attainments, during the bright and glorious morning of +life, when he inhabited a dwelling of surpassing magnificence, guarded +and hallowed, and sublimed by the Shadows of the Mighty. We should wish +to know what progress he made there in his own favourite studies; what +place he occupied, or supposed he occupied, among his numerous +contemporaries of talent; how much he was inspired by the genius of the +place; how far he "pierced the caves of old Philosophy," or sounded the +depths of the Physical Sciences. All this unfortunately is omitted, and +he hurries on to details often trifling and uninfluential, sometimes +low, vile, and vulgar, and, what is worse, occasionally inconsistent +with any feeling of personal dignity and self-respect. + +After leaving College, instead of betaking himself to some respectable +calling, Mr. Coleridge, with his characteristic modesty, determined to +set on foot a periodical work called "The Watchman," that through it +"_all might know the truth_." The price of this very useful article was +_"four-pence."_ Off he set on a tour to the north to procure +subscribers, "preaching in most of the great towns as a hireless +Volunteer, in a blue coat and white waistcoat, that not a rag of the +Woman of Babylon might be seen on me." In preaching, his object was to +show that our Saviour was the real son of Joseph, and that the +Crucifixion was a matter of small importance. Mr. Coleridge is now a +most zealous member of the Church of England--devoutly believes every +iota in the thirty-nine articles, and that the Christian Religion is +only to be found in its purity in the homilies and liturgy of that +Church. Yet, on looking back to his Unitarian zeal, he exclaims, + + O, never can I remember those days _with either shame or regret!_ + For I was _most sincere, most disinterested! Wealth, rank, life + itself,_ then seem'd cheap to me, compared with the interests of + truth, and the will of my Maker. I cannot even accuse myself of having + been actuated by _vanity!_ for in the expansion of my enthusiasm _I + did not think of myself at all!_ + + +This is delectable. What does he mean by saying that life seemed cheap? +What danger could there be in the performance of his exploits, except +that of being committed as a Vagrant? What indeed could rank appear to a +person thus voluntarily degraded? Or who would expect vanity to be +conscious of its own loathsomeness? During this tour he seems to have +been constantly exposed to the insults of the vile and the vulgar, and +to have associated with persons whose company must have been most odious +to a Gentleman. Greasy Tallow-chandlers, and pursey Woollen-drapers, and +grim-featured dealers in Hard-ware, were his associates at Manchester, +Derby, Nottingham, and Sheffield; and among them the light of truth was +to be shed from its cloudy tabernacle in Mr. Coleridge's Pericranium. At +the house of a "Brummagem Patriot" he appears to have got dead drunk +with strong ale and tobacco, and in that pitiable condition he was +exposed to his disciples, lying upon a sofa, "with my face like a wall +that is white-washing, _deathly_ pale, and with the cold drops of +perspiration running down it from my forehead." Some one having said, +"Have you seen a paper to-day, Mr. Coleridge?" the wretched man replied, +with all the staring stupidity of his lamentable condition, "Sir! I am +far from convinced that a Christian is permitted to read either +newspapers, or any other works of merely political and temporary +interest." This witticism quite enchanted his enlightened auditors, and +they prolonged their festivities to an "early hour next morning." Having +returned to London with a thousand subscribers on his list, the +"Watchman" appeared in all his glory; but, alas! not on the day fixed +for the first burst of his effulgence; which foolish delay incensed many +of his subscribers. The Watchman, on his second appearance, spoke +blasphemously, and made indecent applications of Scriptural language; +then, instead of abusing Government and Aristocrats, as Mr. Coleridge +had pledged himself to his constituents to do, he attacked his own +Party; so that in seven weeks, before the shoes were old in which he +travelled to Sheffield, the Watchman went the way of all flesh, and his +remains were scattered "through sundry old iron shops," where for one +penny could be purchased each precious relic. To crown all, "his London +Publisher was a ----"; and Mr. Coleridge very narrowly escaped being +thrown into jail for this his heroic attempt to shed over the +manufacturing towns the illumination of knowledge. We refrain from +making any comments on this deplorable story. This Philosopher, and +Theologian, and Patriot, now retired to a village in Somersetshire, and, +after having sought to enlighten the whole world, discovered that he +himself was in utter darkness. + + Doubts rushed in, broke upon me from the fountains of the great + deep, and fell from the windows of heaven. The fontal truths of + natural Religion, and the book of Revelation, alike contributed to the + flood; and it was long ere my Ark touched upon Ararat, and rested. + My head was with Spinoza, though my heart was with Paul and John.... + +We have no room here to expose, as it deserves to be exposed, the +multitudinous political inconsistence of Mr. Coleridge, but we beg leave +to state one single fact: He abhorred, hated, and despised Mr. Pitt,-- +and he now loves and reveres his memory. By far the most spirited and +powerful of his poetical writings, is the War Eclogue, Slaughter, Fire, +and Famine; and in that composition he loads the Minister with +imprecations and curses, long, loud, and deep. But afterwards, when he +has thought it prudent to change his Principles, he denies that he ever +felt any indignation towards Mr. Pitt; and with the most unblushing +falsehood declares, that at the very moment his muse was consigning him +to infamy, death, and damnation, he would "have interposed his body +between him and danger." We believe that all good men, of all parties, +regard Mr. Coleridge with pity and contempt. + +Of the latter days of his literary life, Mr. Coleridge gives us no +satisfactory account. The whole of the second volume is interspersed +with mysterious inuendoes. He complains of the loss of all his friends, +not by death, but estrangement. He tries to account for the enmity of +the world to him, a harmless and humane man, who wishes well to all +created things, and "of his wondering finds no end." He upbraids himself +with indolence, procrastination, neglect of his worldly concerns, and +all other bad habits,--and then, with incredible inconsistency, vaunts +loudly of his successful efforts in the cause of Literature, Philosophy, +Morality, and Religion. Above all, he weeps and wails over the malignity +of Reviewers, who have persecuted him almost from his very cradle, and +seem resolved to bark him into the grave. He is haunted by the Image of +a Reviewer wherever he goes. They "push him from his stool," and by his +bedside they cry, "Sleep no more." They may abuse whomsoever they think +fit, save himself and Mr. Wordsworth. All others are fair game--and he +chuckles to see them brought down. But his sacred person must be +inviolate, and rudely to touch it, is not high treason, it is impiety. +Yet his "ever-honoured friend, the laurel-honouring Laureate," is a +Reviewer--his friend Mr. Thomas Moore is a Reviewer--his friend Dr. +Middleton, Bishop of Calcutta, was the Editor of a Review--almost every +friend he ever had is a Reviewer;--and to crown all, he himself is a +Reviewer. Every person who laughs at his silly Poems--and his +incomprehensible metaphysics, is malignant--in which case, there can be +little benevolence in this world; and while Mr. Francis Jeffrey is alive +and merry, there can be no happiness here below for Mr. Samuel +Coleridge. + +And here we come to speak of a matter, which, though somewhat of a +personal and private nature, is well deserving of mention in a Review of +Mr. Coleridge's Literary Life, for sincerity is the first of virtues, +and without it no man can be respectable or useful. He has, in this +Work, accused Mr. Jeffrey of meanness--hypocrisy--falsehood--and breach +of hospitality. That gentleman is able to defend himself--and his +defence is no business of ours. But we now tell Mr. Coleridge, that +instead of humbling his Adversary, he has heaped upon his own head the +ashes of disgrace--and with his own blundering hands, so stained his +character as a man of honour and high principles, that the mark can +never be effaced. All the most offensive attacks on the writings of +Wordsworth and Southey, had been made by Mr. Jeffrey before his visit to +Keswick. Yet, does Coleridge receive him with open arms, according to +his own account--listen, well-pleased, to all his compliments--talk to +him for hours on his Literary Projects--dine with him as his guest at an +Inn--tell him that he knew Mr. Wordsworth would be most happy to see +him--and in all respects behave to him with a politeness bordering on +servility. And after all this, merely because his own vile verses were +crumpled up like so much waste paper, by the grasp of a powerful hand in +the Edinburgh Review, he accuses Mr. Jeffrey of abusing hospitality +which he never received, and forgets, that instead of being the Host, he +himself was the smiling and obsequious Guest of the man he pretends to +have despised. With all this miserable forgetfulness of dignity and +self-respect, he mounts the high horse, from which he instantly is +tumbled into the dirt; and in his angry ravings collects together all +the foul trash of literary gossip to fling at his adversary, but which +is blown stifling back upon himself with odium and infamy. But let him +call to mind his own conduct, and talk not of Mr. Jeffrey. Many +witnesses are yet living of his own egotism and malignity; and often has +he heaped upon his "beloved Friend, the laurel-honouring Laureate," +epithets of contempt, and pity, and disgust, though now it may suit his +paltry purposes to worship and idolize. Of Mr. Southey we at all times +think, and shall speak, with respect and admiration; but his open +adversaries are, like Mr. Jeffrey, less formidable than his unprincipled +Friends. When Greek and Trojan meet on the plain, there is an interest +in the combat; but it is hateful and painful to think, that a hero +should be wounded behind his back, and by a poisoned stiletto in the +hand of a false Friend. + +The concluding chapter of this Biography is perhaps the most pitiful of +the whole, and contains a most surprising mixture of the pathetic and +the ludicrous. + + "Strange," says he, "as the delusion may appear, yet it is most + true, that three years ago I did not know or believe that I had an + enemy in the world; and now even my strongest consolations of + gratitude are mingled with fear, and I reproach myself for being too + often disposed to ask,--Have I one friend?" + +We are thus prepared for the narration of some grievous cruelty, or +ingratitude, or malice--some violation of his peace, or robbery of his +reputation; but our readers will start when they are informed, that this +melancholy lament is occasioned solely by the cruel treatment which his +poem of Christabel received from the Edinburgh Review and other +periodical Journals! It was, he tells us, universally admired in +manuscript--he recited it many hundred times to men, women, and +children, and always with an electrical effect--it was bepraised by most +of the great Poets of the day--and for twenty years he was urged to give +it to the world. But alas! no sooner had the Lady Christabel "come out," +than all the rules of good-breeding and politeness were broken through, +and the loud laugh of scorn and ridicule from every quarter assailed the +ears of the fantastic Hoyden. But let Mr. Coleridge be consoled. Mr. +Scott and Lord Byron are good-natured enough to admire Christabel, and +the Public have not forgotten that his Lordship handed her Ladyship upon +the stage. It is indeed most strange, that Mr., Coleridge is not +satisfied with the praise of those he admires,--but pines away for the +commendation of those he contemns. + +Having brought down his literary life to the great epoch of the +publication of Christabel, he there stops short; and that the world may +compare him as he appears at that aera to his former self, when "he set +sail from Yarmouth on the morning of the 10th September, 1798, in the +Hamburg Packet," he has republished, from his periodical work the +"Friend," seventy pages of Satyrane's Letters. As a specimen of his wit +in 1798, our readers may take the following:-- + +We were all on the deck, but in a short time I observed marks of + dismay. The Lady retired to the cabin in some confusion; and many + of the faces round me assumed a very doleful and frog-coloured + appearance; and within an hour the number of those on deck was + lessened by one half. I was giddy, but not sick; and the giddiness + soon went away, but left a feverishness and want of appetite, which I + attributed, in great measure, to the "_saeva mephitis_" of the + bilge-water; and it was certainly not decreased by the _exportations + from the cabin_. However, I was well enough to join the able-bodied + passengers, one of whom observed, not inaptly, that Momus might have + discovered an easier _way to see a man's inside_ than by placing a + window in his breast. He needed only have taken a salt-water trip in a + packet boat. I am inclined to believe, that a packet is far superior + to a stage-coach as a means of making men _open out to each other_! + +The importance of his observations during the voyage may be estimated by +this one:-- + + At four o'clock I observed a wild duck swimming on the waves,_a single + solitary wild duck!_ It is not easy to conceive how interesting a + thing it looked in that round objectless desert of waters! + +At the house of Klopstock, brother of the Poet, he saw a portrait of +Lessing, which he thus describes to the Public:--"His eyes were +uncommonly _like mine_! if any thing, rather larger and more prominent! +But the lower part of his face I and his nose--O what an exquisite +expression of elegance and sensibility!" He then gives a long account of +his interview with Klopstock the Poet, in which he makes that great man +talk in a very silly, weak, and ignorant manner. Mr. Coleridge not only +sets him right in all his opinions on English literature, but also is +kind enough to correct, in a very authoritative and dictatorial tone, +his erroneous views of the characteristic merits and defects of the most +celebrated German Writers. He has indeed the ball in his own hands +throughout the whole game; and Klopstock, who, he says, "was +seventy-four years old, with legs enormously swollen," is beaten to a +standstill. We are likewise presented with an account of a conversation +which his friend W. held with the German Poet, in which the author of +the Messiah makes a still more paltry figure. We can conceive nothing +more odious and brutal, than two young ignorant lads from Cambridge +forcing themselves upon the retirement of this illustrious old man, and, +instead of listening with love, admiration and reverence, to his +sentiments and opinions, insolently obtruding upon him their own crude +and mistaken fancies,--contradicting imperiously every thing he +advances,--taking leave of him with a consciousness of their own +superiority,--and, finally, talking of him and his genius in terms of +indifference bordering on contempt. This Mr. W. had the folly and the +insolence to say to Klopstock, who was enthusiastically praising the +Oberon of Wieland, that he never could see the smallest beauty in any +part of that Poem. + +We must now conclude our account of this "unaccountable" production. It +has not been in our power to enter into any discussion with Mr. +Coleridge on the various subjects of Poetry and Philosophy, which he +has, we think, vainly endeavoured to elucidate. But we shall, on a +future occasion, meet him on his own favourite ground. No less than 182 +pages of the second volume are dedicated to the poetry of Mr. +Wordsworth. He has endeavoured to define poetry--to explain the +philosophy of metre--to settle the boundaries of poetic diction--and to +show, finally, "What it is probable Mr. Wordsworth meant to say in his +dissertation prefixed to his Lyrical Ballads." As Mr. Coleridge has not +only studied the laws of poetical composition, but is a Poet of +considerable powers, there are, in this part of his Book, many acute, +ingenious, and even sensible observations and remarks; but he never +knows when to have done,--explains what requires no explanation,--often +leaves untouched the very difficulty he starts,--and when he has poured +before us a glimpse of light upon the shapeless form of some dark +conception, he seems to take a wilful pleasure in its immediate +extinction, and leads "us floundering on, and quite astray," through the +deepening shadows of interminable night. + +One instance there is of magnificent promise, and laughable +non-performance, unequalled in the annals of literary History. Mr. +Coleridge informs us, that he and Mr. Wordsworth (he is not certain which +is entitled to the glory of the first discovery) have found out the +difference between Fancy and Imagination. This discovery, it is +prophesied, will have an incalculable influence on the progress of all +the Fine Arts. He has written a long chapter purposely to prepare our +minds for the great discussion. The audience is assembled--the curtain +is drawn up--and there, in his gown, cap, and wig, is sitting Professor +Coleridge. In comes a servant with a letter; the Professor gets up, and, +with a solemn voice, reads to the audience.--It is from an enlightened +Friend; and its object is to shew, in no very courteous terms either to +the Professor or his Spectators, that he may lecture, but that nobody +will understand him. He accordingly makes his bow, and the curtain +falls; but the worst of the joke is, that the Professor pockets the +admittance-money,--for what reason, his outwitted audience are left, the +best way they can, to "fancy or imagine." + +But the greatest piece of Quackery in the Book is his pretended account +of the Metaphysical System of Kant, of which he knows less than nothing. +He wall not allow that there is a single word of truth in any of the +French Expositions of that celebrated System, nor yet in any of our +British Reviews. We do not wish to speak of what we do not understand, +and therefore say nothing of Mr. Coleridge's Metaphysics.... + +We have done. We have felt it our duty to speak with severity of this +book and its author--and we have given our readers ample opportunities +to judge of the justice of our strictures. We have not been speaking in +the cause of literature only, but, we conceive, in the cause of Morality +and Religion. For it is not fitting that He should be held up as an +example to the rising generation (but, on the contrary, it is most +fitting that he should be exposed as a most dangerous model), who has +alternately embraced, defended, and thrown aside all systems of +Philosophy--and all creeds of Religion,--who seems to have no power of +retaining an opinion,--no trust in the principles which he defends,--but +who fluctuates from theory to theory, according as he is impelled by +vanity, envy, or diseased desire of change,--and who, while he would +subvert and scatter into dust those structures of knowledge, reared by +the wise men of this and other generations, has nothing to erect in +their room but the baseless and air-built fabrics of a dreaming +Imagination. + + + + +ON THE COCKNEY SCHOOL OF POETRY + +No. I + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, October, 1817] + + Our talk shall be (a theme we never tire on) + Of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, + (Our England's Dante)--Wordsworth--HUNT, and KEATS, + The Muses' son of promise; and of what feats + He yet may do. + +CORNELIUS WEBB. + + +While the whole critical world is occupied with balancing the merits, +whether in theory or in execution, of what is commonly called THE LAKE +SCHOOL, it is strange that no one seems to think it at all necessary to +say a single word about another new school of poetry which has of late +sprung up among us. This school has not, I believe, as yet received any +name; but if I may be permitted to have the honour of christening it, it +may henceforth be referred to by the designation of THE COCKNEY SCHOOL. +Its chief Doctor and Professor is Mr. Leigh Hunt, a man certainly of +some talents, of extravagant pretensions both in wit, poetry, and +politics, and withal of exquisitely bad taste, and extremely vulgar +modes of thinking and manners in all respects. He is a man of little +education. He knows absolutely nothing of Greek, almost nothing of +Latin, and his knowledge of Italian literature is confined to a few of +the most popular of Petrarch's sonnets, and an imperfect acquaintance +with Ariosto, through the medium of Mr. Hoole. As to the French poets, +he dismisses them in the mass as a set of prim, precise, unnatural +pretenders. The truth is, he is in a state of happy ignorance about them +and all that they have done. He has never read Zaire nor Phedre. To +those great German poets who have illuminated the last fifty years with +a splendour to which this country has, for a long time, seen nothing +comparable, Mr. Hunt is an absolute stranger. Of Spanish books he has +read Don Quixote (in the translation of Motteux), and some poems of Lope +de Vega in the imitations of my Lord Holland. Of all the great critical +writers, either of ancient or of modern times, he is utterly ignorant, +excepting only Mr. Jeffrey among ourselves. + +With this stock of knowledge, Mr. Hunt presumes to become the founder of +a new school of poetry, and throws away entirely the chance which he +might have had of gaining some true poetical fame, had he been less +lofty in his pretensions. The story of Rimini is not wholly undeserving +of praise. It possesses some tolerable passages, which are all quoted in +the Edinburgh Reviewer's account of the poem, and not one of which is +quoted in the very illiberal attack upon it in the Quarterly. But such +is the wretched taste in which the greater part of the work is executed, +that most certainly no man who reads it once will ever be able to +prevail upon himself to read it again. One feels the same disgust at the +idea of opening Rimini, that impresses itself on the mind of a man of +fashion, when he is invited to enter, for a second time, the gilded +drawing-room of a little mincing boarding school mistress, who would +fain have an _At Home_ in her house. Every thing is pretence, +affectation, finery, and gaudiness. The beaux are attorneys' +apprentices, with chapeau bras and Limerick gloves--fiddlers, harp +teachers, and clerks of genius: the belles are faded fan-twinkling +spinsters, prurient vulgar misses from school, and enormous citizens' +wives. The company are entertained with lukewarm negus, and the sounds +of a paltry piano forte. + +All the great poets of our country have been men of some rank in +society, and there is no vulgarity in any of their writings; But Mr. +Hunt cannot utter a dedication, or even a note, without betraying the +_Shibboleth_ of low birth and low habits. He is the ideal of a Cockney +Poet. He raves perpetually about "greenfields," "jaunty streams," and +"o'er-arching leafiness," exactly as a Cheapside shop-keeper does about +the beauties of his box on the Camberwell road. Mr. Hunt is altogether +unacquainted with the face of nature in her magnificent scenes; he has +never seen any mountain higher than Highgate-hill, nor reclined by any +stream more pastoral than the Serpentine River. But he is determined to +be a poet eminently rural, and he rings the changes--till one is sick of +him, on the beauties of the different "high views" which he has taken of +God and nature, in the course of some Sunday dinner parties, at which he +has assisted in the neighbourhood of London. His books are indeed not +known in the country; his fame as a poet (and I might almost say, as a +politician too) is entirely confined to the young attorneys and +embryo-barristers about town. In the opinion of these competent judges, +London is the world--and Hunt is a Homer. + +Mr. Hunt is not disqualified by his ignorance and vulgarity alone, for +being the founder of a respectable sect in poetry. He labours under the +burden of a sin more deadly than either of these. The two great elements +of all dignified poetry, religious feeling, and patriotic feeling, have +no place in his mind. His religion is a poor tame dilution of the +blasphemies of the _Encyclopaedie_--his patriotism a crude, vague, +ineffectual, and sour Jacobinism. He is without reverence either for God +or man; neither altar nor throne have any dignity in his eyes. He speaks +well of nobody but two or three great dead poets, and in so speaking of +them he does well; but, alas! Mr. Hunt is no conjurer [Greek: technae ou +lanthanei]. He pretends, indeed, to be an admirer of Spencer and +Chaucer, but what he praises in them is never what is most deserving of +praise--it is only that which he humbly conceives, bears some +resemblance to the more perfect productions of Mr. Leigh Hunt; and we +can always discover, in the midst of his most violent ravings about the +Court of Elizabeth, and the days of Sir Philip Sidney, and the Fairy +Queen--that the real objects of his admiration are the Coterie of +Hampstead and the Editor of the Examiner. When he talks about chivalry +and King Arthur, he is always thinking of himself, and "_a small party +of friends, who meet once a-week at a Round Table, to discuss the merits +of a leg of mutton, and of the subjects upon which we are to write._"-- +Mr. Leigh Hunt's ideas concerning the sublime, and concerning his own +powers, bear a considerable resemblance to those of his friend Bottom, +the weaver, on the same subjects; "I will roar, that it shall do any +man's heart good to hear me."--"I will roar you an 'twere any +nightingale." + +The poetry of Mr. Hunt is such as might be expected from the personal +character and habits of its author. As a vulgar man is perpetually +labouring to be genteel--in like manner, the poetry of this man is +always on the stretch to be grand. He has been allowed to look for a +moment from the anti-chamber into the saloon, and mistaken the waving of +feathers and the painted floor for the _sine qua non's_ of elegant +society. He would fain be always tripping and waltzing, and is sorry +that he cannot be allowed to walk about in the morning with yellow +breeches and flesh-coloured silk stockings. He sticks an artificial +rose-bud into his button hole in the midst of winter. He wears no +neckcloth, and cuts his hair in imitation of the Prints of Petrarch. In +his verses also he is always desirous of being airy, graceful, easy, +courtly, and ITALIAN. If he had the smallest acquaintance with the great +demigods of Italian poetry, he could never fancy that the style in which +he writes, bears any, even the most remote resemblance to the severe and +simple manner of Dante--the tender stillness of the lover of Laura--or +the sprightly and good-natured unconscious elegance of the inimitable +Ariosto. He has gone into a strange delusion about himself, and is just +as absurd in supposing that he resembles the Italian Poets as a greater +Quack still (Mr. Coleridge) is, in imagining that he is a Philosopher +after the manner of Kant or Mendelshon--and that "the eye of Lessing +bears a remarkable likeness to MINE," i.e., the eye of Mr. Samuel +Coleridge.[1] + +[1] Mr. Wordsworth (meaning, we presume, to pay Mr. Coleridge a + compliment), makes him look very absurdly, + + "A noticeable man, with _large grey eyes_." + + +The extreme moral depravity of the Cockney School is another thing which +is for ever thrusting itself upon the public attention, and convincing +every man of sense who looks into their productions, that they who sport +such sentiments can never be great poets. How could any man of high +original genius ever stoop publicly, at the present day, to dip his +fingers in the least of those glittering and rancid obscenities which +float on the surface of Mr. Hunt's Hippocrene? His poetry is that of a +man who has kept company with kept-mistresses. He talks indelicately +like a tea-sipping milliner girl. Some excuse for him there might have +been, had he been hurried away by imagination or passion. But with him +indecency is a disease, and he speaks unclean things from perfect +inanition. The very concubine of so impure a wretch as Leigh Hunt would +be to be pitied, but alas! for the wife of such a husband! For him there +is no charm in simple seduction; and he gloats over it only when +accompanied with adultery and incest. + +The unhealthy and jaundiced medium through which the Founder of the +Cockney School views every thing like moral truth, is apparent, not only +from his obscenity, but also from his want of respect for all that +numerous class of plain upright men, and unpretending women, in which +the real worth and excellence of human society consists. Every man is, +according to Mr. Hunt, a dull potato-eating blockhead--of no greater +value to God or man than any ox or dray-horse--who is not an admirer of +Voltaire's _romans_, a worshipper of Lord Holland and Mr. Haydon and a +quoter of John Buncle and Chaucer's Flower and Leaf. Every woman is +useful only as a breeding machine, unless she is fond of reading +Launcelot of the Lake, in an antique summer-house. + +How such a profligate creature as Mr. Hunt can pretend to be an admirer +of Mr. Wordsworth, is to us a thing altogether inexplicable. One great +charm of Wordsworth's noble compositions consists in the dignified +purity of thought, and the patriarchal simplicity of feeling, with which +they are throughout penetrated and imbued. We can conceive a vicious man +admiring with distant awe and spectacle of virtue and purity; but if he +does so sincerely, he must also do so with the profoundest feeling of +the error of his own ways, and the resolution to amend them. His +admiration must be humble and silent, not pert and loquacious. Mr. Hunt +praises the purity of Wordsworth as if he himself were pure, his dignity +as if he also were dignified. He is always like the ball of Dung in the +fable, pleasing himself, and amusing by-standers with his "nos poma +natamus." For the person who writes _Rimini_, to admire the Excursion, +is just as impossible as it would be for a Chinese polisher of +cherry-stones, or gilder of tea-cups, to burst into tears at the sight +of the Theseus or the Torso. + +The Founder of the Cockney School would fain claim poetical kindred with +Lord Byron and Thomas Moore. Such a connexion would be as unsuitable for +them as for William Wordsworth. The days of Mr. Moore's follies are long +since over; and, as he is a thorough gentleman, he must necessarily +entertain the greatest contempt for such an under-bred person as Leigh +Hunt. But Lord Byron! How must the haughty spirit of Lara and Harold +contemn the subaltern sneaking of our modern tuft-hunter. The insult +which he offered to Lord Byron in the dedication of Rimini,--in which +he, a paltry cockney newspaper scribbler, had the assurance to address +one of the most nobly-born of English Patricians, and one of the first +geniuses whom the world ever produced, as "My dear Byron," although it +may have been forgotten and despised by the illustrious person whom it +most nearly concerned,--excited a feeling of utter loathing and disgust +in the public mind, which will always be remembered whenever the name of +Leigh Hunt is mentioned. We dare say Mr. Hunt has some fine dreams about +the true nobility being the nobility of talent, and flatters himself, +that with those who acknowledge only that sort of rank, he himself +passes for being the _peer_ of Byron. He is sadly mistaken. He is as +completely a Plebeian in his mind as he is in his rank and station in +society. To that highest and unalienated nobility which the great Roman +satirist styles "sola atque unica," we fear his pretensions would be +equally unavailing. + +The shallow and impotent pretensions, tenets, and attempts, of this +man,--and the success with which his influence seems to be extending +itself among a pretty numerous, though certainly a very paltry and +pitiful, set of readers,--have for the last two or three years been +considered by us with the most sickening aversion. The very culpable +manner in which his chief poem was reviewed in the Edinburgh Review (we +believe it is no secret, at his own impatient and feverish request, by +his partner in the Round Table), was matter of concern to more readers +than ourselves. The masterly pen which inflicted such signal +chastisement on the early licentiousness of Moore, should not have been +idle on that occasion. Mr. Jeffrey does ill when he delegates his +important functions into such hands as Mr. Hazlitt. It was chiefly in +consequence of that gentleman's allowing Leigh Hunt to pass unpunished +through a scene of slaughter, which his execution might so highly have +graced that we came to the resolution of laying before our readers a +series of essays on _the Cockney School_--of which here terminates the +first. _Z_. + + + + +THE COCKNEY SCHOOL OF POETRY + +No. III + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, July, 1818] + +Our hatred and contempt of Leigh Hunt as a writer, is not so much owing +to his shameless irreverence to his aged and afflicted king--to his +profligate attacks on the character of the king's sons--to his low-born +insolence to that aristocracy with whom he would in vain claim the +alliance of one illustrious friendship--to his paid panderism to the +vilest passions of that mob of which he is himself a firebrand--to the +leprous crust of self-conceit with which his whole moral being is +indurated--to that loathsome vulgarity which constantly clings round him +like a vermined garment from St. Giles'--to that irritable temper which +keeps the unhappy man, in spite even of his vanity, in a perpetual fret +with himself and all the world beside, and that shews itself equally in +his deadly enmities and capricious friendships,--our hatred and contempt +of Leigh Hunt, we say, is not so much owing to these and other causes, +as to the odious and unnatural harlotry of his polluted muse. We were +the first to brand with a burning iron the false face of this +kept-mistress of a demoralizing incendiary. We tore off her gaudy veil and +transparent drapery, and exhibited the painted cheeks and writhing limbs +of the prostitute. We denounced to the execration of the people of +England, the man who had dared to write in the solitude of a cell, whose +walls ought to have heard only the sighs of contrition and repentance, a +lewd tale of incest, adultery, and murder, in which the violation of +Nature herself was wept over, palliated, justified, and held up to +imitation, and the violators themselves worshipped as holy martyrs. The +story of Rimini had begun to have its admirers; but their deluded minds +were startled at our charges,--and on reflecting upon the character of +the poem, which they had read with a dangerous sympathy, not on account +of its poetical merit, which is small indeed, but on account of those +voluptuous scenes, so dangerous even to a pure imagination, when +insidiously painted with the seeming colours of virtue,--they were +astounded at their own folly and their own danger, and consigned the +wretched volume to that ignominious oblivion, which, in a land of +religion and morality, must soon be the doom of all obscene and +licentious productions. + +The story of Rimini is heard of no more. But Leigh Hunt will not be +quiet. His hebdomadal hand [**Pointing hand symbol] is held up, even on +the Sabbath, against every man of virtue and genius in the land; but the +great defamer claims to himself an immunity from that disgrace which he +knows his own wickedness has incurred,--the Cockney calumniator would +fain hold his own disgraced head sacred from the iron fingers of +retribution. But that head shall be brought low--aye--low "as heaped up +justice" ever sunk that of an offending scribbler against the laws of +Nature and of God. + +Leigh Hunt dared not, Hazlitt dared not, to defend the character of the +"Story of Rimini." A man may venture to say that in verse which it is +perilous to utter in plain prose. Even they dared not to affirm to the +people of England, that a wife who had committed incest with her +husband's brother, ought on her death to be buried in the same tomb with +her fraticidal [Transcriber's note: sic] paramour, and that tomb to be +annually worshipped by the youths and virgins of their country. And +therefore Leigh Hunt flew into a savage passion against the critic who +had chastised his crime, pretended that he himself was insidiously +charged with the offences which he had applauded and celebrated in +others, and tried to awaken the indignation of the public against his +castigator, as if he had been the secret assassin of private character, +who was but the open foe of public enormity. The attempt was hopeless,-- +the public voice has lifted up against Hunt,--and sentence of +excommunication from the poets of England has been pronounced, enrolled, +and ratified. + +There can be no radical distinction allowed between the private and +public character of a poet. If a poet sympathizes with and justifies +wickedness in his poetry, he is a wicked man. It matters not that his +private life may be free from wicked actions. Corrupt his moral +principles must be,--and if his conduct has not been flagrantly immoral, +the cause must be looked for in constitution, &c., but not in +conscience. It is therefore of little or no importance, whether Leigh +Hunt be or be not a bad private character. He maintains, that he is a +most excellent private character, and that he would blush to tell the +world how highly he is thought of by an host of respectable friends. Be +it so,--and that his vanity does not delude him. But this is most sure, +that, in such a case, the world will never be brought to believe even +the truth. The world is not fond of ingenious distinctions between the +theory and the practice of morals. The public are justified in refusing +to hear a man plead in favour of his character, when they hold in their +hands a work of his in which all respect to character is forgotten. We +must reap the fruit of what we sow; and if evil and unjust reports have +arisen against Leigh Hunt as a man, and unluckily for him it is so, he +ought not to attribute the rise of such reports to the political +animosities which his virulence has excited, but to the real and obvious +cause--his voluptuous defence of crimes revolting to Nature. + +The publication of the voluptuous story of Rimini was followed, it would +appear, by mysterious charges against Leigh Hunt in his domestic +relations. The world could not understand the nature of his poetical +love of incest; and instead of at once forgetting both the poem and the +poet, many people set themselves to speculate, and talk, and ask +questions, and pry into secrets with which they had nothing to do, till +at last there was something like an identification of Leigh Hunt himself +with Paolo, the incestuous hero of Leigh Hunt's chief Cockney poem. This +was wrong, and, we believe, wholly unjust; but it was by no means +unnatural; and precisely what Leigh Hunt is himself in the weekly +practice of doing to other people without the same excuse. Leigh Hunt +has now spoken out so freely to the public on the subject, that there +can be no indelicacy in talking of it, in as far as it respects him, at +least.... + +There is no need for us to sink down this unhappy man into deeper +humiliation. Never before did the abuse and prostitution of talents +bring with them such prompt and memorable punishment. The pestilential +air which Leigh Hunt breathed forth into the world to poison and +corrupt, has been driven stiflingly back upon himself, and he who strove +to spread the infection of loathsome licentiousness among the tender +moral constitutions of the young, has been at length rewarded, as it was +fitting he should be, by the accusation of being himself guilty of those +crimes which it was the object of "The Story of Rimini" to encourage and +justify in others. The world knew nothing of him but from his works; and +were they blameable (even though they erred) in believing him capable of +any enormities in his own person, whose imagination feasted and gloated +on the disgusting details of adultery and incest? They were repelled and +sickened by such odious and unnatural wickedness--he was attracted and +delighted. What to them was the foulness of pollution, seemed to him the +beauty of innocence. What to them was the blast from hell, to him was +the air from heaven. They read and they condemned. They asked each other +"What manner of man is this?" The charitable were silent. It would +perhaps be hard to call them uncharitable who spoke aloud. Thoughts were +associated with his name which shall be nameless by us; and at last the +wretched scribbler himself has had the gross and unfeeling folly to +punish them all to the world, and that too in a tone of levity that +could have been becoming only on our former comparatively trivial +charges against him of wearing yellow breeches, and dispensing with the +luxury of a neckcloth. He shakes his shoulders, according to his rather +iniquitous custom, at being told that he is suspected of adultery and +incest! A pleasant subject of merriment, no doubt, it is--though +somewhat embittered by the intrusive remembrance of that unsparing +castigator of vice, Mr. Gifford, and clouded over by the melancholy +breathed from the shin-bone of his own poor old deceased grandmother. +What a mixture of the horrible and absurd! And the man who thus writes +is--not a Christian, for that he denies--but, forsooth, a poet! one of +the + + Great spirits who on earth are sojourning! + +But Leigh Hunt is not guilty, in the above paragraph, of shocking levity +alone,--he is guilty of falsehood. It is not true, that he learns for +the first time, from that anonymous letter (so vulgar, that we could +almost suspect him of having written it himself) what charges were in +circulation against him. He knew it all before. Has he forgotten to whom +he applied for explanation when Z.'s sharp essay on the Cockney Poetry +cut him to the heart? He knows what he said upon those occasions, and +let him ponder upon it. But what could induce him to suspect the amiable +Bill Hazlitt, "him, the immaculate," of being Z.? It was this,--he +imagined that none but that foundered artist could know the fact of his +feverish importunities to be reviewed by him in the Edinburgh Review. +And therefore, having almost "as fine an intellectual touch" as "Bill +the painter" himself, he thought he saw Z. lurking beneath the elegant +exterior of that highly accomplished man. + + Dear Hazlitt, whose tact intellectual is such, + That it seems to feel truth as one's fingers do touch. + +But, for the present, we have nothing more to add. Leigh Hunt is +delivered into our hands to do with him as we will. Our eyes shall be +upon him, and unless he amend his ways, to wither and to blast him. The +pages of the Edinburgh Review, we are confident, are henceforth shut +against him. One wicked Cockney will not again be permitted to praise +another in that journal, which, up to the moment when incest and +adultery were defended in its pages, had, however openly at war with +religion, kept at least upon decent terms with the cause of morality. It +was indeed a fatal day for Mr. Jeffrey, when he degraded both himself +and his original coadjutors, by taking into pay such an unprincipled +blunderer as Hazlitt. He is not a coadjutor, he is an accomplice. The +day is perhaps not far distant, when the Charlatan shall be stripped to +the naked skin, and made to swallow his own vile prescriptions. He and +Leigh Hunt are + + Arcades ambo + Et cantare pares-- + +Shall we add, + + et respondere parati? + + + + +Z. ON KEATS + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, August, 1818] + +COCKNEY SCHOOL OF POETRY + +No. IV + + ---- OF KEATS, + THE MUSES' SON OF PROMISE, AND WHAT FEATS + HE YET MAY DO, &C. + +CORNELIUS WEBB. + + +Of all the manias of this mad age, the most incurable, as well as the +most common, seems to be no other than the _Metromanie_. The just +celebrity of Robert Burns and Miss Baillie has had the melancholy effect +of turning the heads of we know not how many farm-servants and unmarried +ladies; our very footmen compose tragedies, and there is scarcely a +superannuated governess in the island that does not leave a roll of +lyrics behind her in her band-box. To witness the disease of any human +understanding, however feeble, is distressing; but the spectacle of an +able mind reduced to a state of insanity is of course ten times more +afflicting. It is with such sorrow as this that we have contemplated the +case of Mr. John Keats. This young man appears to have received from +nature talents of an excellent, perhaps even of a superior order-- +talents which, devoted to the purposes of any useful profession, must +have rendered him a respectable, if not an eminent citizen. His friends, +we understand, destined him to the career of medicine, and he was bound +apprentice some years ago to a worthy apothecary in town. But all has +been undone by a sudden attack of the malady to which we have alluded. +Whether Mr. John had been sent home with a diuretic or composing draught +to some patient far gone in the poetical mania, we have not heard. This +much is certain, that he has caught the infection, and that thoroughly. +For some time we were in hopes, that he might get off with a violent fit +or two; but of late the symptoms are terrible. The phrenzy of the +"Poems" was bad enough in its way; but it did not alarm us half so +seriously as the calm, settled, imperturbable drivelling idiocy of +"Endymion." We hope, however, that in so young a person, and with a +constitution originally so good, even now the disease is not utterly +incurable. Time, firm treatment, and rational restraint, do much for +many apparently hopeless invalids; and if Mr. Keats should happen, at +some interval of reason, to cast his eye upon our pages, he may perhaps +be convinced of the existence of his malady, which, in such cases, is +often all that is necessary to put the patient in a fair way of being +cured. + +The readers of the Examiner newspaper were informed, some time ago, by a +solemn paragraph, in Mr. Hunt's best style, of the appearance of two new +stars of glorious magnitude and splendour in the poetical horizon of the +land of Cockaigne. One of these turned out, by and by, to be no other +than Mr. John Keats. This precocious adulation confirmed the wavering +apprentice in his desire to quit the gallipots, and at the same time +excited in his too susceptible mind a fatal admiration for the character +and talents of the most worthless and affected of all the versifiers of +our time. One of his first productions was the following sonnet, +"_written on the day when Mr. Leigh Hunt left prison._" It will be +recollected, that the cause of Hunt's confinement was a series of libels +against his sovereign, and that its fruit was the odious and incestuous +"Story of Rimini." + + What though, for shewing truth to flattered state, + _Kind Hunt_ was shut in prison, yet has he, + In his immortal spirit been as free + As the sky-searching lark, and as elate. + Minion of grandeur! think you he did wait? + Think you he nought but prison walls did see, + Till, so unwilling, thou unturn'dst the key? + Ah, no! far happier, nobler was his fate! + _In Spenser's halls_! he strayed, and bowers fair, + Culling enchanted flowers; and he flew + _With daring Milton_! through the fields of air; + To regions of his own his genius true + Took happy flights. Who shall his fame impair + When thou art dead, and all thy wretched crew? + +The absurdity of the thought in this sonnet is, however, if possible, +surpassed in another, "_addressed to Haydon_" the painter, that clever, +but most affected artist, who as little resembles Raphael in genius as +he does in person, notwithstanding the foppery of having his hair curled +over his shoulders in the old Italian fashion. In this exquisite piece +it will be observed, that Mr. Keats classes together WORDSWORTH, HUNT, +and HAYDON, as the three greatest spirits of the age, and that he +alludes to himself, and some others of the rising brood of Cockneys, as +likely to attain hereafter an equally honourable elevation. Wordsworth +and Hunt! what a juxta-position! The purest, the loftiest, and, we do +not fear to say it, the most classical of living English poets, joined +together in the same compliment with the meanest, the filthiest, and the +most vulgar of Cockney poetasters. No wonder that he who could be guilty +of this should class Haydon with Raphael, and himself with Spenser. + + Great spirits now on earth are sojourning; + He of the cloud, the cataract, the lake, + Who on Helvellyn's summit, wide awake, + Catches his freshness from Archangel's wing: + _He of the rose, the violet, the spring, + The social smile, the chain for Freedom's sake_: + And lo!--whose steadfastness would never take + A meaner sound than Raphael's whispering. + And other spirits there are standing apart + Upon the forehead of the age to come; + These, these will give the world another heart, + And other pulses. _Hear ye not the hum + Of mighty workings_?-- + _Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb_. + +The nations are to listen and be dumb! and why, good Johnny Keats? +because Leigh Hunt is editor of the Examiner, and Haydon has painted the +judgment of Solomon, and you and Cornelius Webb, and a few more city +sparks, are pleased to look upon yourselves as so many future +Shakespeares and Miltons! The world has really some reason to look to +its foundations! Here is a _tempestas in matula_ with a vengeance. At +the period when these sonnets were published, Mr. Keats had no +hesitation in saying, that he looked on himself as "_not yet_ a glorious +denizen of the wide heaven of poetry," but he had many fine soothing +visions of coming greatness, and many rare plans of study to prepare him +for it.... + +Having cooled a little from this "fine passion," our youthful poet +passes very naturally into a long strain of foaming abuse against a +certain class of English Poets, whom, with Pope at their head, it is +much the fashion with the ignorant unsettled pretenders of the present +time to undervalue. Begging these gentlemen's pardon, although Pope was +not a poet of the same high order with some who are now living, yet, to +deny his genius, it is just about as absurd as to dispute that of +Wordsworth, or to believe in that of Hunt. Above all things, it is most +pitiably ridiculous to hear men, of whom their country will always have +reason to be proud, reviled by uneducated and flimsy striplings, who are +not capable of understanding either their merits, or those of any other +_men of power_--fanciful dreaming tea-drinkers, who, without logic +enough to analyse a single idea, or imagination enough to form one +original image, or learning enough to distinguish between the written +language of Englishmen and the spoken jargon of Cockneys, presume to +talk with contempt of some of the most exquisite spirits the world ever +produced, merely because they did not happen to exert their faculties in +laborious affected descriptions of flowers seen in window-pots, or +cascades heard at Vauxhall; in short, because they chose to be wits, +philosophers, patriots, and poets, rather than to found the Cockney +school of versification, morality, and politics, a century before its +time. After blaspheming himself into a fury against Boileau, &c., Mr. +Keats comforts himself and his readers with a view of the present more +promising aspect of affairs; above all, with the ripened glories of the +poet of Rimini. Addressing the names of the departed chiefs of English +poetry, he informs them, in the following clear and touching manner, of +the existence of "him of the Rose," &c. + + From a thick brake, + Nested and quiet in a valley mild, + Bubbles a pipe; fine sounds are floating wild + About the earth. Happy are ye and glad.... + +From some verses addressed to various individuals of the other sex, it +appears, notwithstanding all this gossamer-work, that Johnny's +affectations are not entirely confined to objects purely etherial. Take, +by way of specimen, the following prurient and vulgar lines, evidently +meant for some young lady east of Temple-bar. + + Add too, the sweetness + Of thy honied voice; the neatness + Of thine ankle lightly turn'd: + With those beauties, scarce discerned, + Kept with such sweet privacy, + That they seldom meet the eye + Of the little loves that fly + Round about with eager pry. + Saving when, with freshening lave, + Thou dipp'st them in the taintless wave; + Like twin water lilies, born + In the coolness of the morn. + O, if thou hadst breathed then, + Now the Muses had been ten. + Couldst thou wish for lineage _higher_ + Than twin sister of _Thalia_? + At last for ever, evermore, + Will I call the Graces four. + +Who will dispute that our poet, to use his own phrase (and rhyme), + + Can mingle music fit for the soft _ear_ + Of Lady _Cytherea_. + +So much for the opening bud; now for the expanded flower. It is time to +pass from the juvenile "Poems," to the mature and elaborate "Endymion, a +Poetic Romance." The old story of the moon falling in love with a +shepherd, so prettily told by a Roman Classic, and so exquisitely +enlarged and adorned by one of the most elegant of German poets, has +been seized upon by Mr. John Keats, to be done with as might seem good +unto the sickly fancy of one who never read a single line either of Ovid +or of Wieland. If the quantity, not the quality, of the verses dedicated +to the story is to be taken into account, there can be no doubt that Mr. +Keats may now claim Endymion entirely to himself. To say the truth, we +do not suppose either the Latin or the German poet would be very anxious +to dispute about the property of the hero of the "Poetic Romance." Mr. +Keats has thoroughly appropriated the character, if not the name. His +Endymion is not a Greek shepherd, love of a Grecian goddess; he is +merely a young Cockney rhymster, dreaming a phantastic dream at the full +of the moon. Costume, were it worth while to notice such a trifle, is +violated in every page of this goodly octavo. From his prototype Hunt, +John Keats has acquired a sort of vague idea, that the Greeks were a +most tasteful people, and that no mythology can be so finely adapted for +the purposes of poetry as theirs. It is amusing to see what a hand the +two Cockneys make of this mythology; the one confesses that he never +read the Greek Tragedians, and the other knows Homer only from Chapman, +and both of them write about Apollo, Pan, Nymphs, Muses, and Mysteries, +as might be expected from persons of their education. We shall not, +however, enlarge at present upon this subject, as we mean to dedicate an +entire paper to the classical attainments and attempts of the Cockney +poets. As for Mr. Keats's "Endymion," it has just as much to do with +Greece as it has with "old Tartary the fierce"; no man, whose mind has +ever been imbued with the smallest knowledge or feeling of classical +poetry or classical history, could have stooped to profane and vulgarise +every association in the manner which has been adopted by this "son of +promise." Before giving any extracts, we must inform our readers, that +this romance is meant to be written in English heroic rhyme. To those +who have read any of Hunt's poems, this hint might indeed be needless. +Mr. Keats has adopted the loose, nerveless versification, and Cockney +rhymes of the poet of Rimini; but in fairness to that gentleman, we must +add, that the defects of the system are tenfold more conspicuous in his +disciples' work than in his own. Mr. Hunt is a small poet, but he is a +clever man. Mr. Keats is a still smaller poet, and he is only a boy of +pretty abilities, which he has done every thing in his power to +spoil.... + +After all this, however, the "modesty," as Mr. Keats expresses it, of +the Lady Diana prevented her from owning in Olympus her passion for +Endymion. Venus, as the most knowing in such matters, is the first to +discover the change that has taken place in the temperament of the +goddess. "An idle tale," says the laughter-loving dame, + + A humid eye, and steps luxurious, + When these are new and strange, are ominous. + +The inamorata, to vary the intrigue, carries on a romantic intercourse +with Endymion, under the disguise of an Indian damsel. At last, however, +her scruples, for some reason or other, are all overcome, and the Queen +of Heaven owns her attachment. + + She gave her fair hands to him, and behold, + Before three swiftest kisses he had told, + They vanish far away!--Peona went + Home through the gloomy wood in wonderment. + +And so, like many other romances, terminates the "Poetic Romance" of +Johnny Keats, in a patched-up wedding. + +We had almost forgotten to mention, that Keats belongs to the Cockney +School of Politics, as well as the Cockney School of Poetry. + +It is fit that he who holds Rimini to be the first poem, should believe +the Examiner to be the first politician of the day. We admire +consistency, even in folly. Hear how their bantling has already learned +to lisp sedition. + + There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men + With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen + Their baaing vanities, to browse away + The comfortable green and juicy hay + From human pastures; or, O torturing fact! + Who, through an idiot blink, will see unpack'd + Fire-branded foxes to sear up and singe + Our gold and ripe-ear'd hopes. With not one tinge + Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight + Able to face an owl's, they still are dight + By the blue-eyed nations in empurpled vests, + And crowns, and turbans. With unladen breasts, + Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount + To their spirit's perch, their being's high account, + Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones-- + Amid the fierce intoxicating tones. + Of trumpets, shoutings, and belaboured drums, + And sudden cannon. Ah! how all this hums, + In wakeful ears, like uproar past and gone-- + Like thunder clouds that spake to Babylon, + And set those old Chaldeans to their tasks.-- + Are then regalities all gilded masks? + +And now, good-morrow to "the Muses' son of Promise"; as for "the feats +he yet may do," as we do not pretend to say, like himself, "Muse of my +native land am I inspired," we shall adhere to the safe old rule of +_pauca verba_. We venture to make one small prophecy, that his +bookseller will not a second time venture L50 upon any thing he can +write. It is a better and a wiser thing to be a starving apothecary than +a starved poet; so back to the shop Mr. John, back to plasters, pills, +and ointment boxes, &c. But, for Heaven's sake, young Sangrado, be a +little more sparing of extenuatives and soporifics in your practice than +you have been in your poetry. + +Z. + + + + +ON SHELLEY + +[From _Blackwood's Magazine_, September, 1820] + +"PROMETHEUS UNBOUND" + + +Whatever may be the difference of men's opinions concerning the measure +of Mr. Shelley's poetical power, there is one point in regard to which +all must be agreed, and that is his Audacity. In the old days of the +exulting genius of Greece, Aeschylus dared two things which astonished +all men, and which still astonish them--to exalt contemporary men into +the personages of majestic tragedies--and to call down and embody into +tragedy, without degradation, the elemental spirits of nature and the +deeper essences of Divinity. We scarcely know whether to consider the +_Persians_ or the _Prometheus Bound_ as the most extraordinary display +of what has always been esteemed the most audacious spirit that ever +expressed its workings in poetry. But what shall we say of the young +English poet who has now attempted, not only a flight as high as the +highest of Aeschylus, but the very flight of that father of tragedy--who +has dared once more to dramatise Prometheus--and, most wonderful of all, +to dramatise the _deliverance_ of Prometheus--which is known to have +formed the subject of a lost tragedy of Aeschylus no ways inferior in +mystic elevation to that of the [Greek: Desmotaes]. + +Although a fragment of that perished master-piece be still extant in the +Latin version of Attius--it is quite impossible to conjecture what were +the personages introduced in the tragedy of Aeschylus, or by what train +of passions and events he was able to sustain himself on the height of +that awful scene with which his surviving _Prometheus_ terminates. It is +impossible, however, after reading what is left of that famous +trilogy,[1] to suspect that the Greek poet symbolized any thing whatever +by the person of Prometheus, except the native strength of human +intellect itself--its strength of endurance above all others--its +sublime power of patience. STRENGTH and FORCE are the two agents who +appear on this darkened theatre to bind the too benevolent Titan--_Wit_ +and _Treachery_, under the forms of Mercury and Oceanus, endeavour to +prevail upon him to make himself free by giving up his dreadful secret;-- +but _Strength_ and _Force_, and _Wit_ and _Treason_, are all alike +powerless to overcome the resolution of that suffering divinity, or to +win from him any acknowledgment of the new tyrant of the skies. Such was +this simple and sublime allegory in the hands of Aeschylus. As to what +had been the original purpose of the framers of the allegory, that is a +very different question, and would carry us back into the most hidden +places of the history of mythology. No one, however, who compares the +mythological systems of different races and countries, can fail to +observe the frequent occurrence of certain great leading Ideas and +leading Symbolisations of ideas too--which Christians are taught to +contemplate with a knowledge that is the knowledge of reverence. Such, +among others, are unquestionably the ideas of an Incarnate Divinity +suffering on account of mankind--conferring benefits on mankind at the +expense of his own suffering;--the general idea of vicarious atonement +itself--and the idea of the dignity of suffering as an exertion of +intellectual might--all of which may be found, more or less obscurely +shadowed forth, in the original [Greek: Mythos] of Prometheus the Titan, +the enemy of the successful rebel and usurper Jove. We might have also +mentioned the idea of a _deliverer_, waited for patiently through ages +of darkness, and at least arriving in the person of the child of Io-- +but, in truth, there is no pleasure, and would be little propriety, in +seeking to explain all this at greater length, considering, what we +cannot consider without deepest pain, the very different views which +have been taken of the original allegory by Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley. + +[1] There was another and an earlier play of Aeschylus, Prometheus the + Fire-Stealer, which is commonly supposed to have made part of the + series; but the best critics, we think, are of opinion, that that + was entirely a satirical piece. + +It would be highly absurd to deny, that this gentleman has manifested +very extraordinary powers of language and imagination in his treatment +of the allegory, however grossly and miserably he may have tried to +pervert its purpose and meaning. But of this more anon. In the meantime, +what can be more deserving of reprobation than the course which he is +allowing his intellect to take, and that too at the very time when he +ought to be laying the foundations of a lasting and honourable name. +There is no occasion for going round about the bush to hint what the +poet himself has so unblushingly and sinfully blazoned forth in every +part of his production. With him, it is quite evident that the Jupiter +whose downfall has been predicted by Prometheus, means nothing more than +Religion in general, that is, every human system of religious belief; +and that, with the fall of this, he considers it perfectly necessary (as +indeed we also believe, though with far different feelings) that every +system of human government also should give way and perish. The patience +of the contemplative spirit in Prometheus is to be followed by the +daring of the active demagorgon, at whose touch all "old thrones" are at +once and for ever to be cast down into the dust. It appears too plainly, +from the luscious pictures with which his play terminates, that Mr. +Shelley looks forward to an unusual relaxation of all moral _rules_--or +rather, indeed, to the extinction of all moral feelings, except that of +a certain mysterious indefinable _kindliness_, as the natural and +necessary result of the overthrow of all civil government and religious +belief. It appears, still more wonderfully, that he contemplates this +state of things as the ideal SUMMUM BONUM. In short, it is quite +impossible that there should exist a more pestiferous mixture of +blasphemy, sedition, and sensuality, than is visible in the whole +structure and strain of this poem--which, nevertheless, and +notwithstanding all the detestation its principles excite, must and will +be considered by all that read it attentively, as abounding in poetical +beauties of the highest order--as presenting many specimens not easily +to be surpassed, of the moral sublime of eloquence--as overflowing with +pathos, and most magnificent in description. Where can be found a +spectacle more worthy of sorrow than such a man performing and glorying +in the performance of such things? His evil ambition,--from all he has +yet written, but most of all, from what he has last and best written, +his _Prometheus_,--appears to be no other, than that of attaining the +highest place among those poets,--enemies, not friends, of their +species, who, as a great and virtuous poet has well said (putting evil +consequence close after evil cause). + + Profane the God-given strength, and _mar the lofty line._ + +We should hold ourselves very ill employed, however, were we to enter at +any length into the reprehensible parts of this remarkable production. +It is sufficient to shew, that we have not been misrepresenting the +purpose of the poet's mind, when we mention, that the whole tragedy ends +with a mysterious sort of dance, and chorus of elemental spirits, and +other indefinable beings, and that the SPIRIT OF THE HOUR, one of the +most singular of these choral personages, tells us: + + I wandering went + Among the haunts and dwellings of mankind, + And first was disappointed not to see + Such mighty change as I had felt within + Expressed in other things; but soon I looked, + And behold! THRONES WERE KINGLESS, and men walked + One with the other, even as spirits do, etc. + + * * * * * + +We cannot conclude without saying a word or two in regard to an +accusation which we have lately seen brought against ourselves in some +one of the London Magazines; we forget which at this moment. We are +pretty sure we know who the author of that most false accusation is--of +which more hereafter. He has the audacious insolence to say, that we +praise Mr. Shelley, although we dislike his principles, just because we +know that he is not in a situation of life to be in any danger of +suffering pecuniary inconvenience from being run down by critics, and, +_vice versa_, abuse Hunt, Keats, and Hazlitt, and so forth, because we +know that they are poor men; a fouler imputation could not be thrown on +any writer than this creature has dared to throw on us; nor a more +utterly false one; we repeat the word again--than this is when thrown +upon us. + +We have no personal acquaintance with any of these men, and no personal +feelings in regard to any one of them, good or bad. We never even saw +any one of their faces. As for Mr. Keats, we are informed that he is in +a very bad state of health, and that his friends attribute a great deal +of it to the pain he has suffered from the critical castigation his +Endymion drew down on him in this magazine. If it be so, we are most +heartily sorry for it, and have no hesitation in saying, that had we +suspected that young author, of being so delicately nerved, we should +have administered our reproof in a much more lenient shape and style. +The truth is, we from the beginning saw marks of feeling and power in +Mr. Keats's verses, which made us think it very likely, he might become +a real poet of England, provided he could be persuaded to give up all +the tricks of Cockneyism, and forswear for ever the thin potations of +Mr. Leigh Hunt. We, therefore, rated him as roundly as we decently could +do, for the flagrant affectations of those early productions of his. In +the last volume he has published, we find more beauties than in the +former, both of language and of thought, but we are sorry to say, we +find abundance of the same absurd affectations also, and superficial +conceits, which first displeased us in his writings;--and which we are +again very sorry to say, must in our opinion, if persisted in, utterly +and entirely prevent Mr. Keats from ever taking his place among the pure +and classical poets of his mother tongue. It is quite ridiculous to see +how the vanity of these Cockneys makes them overrate their own +importance, even in the eyes of us, that have always expressed such +plain unvarnished contempt for them, and who do feel for them all, a +contempt too calm and profound, to admit of any admixture of any thing +like anger or personal spleen. We should just as soon think of being +wroth with vermin, independently of their coming into our apartment, as +we should of having any feelings at all about any of these people, other +than what are excited by seeing them in the shape of authors. Many of +them, considered in any other character than that of authors are, we +have no doubt, entitled to be considered as very worthy people in their +own way. Mr. Hunt is said to be a very amiable man in his own sphere, +and we believe him to be so willingly. Mr. Keats we have often heard +spoken of in terms of great kindness, and we have no doubt his manners +and feelings are calculated to make his friends love him. But what has +all this to do with our opinion of their poetry? What, in the name of +wonder, does it concern us, whether these men sit among themselves, with +mild or with sulky faces, eating their mutton steaks, and drinking their +porter at Highgate, Hampstead, or Lisson Green? What is there that +should prevent us, or any other person, that happens not to have been +educated in the University of Little Britain, from expressing a simple, +undisguised, and impartial opinion, concerning the merits or demerits of +men that we never saw, nor thought of for one moment, otherwise than as +in their capacity of authors? What should hinder us from saying, since +we think so, that Mr. Leigh Hunt is a clever wrong-headed man, whose +vanities have got inwoven so deeply into him, that he has no chance of +ever writing one line of classical English, or thinking one genuine +English thought, either about poetry or politics? What is the spell that +must seal our lips, from uttering an opinion equally plain and +perspicuous concerning Mr. John Keats, viz., that nature possibly meant +him to be a much better poet than Mr. Leigh Hunt ever could have been, +but that, if he persists in imitating the faults of that writer, he must +be contented to share his fate, and be like him forgotten? Last of all, +what should forbid us to announce our opinion, that Mr. Shelley, as a +man of genius, is not merely superior, either to Mr. Hunt, or to Mr. +Keats, but altogether out of their sphere, and totally incapable of ever +being brought into the most distant comparison with either of them. It +is very possible, that Mr. Shelley himself might not be inclined to +place himself so high above these men as we do, but that is his affair, +not ours. We are afraid that he shares, (at least with one of them) in +an abominable system of belief, concerning Man and the World, the +sympathy arising out of which common belief, may probably sway more than +it ought to do on both sides. But the truth of the matter is this, and +it is impossible to conceal it were we willing to do so, that Mr. +Shelley is destined to leave a great name behind him, and that we, as +lovers of true genius, are most anxious that this name should ultimately +be pure as well as great. + +As for the principles and purposes of Mr. Shelley's poetry, since we +must again recur to that dark part of the subject; we think they are on +the whole, more undisguisedly pernicious in this volume, than even in +his Revolt of Islam. There is an Ode to Liberty at the end of the +volume, which contains passages of the most splendid beauty, but which, +in point of meaning, is just as wicked as any thing that ever reached +the world under the name of Mr. Hunt himself. It is not difficult to +fill up the blank which has been left by the prudent bookseller, in one +of the stanzas beginning: + + O that the free would stamp the impious name, + Of ----- into the dust! Or write it there + So that this blot upon the page of fame, + Were as a serpent's path, which the light air + Erases, etc., etc. + +but the next speaks still more plainly: + + O that the WISE from their bright minds would kindle + Such lamps within the dome of this wide world, + That the pale name of PRIEST might shrink and dwindle + Into the HELL from which it first was hurled! + +This is exactly a versification of the foulest sentence that ever issued +from the lips of Voltaire. Let us hope that Percy Bysshe Shelley is not +destined to leave behind him, like that great genius, a name for ever +detestable to the truly FREE and the truly WISE. He talks in his preface +about MILTON, as a "Republican," and a "bold inquirer into Morals and +religion." Could any thing make us despise Mr. Shelley's understanding, +it would be such an instance of voluntary blindness as this! Let us +hope, that ere long a lamp of genuine truth may be kindled within his +"bright mind"; and that he may walk in its light the path of the true +demigods of English genius, having, like them, learned to "fear God and +Honour the king." + + + + +THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW + +Started in 1824 to represent Radical opinions, the _Westminster_ was +associated, in its palmy days, with such "persons of importance" as +George Eliot, George Henry Lewes, and J.S. Mill, retaining to the +present moment an isolated preference for the expression of +unconventional, and often _outre_ opinions. It has always been somewhat +fanatical and, now that really distinguished writers seldom enter its +pages, has become associated, in the general view, with the promotion of +fads. + +JOHN STUART MILL + +(1806-1873) + +Though Mill's principle work was of a highly expert and technical +nature, he had the rare power of conveying accurate expressions of sound +thoughts in popular language; and he was conspicuous for the moral +fervour of his opinions in practical politics. His fascinating +autobiography is absolutely sincere, and very copious, in its +revelations. It has been said, moreover, that he was "more at pains to +conceal his originality" than "most writers are to set forth" this +quality: and it was this characteristic which inspired his broad-minded +conduct of the _London Review_, soon incorporated with the +_Westminster_, which, after ten years as a contributor, he edited from +1834, and owned from 1837 until 1840. Here he made "a noble experiment +to endeavour to combine opposites, and to maintain a perpetual attitude +of sympathy with hostile opinions." It was officially, the organ of +Utilitarianism; but articles were frequently inserted requiring the +editorial _caveat_. It was the friend of liberty in every shape and +form. + +In a philosophic writer whose style was admittedly always literary, it +is of special interest to notice that he so frequently chose a volume of +poetry to review himself: and no better example of this work can be +found than the following critique of Tennyson, which, again, may be most +profitably compared with Gladstone's. It proves that he loved poetry for +its own sake. + +The notice of Macaulay's Lays further illustrates his interesting +_theories_ of poetry. + +JOHN STERLING + +(1806-1844) + +It is the remarkable fate of Sterling, leaving behind him no work of +permanent distinction--to have been the subject of two biographies by +persons of far greater importance than his--Archdeacon Hare and Thomas +Carlyle. The editorial foot-note affixed to the following review, in +which Mill describes him as "one of our most valued contributors" +provides further evidence of what his contemporaries expected of "Poor +Sterling." "A loose, careless looking, thin figure," says Carlyle, "in +careless dim costume, sat, in a lounging posture, carelessly and +copiously talking. I was struck with the kindly but restless +swift-glancing eyes, which looked as if the spirits were all out coursing +like a pack of merry eager beagles, beating every bush.... A smile, half +of kindly impatience, half of real mirth, often sat on his face." + +Sterling wrote poetry, essays, and stories, largely inspired by +capricious enthusiasms. The son of an editor of _The Times_, he was, for +a short time owner of _The Athenaeum_, and also a curate under Hare. + +Since Carlyle's "extraordinary elegy, apology, eulogium" is itself a +classic, particular interest attaches itself to Sterling's generous +estimate of the man destined to make him immortal. + + + + +J.S. MILL ON TENNYSON + +[From _The Westminster Review_, January, 1831] + +_Poems, chiefly Lyrical._ By ALFRED TENNYSON. Wilson, 12 mo. 1830. + +It would be a pity that poetry should be an exception to the great law +of progression that obtains in human affairs; and it is not. The +machinery of a poem is not less susceptible of improvement than the +machinery of a cotton mill; nor is there any better reason why the one +should retrograde from the days of Milton, than the other from those of +Arkwright.... + +The old epics will probably never be surpassed, any more than the old +coats of mail; and for the same reason; nobody wants the article; its +object is accomplished by other means; they are become mere +curiosities.... + +Poetry, like charity, begins at home. Poetry, like morality, is founded +in the precept, know thyself. Poetry, like happiness, is in the human +heart. Its inspiration is of that which is in man, and it will never +fail because there are changes in costume and grouping. What is the +vitality of the Iliad? Character; nothing else. All the rest is only +read out of antiquarianism or of affectation. Why is Shakespeare the +greatest of poets? Because he was one of the greatest of philosophers. +We reason on the conduct of his characters with as little hesitation as +if they were real living human beings. Extent of observation, accuracy +of thought, and depth of reflection, were the qualities which won the +prize of sovereignty for his imagination, and the effect of these +qualities was practically to anticipate, so far as was needful for his +purposes, the mental philosophy of a future age. Metaphysics must be the +stem of poetry for the plant to thrive; but if the stem flourishes we +are not likely to be at a loss for leaves, flowers, and fruit. Now, +whatever theories may have come into fashion and gone out of fashion, +the real science of mind advances with the progress of society like all +other sciences. The poetry of the last forty years already shows +symptoms of life in exact proportion as it is imbued with this science. +There is least of it in the exotic legends of Southey, and the feudal +romances of Scott. More of it, though in different ways, in Byron and +Campbell. In Shelley there would have been more still, had he not +devoted himself to unsound and mystical theories. Most of all in +Coleridge and Wordsworth. They are all going or gone; but here is a +little book as thoroughly and unitedly metaphysical and poetical in its +spirit as any of them; and sorely shall we be disappointed in its author +if it be not the precursor of a series of productions which shall +beautifully illustrate our speculations, and convincingly prove their +soundness. + +Do not let our readers be alarmed. These poems are anything but heavy; +anything but stiff and pedantic, except in one particular, which shall +be noticed before we conclude; anything but cold and logical. They are +graceful, very graceful; they are animated, touching, and impassioned. +And they are so, precisely because they are philosophical; because they +are not made up of metrical cant and conventional phraseology; because +there is sincerity where the author writes from experience, and accuracy +whether he writes from experience or observation; and he only writes +from experience and observation, because he has felt and thought, and +learned to analyse thought and feeling; because his own mind is rich in +poetical associations, and he has wisely been content with its riches; +and because, in his composition, he has not sought to construct an +elaborate and artificial harmony, but only to pour forth his thoughts in +those expressive and simple melodies whose meaning, truth, and power, +are the soonest recognised, and the quickest felt.... + +Mr. Tennyson seems to obtain entrance into a mind as he would make his +way into a landscape; he climbs the pineal gland as if it were a hill in +the centre of the scene; looks around on all objects with their +varieties of form, their movements, their shades of colour, and their +mutual relations and influences, and forthwith produces as graphic a +delineation in the one case as Wilson or Gainsborough could have done in +the other, to the great enrichment of our gallery of intellectual +scenery.... + +Our author has the secret of the transmigration of the soul. He can cast +his own spirit into any living thing, real or imaginary.... + +"Mariana" is, we are disposed to think, although there are several poems +which rise up reproachfully in our recollection as we say so, +altogether, the most perfect composition in the volume. The whole of +this poem, of eighty-four lines, is generated by the legitimate process +of poetical creation, as that process is conducted in a philosophical +mind, from a half sentence in Shakespeare. There is no mere +samplification; it is all production, and production from that single +germ. That must be a rich intellect, in which thoughts thus take root +and grow.... + +A considerable number of the poems are amatory; they are the expression +not of heathen sensuality, nor of sickly refinement, nor of fantastic +devotion, but of manly love; and they illustrate the philosophy of the +passion while they exhibit the various phases of its existence and +embody its power.... + +Mr. Tennyson sketches females as well as ever did Sir Thomas Lawrence. +His portraits are delicate, his likenesses (we will answer for them), +perfect, and they have life, character, and individuality. They are +nicely assorted also to all the different gradations of emotion and +passion which are expressed in common with the descriptions of them. +There is an appropriate object for every shade of feeling, from the +light touch of a passing admiration, to the triumphant madness of soul +and sense, or the deep and everlasting anguish of survivorship.... + +That these poems will have a rapid and extensive popularity +we do not anticipate. Their very originality will prevent their being +appreciated for a time. But that time will come, we hope, to a not far +distant end. They demonstrate the possession of powers, to the future +direction of which we look with some anxiety. A genuine poet has deep +responsibilities to his country and the world, to the present and future +generations, to earth and heaven. He, of all men, should have distinct +and worthy objects before him, and consecrate himself to their +promotion. It is then he best consults the glory of his art, and his own +lasting fame. Mr. Tennyson has a dangerous quality in that facility of +impersonation on which we have remarked, and by which he enters so +thoroughly into the most strange and wayward idiosyncracies of other +men. It must not degrade him into a poetical harlequin. He has higher +work to do than that of disporting himself among "mystics" and "flowing +philosophers." He knows that "the poet's mind is holy ground"; He knows +that the poet's portion is to be + + Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, + The love of love; + +he has shown, in the lines from which we quote, his own just conception +of the grandeur of the poet's destiny; and we look to him for its +fulfilment. It is not for such men to sink into mere verse-makers for +the amusement of themselves or others. They can influence the +associations of unnumbered minds; they can command the sympathies of +unnumbered hearts; they can disseminate principles; they can give those +principles power over men's imaginations; they can excite in a good +cause the sustained enthusiasm that is sure to conquer; they can blast +the laurels of tyrants, and hallow the memories of the martyrs' +patriotism; they can act with a force, the extent of which it is +difficult to estimate, upon national feelings and character, and +consequently upon national happiness. + + + + +MILL ON MACAULAY'S "LAYS" + +[From _The Westminster Review_. February, 1843] + +It is with the two great masters of modern ballad poetry (Campbell and +Scott) that Mr. Macaulay's performances are really to be compared, and +not with the real ballads or epics of an early age. The "Lays," in point +of form, are not in the least like the genuine productions of a +primitive age or people, and it is no blame to Mr. Macaulay that they +are not. He professes imitation of Homer, but we really see no +resemblance, except in the nature of some of the incidents, and the +animation and vigour of the narrative; and the "Iliad," after all, is +not the original ballads of the Trojan War, but these ballads moulded +together, and wrought into the forms of a more civilised and cultivated +age. It is difficult to conjecture what the form of the old Roman ballad +may have been, and certain, that whatever they were, they could no more +satisfy the aesthetic requirements of modern culture, than an ear +accustomed to the great organs of Freyburg or Harlem could relish +Orpheus's hurdy-gurdy, although the airs which Orpheus played, if they +could be recovered, might perhaps be executed with great effect on the +more perfect instrument. + +The former of Mr. Macaulay's ballad poetry are essentially modern: they +are those of the romantic and chivalrous, not the classical ages, and +even in those they are a reproduction, not of the originals, but of the +imitations of Scott. In this we think he has done well, for Scott's +style is as near to that of the ancient ballad as we conceive to be at +all compatible with real popular effect on the modern mind. The +difference between the two may be seen by the most cursory comparison of +any real old ballad, "Chevy Chase," for instance, with last canto of +Marmion, or with any of these "Lays." Conciseness is the characteristic +of the real ballad, diffuseness of the modern adaptation. The old bard +did everything by single touches; Scott and Mr. Macaulay by repetition +and accumulation of particulars. They produce all their effect by what +they _say_; he by what he _suggested_; by what he stimulated the +imagination to paint for itself. But then the old ballads were not +written for the light reading of tired readers. To do the work in +_their_ way, they required to be brooded over, or had at least the aid +of tune and of impassioned recitation. Stories which are to be told to +children in the age of eagerness and excitability, or sung in banquet +halls to assembled warriors, whose daily ideas and feelings supply a +flood of comment ready to gush forth on the slightest hint of the poet, +cannot fly too swift and straight to the mark. But Mr. Macaulay wrote to +be only read, and by readers for whom it was necessary to do all. + +These poems, therefore, are not the worse for being un-Roman in their +form; and in their substance they are Roman to a degree which deserves +great admiration. Mr. Macaulay's prose writings had not prepared us for +the power which he has here manifested of identifying himself easily and +completely, with states of feeling and modes of life alien to modern +experience. Nobody could have previously doubted that he possessed +fancy, but he has added to it the higher faculty of Imagination. We have +not been able to detect, in the four poems, one idea or feeling which +was not, or might not have been Roman; while the externals of Roman +life, and the feelings characteristic of Rome and of that particular +age, are reproduced with great felicity, and without being made unduly +predominant over the universal features of human nature and human life. + +Independently therefore of their value as poems, these compositions are +a real service rendered to historical literature; and the author has +made this service greater by his prefaces, which will do more than the +work of a hundred dissertations in rendering that true conception of +early Roman history, the irrefragable establishment of which has made +Niebuhr illustrious, familiar to the minds of general readers. This is +no trifling matter, even in relation to present interests, for there is +no estimating the injury which the cause of popular institutions has +suffered, and still suffers from misrepresentations of the early +condition of the Roman and Plebs, and its noble struggles against its +taskmasters. And the study of the manner in which the heroic legends of +early Rome grew up as poetry and gradually became history, has important +bearings on the general laws of historical evidence, and on the many +things which, as philosophy advances, are more and more seen to be +therewith connected. On this subject Mr. Macaulay has not only +presented, in an agreeable form, the results of previous speculation, +but has, though in an entirely unpretending manner, thrown additional +light upon it by his own remarks: as where he shows, by incontestible +instances, that a similar transformation of poetic fiction into history +has taken place on various occasions in modern and sceptical times.... + +We are more disposed to break a lance with our author on the general +merits of Roman literature, which, by a heresy not new with him, he +sacrifices, in what appears to us a most unfair degree, on the score of +its inferior originality to the Grecian. It is true the Romans had no +Aeschylus nor Sophocles, and but a secondhand Homer, though this last +was not only the most finished but even the most original of imitators. +But where was the Greek model of the noble poem of Lucretius? What, +except the mere idea, did the Georgics borrow from Hesiod? and whoever +thinks of comparing the two poems? Where, in Homer or the Euripides, +will be found the original of the tender and pathetic passages in the +Aeneid, especially the exquisitely told story of Dido? There is no +extraordinary merit in the "Carmen Secculare" as we have it, the only +production of Horace which challenges comparison with Pindar; although +we are not among those who deem Pindar one of the brightest stars in the +Greek heaven. But from whom are the greater part of Horace's _Carmina_ +borrowed (they should never be termed Odes), any more than those of +Burns or Beranger, the analogous authors in modern times? and by what +Greek minor poems are they surpassed? We say nothing of Catullus, whom +some competent judges prefer to Horace. Does the lyric, then, or even +the epic poetry of the Romans, deserve no better title than that of "a +hot-house plant, which, in return for assiduous and skilful culture, +yielded only scanty and sickly fruits?" The complete originality and +eminent merit of their satiric poetry, Mr. Macaulay himself +acknowledges. As for prose, we give up Cicero as compared with +Demosthenes, but with no one else; and is Livy less original, or less +admirable, than Herodotus? Tacitus may have imitated, even to +affectation, the condensation of Thucydides, as Milton imitated the +Greek and Hebrew poets; but was the mind of the one as essentially +original as that of the other? Is the Roman less an unapprochable +master, in his peculiar line, that of sentimental history, than the +Grecian in his? and what Greek historian has written anything similar or +comparable to the sublime peroration of the _Life of Agricola_? The +Latin genius lay not in speculation, and the Romans did undoubtedly +borrow all their philosophical principles from the Greeks. Their +originality _there_, as is well said by a remarkable writer in the most +remarkable of his works,[1] consisted in taking these principles _au +serieux_. They _did_ what the others talked about. Zeno, indeed, was not +a Roman; but Poetus Thrasea and Marcus Antoninus were. + +[1] Mr. Maurice, in the essay on the history of moral speculation and + culture, which forms the article "Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy" + in the _Encyclopaedia Metropolitana._ + + + + +JOHN STERLING ON CARLYLE + +[From _London and Westminster Review_ October, 1839] + +All countries at all times require, and England perhaps at the present +not less than others, men having a faith at once distinct and large, the +expression of what is best in their times, and having also the courage +to proclaim it, and take their stand upon it.... + +But in our day such visionaries are less and less possible. The spread +of shallow but clear knowledge, like the cold snow-water issuing from +the glaciers, daily chills and disenchants the hearts of millions once +credulous. Daily, therefore, does it become more probable that millions +will follow in the track of those who are called their betters. Thus +will they find in the world nothing but an epicurean stye, to be +managed, with less dirt and better food, by patent steam-machinery; but +still a place for swine, though the swine may be washed, and their +victuals more equally divided. + +Is it not then strange that in such a world, in such a country, and +among those light-hearted Edinburgh Reviewers, a man should rise and +proclaim a creed; not a new and more ingenious form of words, but a +truth to be embraced with the whole heart, and in which the heart shall +find as he has found, strength for all combats, and consolation, though +stern not festal, under all sorrows? Amid the masses of English printing +sent forth every day, part designed for the most trivial entertainment, +part black with the narrowest and most lifeless sectarian dogmatism, +part, and perhaps the best, exhibiting only facts and theories in +physical science, and part filled with the vulgarest economical projects +and details, which would turn all life into a process of cookery, +culinary, political, or sentimental--how few writings are there that +contain like these a distinct doctrine as to the position and calling of +man, capable of affording nourishment to the heart, and support to the +will, and in harmony at the same time with the social state of the +world, and with the most enlarged and brightened insight which human +wisdom has yet attained to? + +We have been so little prepared to look for such an appearance that it +is difficult for us to realize the conception of a genuine coherent view +of life thus presented to us in a book of our day, which shall be +neither a slight compendium of a few moral truisms, flavoured with a few +immoral refinements and paradoxes, such as constitute the floating +ethics and religion of the time; nor a fierce and gloomy distortion of +some eternal idea torn from its pure sphere of celestial light to be +raved about by the ignorant whom it has half-enlightened, and half made +frantic. But here, in our judgment--that is, in the judgment of one man +who speaks considerately what he fixedly believes--we have the thought +of a wide, and above all, of a deep soul, which has expressed in fitting +words, the fruits of patient reflection, of piercing observation, of +knowledge many-sided and conscientious, of devoutest awe and +faithfullest love.... + +The clearness of the eye to see whatever is permanent and substantial, +and the fervour and strength of heart to love it as the sole good of +life, are, in our view, Mr. Carlyle's pre-eminent characteristics, as +those of every man entitled to the fame of the most generous order of +greatness. Not to paint the good which he sees and loves, or see it +painted, and enjoy the sight; not to understand it, and exult in the +knowledge of it; but to take his position upon it, and for it alone to +breathe, to move, to fight, to mourn, and die--this is the destination +which he has chosen for himself. His avowal of it and exhortation to do +the like is the object of all his writings. And, reasonably considered, +it is no small service to which he is thus bound. For the real, the +germinal truth of nature, is not a dead series of physical phenomena +into the like of which all phenomena are cunningly to be explained away. +This pulseless, rigid iron frame-work, on which the soft soil of human +life is placed, and above which its aerial flowers and foliage rise, +does not pass with him for the essential and innermost principle of all. +It is rather that which, being itself poorest, the poorest of faculties +can apprehend. As physical mechanism, it is that which is most palpable, +and undeniable by any, because it is that which lies nearest the +nothingness whence it has been hardly rescued, and is therefore, most +akin to minds in whose meanness of structure or culture, even human +existence might seem scarce better than nothingness. He knows, few in +our nation so well, that of a world of new machinery, the highest king +and priest would be the neatest clockwork figure. And in such a world, a +being feeling ever towards or somewhat beyond what he can weigh and +measure, and looking up to find above himself that which is too high for +him to understand, would be an anomaly as lawless and incredible as the +wildest fabled monster, the Minotaur or the Chimera, the Titan--the +Sphynx itself--nay a more delirious riddle than any that in dreams it +proposes to us. + +On the other hand, neither is for him the solid, abiding, inexhaustible, +that merely which is received as such by the popular acquiescence. It +must needs be a truth which the spirit, cleared and strengthened by +manifold knowledge and experience, and above all by steadfast endeavour, +can rest in and say: This I mean; not because it is told me, were my +informants all the schools of Rabbins or a hierarchy of angels; but +because I have looked into it, tried it, found it healthful and +sufficient, and thus know that it will stand the stress of life. We may +be right or wrong in our estimate of Mr. Carlyle, but we cannot be +mistaken in supposing that on this kind of anvil have all truly great +men been fashioned, and of metal thus honest and enduring. + +Further it must be said that, true as is his devotion to the truth, so +flaming and cordial is his hatred of the false, in whatever shapes and +names delusions may show themselves. Affectations, quackeries, tricks, +frauds, swindlings, commercial or literary, baseless speculations, loud +ear-catching rhetoric, melodramatic sentiment, moral drawlings and +hyperboles, religious cant, clever political shifts, and conscious or +half-conscious fallacies, all in his view, come under the same hangman's +rubric,--proceed from the same offal heart. However plausible, popular, +and successful, however dignified by golden and purple names, they are +lies against ourselves, against whatever in us is not altogether +reprobate and infernal. His great argument, theme of his song, spirit of +his language, lies in this, that there is a work for man worth doing, +which is to be done with the whole of his heart, not the half or any +other fraction. Therefore, if any reserve be made, any corner kept for +something unconnected with this true work and sincere purpose, the whole +is thereby vitiated and accurst. So far as his arm reaches he is undoing +whatever in nature is holy: ruining whatever is the real creation of the +great worker of all. This truth of purpose is to the soul what life is +to the body of man; that which unites and organises the mass, keeping +all the parts in due proportion and concord, and restraining them from +sudden corruption into worthless dust.... + +Anyone who should take up the writings themselves with no other +preconception than that which we have attempted to give him, would +doubtless be startled at the strangeness of the style which prevails +more or less throughout them. They are not careless, headstrong, +passionate, confused; but they bear a constant look of oddity which +seems at first mere wilful wantonness, and which we only afterwards find +to be the discriminating stamp of original and strong feeling. This-- +this feeling, rooted in profound susceptibility and matured into a +central vivifying power--is, we should say, the author's most +extraordinary distinction. For it is not the ostentatious, impetuous +sentiment, which calls, a sufficient audience being by, on heaven and +earth for sympathy, and would wish for that of Tartarus too, as an +additional acknowledgment of its sublime sincerity. Here, on the +contrary, the feeling is not that which the man is proud of, and would +fain exhibit. He shrinks from the profession, nay from the sense of it; +even painfully labours to trifle, and be at ease, that he may hide from +others, and may for himself forget, the thorny fagot load of his own +emotions. Yet make them known he must; for they are not those of some +private personal grief or passion, from which he may escape into +literature or science, and leave his pains and longings behind him; but +his sensibilities are burning with a slow, immense fire, kindled by the +very theme on which he writes, and compelling him to write. The +greatness and weakness, the infinite hopes and unquenchable reality of +human life; the aching pressure of the body and its wants on the myriads +of millions in whom celestial force sleeps and dreams of hell; the sight +of follies, frauds, cruelties, and lascivious luxury in the midst of a +race then endowed and thus suffering; and the unconquerable will and +thought with which the few work out the highest calling of all men; +these it is, and not self-indulging distresses and theatrical +aspirations of his own, which boil and storm within. Therefore does he +speak with the solid strength and energy, which gives so serious and +rugged an aspect to his sentences; while, perpetually checking himself, +from a wise man's shame at excessive emotion, and from the knowledge +that others will but half sympathise with him, he adds to his most +weighty utterances a turn of irony which relieves the excessive +strain.... Add to this, that Mr. Carlyle's resolution to convey his +meaning at all hazards, makes him seize the most effectual and sudden +words in spite of usage and fashionable taste; and that, therefore, when +he can get a brighter tint, a more expressive form, by means of some +strange--we must call it--Carlylism; English, Scotch, German, Greek, +Latin, French, Technical, Slang, American, or Lunar, or altogether +superlunar, transcendental, and drawn from the eternal nowhere--he uses +it with a courage which might blast an academy of lexicographers into a +Hades, void even of vocables.... + +Here must end our remarks on the admirable writings of a great man. +Could it be hoped, that by what has been said, any readers, and +especially any thinkers, will be led to give them the attention they +require, but also deserve, in this there would be ample repayment, even +were there not at all events a higher reward, for the labour, which is +not a slight one, of forming and assorting distinct opinions on a matter +so singular and so complex. For few bonds that unite human beings are +purer or happier than a common understanding and reverence of what is +truly wise and beautiful. This also is religion. Standing at the +threshold of these works, we may imitate the saying of the old +philosopher to the friends who visited him on their return from the +temples--Let us enter, for here too are gods. + + + + +FRASER'S MAGAZINE + +WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY + +(1811-1863) + +There can be no occasion to enlarge upon this generous tribute of one of +the greatest of our Victorian novelists to another. Considering how +inevitably the critic is driven to compare these two, if not to set one +up against the other, we can experience no feeling but pleasure and +pride in humanity, before the evidence of their mutual appreciation. +_The Cornhill_ "In Memoriam" article of Charles Dickens may well stand +beside this burst of glowing enthusiasm. + +We have retained, by way of illustrating our general subject, a +paragraph from the earlier part of the article, in which Thackeray falls +foul of reviewers in general, for characteristics from which he himself +was singularly free. + + +CHARLES KINGSLEY + +(1819-1875) + +The brilliant versatility of Kingsley's work will prepare us, in some +measure, for his virile impatience, here revealed, with elements in the +romantic revival of poetry among his contemporaries, which were an +offence to his "muscular" morality. "There are certain qualities which +may be called moral in all his work, evincing a literary faculty of the +highest kind. Always instructive without being exactly instructed, +always argumentative without being very guarded in argument, he yet +displays a marvellously contagious enthusiasm for his own creeds, and +surrounds his own ideals with an atmosphere of passionate nobility. We +forgive the partisanship for the sincerity of the partisan." + + * * * * * + +Alexander Smith (1830-1867) was a poet and essayist of some distinction; +though A. H. Clough also criticises his exclusive devotion to the +"writers of his own immediate time"; and calls him "the latest disciple +of the school of Keats." The volume of essays entitled _Dreamthorp_ +"entitles him to a place among the best writers of English prose." + + +ANONYMOUS + +There is a similarity, and a difference, between this summary of +Christmas literature and Thackeray's. The personal criticism lacks his +special geniality, revealing rather a tone which would have perfectly +suited Blackwood or the _Quarterly_. Lytton was a favourite subject of +abuse to his contemporaries. + + + + +THACKERAY ON DICKENS + +[From "A Box of Novels," _Fraser's Magazine_, February, 1844] + +MR. TITMARSH, in Switzerland, to MR. YORKE + +...This introduction, then, will have prepared you for an exceedingly +humane and laudatory notice of the packet of works which you were good +enough to send me, and which, though they doubtless contain a great deal +that the critic would not write (from the extreme delicacy of his taste +and the vast range of his learning) also contain, between ourselves, a +great deal that the critic _could_ not write if he would ever so; and +this is a truth which critics are sometimes apt to forget in their +judgments of works of fiction. As a rustical boy, hired at twopence a +week, may fling stones at the blackbirds and drive them off and possibly +hit one or two, yet if he get into the hedge and begin to sing, he will +make a wretched business of the music, and Labin and Colin and the +dullest swains of the village will laugh egregiously at his folly; so +the critic employed to assault the poet.... But the rest of the simile +is obvious, and will be apprehended at once by a person of your +experience. + +The fact is, that the blackbirds of letters--the harmless, kind singing +creatures who line the hedge-sides and chirp and twitter as nature bade +them (they can no more help singing, these poets, than a flower can help +smelling sweet), have been treated much too ruthlessly by the watch-boys +of the press, who have a love for flinging stones at the little +innocents, and pretend that it is their duty, and that every wren or +sparrow is likely to destroy a whole field of wheat, or to turn out a +monstrous bird of prey. Leave we these vain sports and savage pastimes +of youth, and turn we to the benevolent philosophy of maturer age. + + * * * * * + +And now there is but one book left in the box, the smallest one, but oh! +how much the best of all. It is the work of the master of all the +English humourists now alive; the young man who came and took his place +calmly at the head of the whole tribe, and who has kept it. Think of all +we owe Mr. Dickens since these half-dozen years, the store of happy +hours that he has made us pass, the kindly and pleasant companions whom +he has introduced to us, the harmless laughter, the generous wit, the +frank, manly, human love which he has taught us to feel! Every month of +these years has brought us some kind token from this delightful genius. +His books may have lost in art, perhaps, but could we afford to wait? +Since the days when the _Spectator_ was produced by a man of kindred +mind and temper, what books have appeared that have taken so +affectionate a hold of the English public as these? They have made +millions of rich and poor happy; they might have been locked up for nine +years, doubtless, and pruned here and there, and improved (which I +doubt) but where would have been the reader's benefit all this time, +while the author was elaborating his performance? Would the +communication between the writer and the public have been what it is +now--something continual, confidential, something like personal +affection? I do not know whether these stories are written for future +ages; many sage critics doubt on this head. There are always such +conjurors to tell literary fortunes; and, to my certain knowledge, Boz, +according to them, has been sinking regularly these six years. I doubt +about that mysterious writing for futurity which certain big wigs +prescribe. Snarl has a chance, certainly. His works, which have not been +read in this age, _may_ be read in future; but the receipt for that sort +of writing has never as yet been clearly ascertained. Shakespeare did +not write for futurity, he wrote his plays for the same purpose which +inspires the pen of Alfred Bunn, Esquire, viz., to fill his Theatre +Royal. And yet we read Shakespeare now. Le Sage and Fielding wrote for +their public; and through the great Dr. Johnson put his peevish protest +against the fame of the latter, and voted him "a dull dog, sir,--a low +fellow," yet somehow Harry Fielding has survived in spite of the critic, +and Parson Adams is at this minute as real a character, as much loved by +us as the old doctor himself. What a noble, divine power of genius this +is, which, passing from the poet into his reader's soul, mingles with +it, and there engenders, as it were, real creatures; which is as strong +as history, which creates beings that take their place besides nature's +own. All that we know of Don Quixote or Louis XIV we got to know in the +same way--out of a book. I declare I love Sir Roger de Coverley quite as +much as Izaak Walton, and have just as clear a consciousness of the +looks, voice, habit, and manner of being of the one as of the other. + +And so with regard to this question of futurity; if any benevolent being +of the present age is imbued with a desire to know what his +great-great-grandchild will think of this or that author--of Mr. Dickens +especially, whose claims to fame have raised the question--the only way to +settle it is by the ordinary historic method. Did not your +great-great-grandfather love and delight in Don Quixote and Sancho Panza? +Have they lost their vitality by their age? Don't they move laughter and +awaken affection now as three hundred years ago? And so with Don Pickwick +and Sancho Weller, if their gentle humours and kindly wit, and hearty +benevolent natures, touch us and convince us, as it were, now, why should +they not exist for our children as well as for us, and make the +twenty-fifth century happy, as they have the nineteenth? Let Snarl console +himself, then, as to the future. + +As for the _Christmas Carol_, or any other book of a like nature which +the public takes upon itself to criticise, the individual critic had +quite best hold his peace. One remembers what Buonaparte replied to some +Austrian critics, of much correctness and acumen, who doubted about +acknowledging the French republic. I do not mean that the _Christmas +Carol_ is quite as brilliant or self-evident as the sun at noonday; but +it is so spread over England by this time, that no sceptic, no _Fraser's +Magazine_,--no, not even the godlike and ancient _Quarterly_ itself +(venerable, Saturnian, big-wigged dynasty!) could review it down. +"Unhappy people! deluded race!" One hears the cauliflowered god exclaim, +mournfully shaking the powder out of his ambrosial curls, "What strange +new folly is this? What new deity do you worship? Know ye what ye do? +Know ye that your new idol hath little Latin and less Greek? Know ye +that he has never tasted the birch at Eton, nor trodden the flags of +Carfax, nor paced the academic flats of Trumpington? Know ye that in +mathematics, or logic, this wretched ignoramus is not fit to hold a +candle to a wooden spoon? See ye not how, from describing law humours, +he now, forsooth, will attempt the sublime? Discern ye not his faults of +taste, his deplorable propensity to write blank verse? Come back to your +ancient, venerable, and natural instructors. Leave this new, low and +intoxicating draught at which ye rush, and let us lead you back to the +old wells of classic lore. Come and repose with us there. We are your +gods; we are the ancient oracles, and no mistake. Come listen to us once +more, and we will sing to you the mystic numbers of _as in presenti_ +under the arches of the _Pons asinorum_." But the children of the +present generation hear not; for they reply, "Rush to the Strand, and +purchase five thousand more copies of the _Christmas Carol_." + +In fact, one might as well detail the plot of the _Merry Wives of +Windsor_ or _Robinson Crusoe_, as recapitulate here the adventures of +Scrooge the miser, and his Christmas conversion. I am not sure that the +allegory is a very complete one, and protest, with the classics, against +the use of blank verse in prose; but here all objections stop. Who can +listen to objections regarding such a book as this? It seems to me a +national benefit, and to every man or woman who reads it a personal +kindness. The last two people I heard speak of it were women; neither +knew the other, or the author, and both said, by way of criticism, "God +bless him!" A Scotch philosopher, who nationally does not keep +Christmas, on reading the book, sent out for a turkey, and asked two +friends to dine--this is a fact! Many men were known to sit down after +perusing it, and write off letters to their friends, not about business, +but out of their fulness of heart, and to wish old acquaintances a happy +Christmas. Had the book appeared a fortnight earlier, all the prize +cattle would have been gobbled up in pure love and friendship, Epping +denuded of sausages, and not a turkey left in Norfolk. His royal +highness's fat stock would have fetched unheard of prices, and Alderman +Bannister would have been tired of slaying. But there is a Christmas for +1844 too; the book will be as early then as now, and so let speculators +look out. + +As for TINY TIM, there is a certain passage in the book regarding that +young gentleman, about which a man should hardly venture to speak in +print or in public, any more than he would of any other affections of +his private heart. There is not a reader in England but that little +creature will be a bond of union between the author and him; and he will +say of Charles Dickens, as the woman just now, "GOD BLESS HIM!" What a +feeling is this for a writer to be able to inspire, and what a reward to +reap. + +M. A. T. + + + + +CHARLES KINGSLEY ON ALEXANDER +SMITH AND ALEXANDER POPE + +[From _Fraser's Magazine_, October, 1853] + +_Poems_, by ALEXANDER SMITH. London, Bogue. 1853 + +On reading this little book, and considering all the exaggerated praise +and exaggerated blame which have been lavished on it, we could not help +falling into many thoughts about the history of English poetry for the +last forty years, and about its future destiny. Great poets, even true +poets, are becoming more and more rare among us. There are those even +who say that we have none; an assertion which, as long as Mr. Tennyson +lives, we shall take the liberty of denying. But, were he, which Heaven +forbid, taken from us, whom have we to succeed him? And he, too, is +rather a poet of the sunset than of the dawn--of the autumn than of the +spring. His gorgeousness is that of the solemn and fading year; not of +its youth, full of hope, freshness, gay and unconscious life. Like some +stately hollyhock or dahlia of this month's gardens, he endures while +all other flowers are dying; but all around is winter--a mild one, +perhaps, wherein a few annuals or pretty field weeds still linger on; +but, like all mild winters, especially prolific in fungi, which, too, +are not without their gaudiness, even their beauty, although bred only +from the decay of higher organisms, the plagiarists of the vegetable +world.... + +"What matter, after all?" one says to oneself in despair, re-echoing Mr. +Carlyle. "Man was not sent into this world to write poetry. What we want +is truth--what we want is activity. Of the latter we have enough in all +conscience just now. Let the former need be provided for by honest and +righteous history, and as for poets, let the dead bury their dead." ... +And yet, after all, man will write poetry, in spite of Mr. Carlyle: nay, +beings who are not men, but mere forked radishes, will write it. Man is +a poetry-writing animal. Perhaps he was meant to be one. At all events, +he can no more be kept from it than from eating. It is better, with Mr. +Carlyle's leave, to believe that the existence of poetry indicates some +universal human hunger, whether after "the beautiful," or after "fame," +or after the means of paying butchers' bills, and accepting it as a +necessary evil which must be committed, to see that it be committed as +well, or at least a little ill, as possible. In excuse of which we may +quote Mr. Carlyle against himself, reminding him of a saying in Goethe +once bepraised by him in print,--"we must take care of the beautiful for +the useful will take care of itself." + +And never, certainly, since Pope wrote his _Dunciad_, did the beautiful +require more taking care of, or evince less capacity for taking care of +itself, and never, we must add, was less capacity for taking care of it +evinced by its accredited guardians of the press than at this present +time, if the reception given to Mr. Smith's poem is to be taken as a +fair expression of "the public taste." + +Now, let it be fairly understood, Mr. Alexander Smith is not the object +of our reproaches: but Mr. Smith's models and flatterers. Against him we +have nothing whatever to say; for him, very much indeed.... + +What if he has often copied.... He does not more than all schools have +done, copy their own masters.... We by no means agree in the modern +outcry for "originality." ... + +As for manner, he does sometimes, in imitating his models, out-Herod +Herod. But why not? If Herod be a worthy king, let him be by all means +out-Heroded, if any man can do it. One cannot have too much of a good +thing. If it be right to bedizen verses with metaphors and similes which +have no reference, either in tone or in subject, to the matter in hand, +let there be as many of them as possible. If a saddle is a proper place +for jewels, then let the seat be paved with diamonds and emeralds, and +Runjeet Singh's harness maker be considered as a lofty artist, for whose +barbaric splendour Mr. Peat and his Melton customers are to forswear +pigskin and severe simplicity--not to say utility, and comfort. If +poetic diction be different in species from plain English, then let us +have it as poetical as possible, as unlike English: as ungrammatical, +abrupt, insolved, transposed, as the clumsiness, carelessness, or +caprice of man can make it. If it be correct to express human thought by +writing whole pages of vague and bald abstract metaphyric, and then +trying to explain them by concrete concetti; which bear an entirely +accidental and mystical likeness to the notion which they are to +illustrate, then let the metaphysic be as abstract as possible, the +concetti as fanciful and far-fetched as possible. If Marino and Cowley +be greater poets than Ariosto and Milton, let young poets imitate the +former with might and main, and avoid spoiling their style by any +perusal of the too-intelligible common sense of the latter. If Byron's +moral (which used to be thought execrable) be really his great +excellence, his style (which used to be thought almost perfect) unworthy +of this age of progress, then let us have his moral without his style, +his matter without his form; or--that we may be sure of never falling +for a moment into his besetting sin of terseness, grace, and +completeness--without any form at all. If poetry, in order to be worthy +of the nineteenth century, ought to be as unlike as possible to Homer or +Sophocles, Virgil or Horace, Shakespeare or Spenser, Dante or Tasso, let +those too idolised names be rased henceforth from the calendar; let the +_Ars Poetica_, be consigned to flames by Mr. Calcraft, and Bartinus +Scriblerus's _Art of Sinking_ placed forthwith on the list of the +Committee of the Council for Education, that not a working man in +England may be ignorant that, whatsoever superstitions about art may +have haunted the benighted heathens who built the Parthenon, _nous avons +changes tout cela_. In one word, if it be best and most fitting to write +poetry in the style in which almost everyone has been trying to write it +since Pope and plain sense went out, and Shelley and the seventh heaven +came in; let it be so written: and let him who most perfectly so "sets +the age to music," be presented by the assembled guild of critics, not +with the obsolete and too classical laurel, but with an electro-plated +brass medal, bearing the due inscription, _Ars est nescire artem_. And +when, in twelve months' time, he finds himself forgotten, perhaps +descried, for the sake of the next aspirant, let him reconsider himself, +try whether, after all, the common sense of the many will not prove a +juster and a firmer standing-ground than the sentimentality and bad +taste of the few, and read Alexander Pope. + +In Pope's writings, whatsoever he may not find, he will find the very +excellences after which our young poets strive in vain, produced by +their seeming opposites, which are now despised and discarded; +naturalness produced by studious art; daring sublimity by strict +self-restraint; depth by clear simplicity; pathos by easy grace; and a +morality infinitely more merciful, as well as more righteous, than the +one now in vogue among poetasters, by honest faith in God.... + +Yes, Pope knew, as well as Wordsworth and our "Naturalisti," that no +physical fact was so mean or coarse as to be below the dignity of +poetry--when in its right place. He could draw a pathos and sublimity +out of the dirty inn-chamber, such as Wordsworth never elicited from +tubs and daffodils--because he could use them according to the rules of +art, which are the rules of sound reason and of true taste.... + +The real cause of the modern vagueness is rather to be found in shallow +and unsound culture, and in that inability, or carelessness about seeing +any object clearly, which besets our poets just now; as the cause of +antique clearness lies in the nobler and healthier manhood, in the +severer and more methodic habits of thought, the sounder philosophic and +critical training which enabled Spenser and Milton to draw up a state +paper, or to discourse deep metaphysics, with the same manful possession +of their subject which gives grace and completeness to the _Penseroso_ +or the _Epithalmion_. And if our poets have their doubts, they should +remember, that those to whom doubt and enquiry are real and stern, are +not inclined to sing about them till they can sing poems of triumph over +them. There has no temptation taken our modern poets save that which is +common to man--the temptation of wishing to make the laws of the +universe and of art fit them, as they do not feel inclined to make +themselves fit the laws, or care to find them out.... + +The "poetry of doubt," however pretty, would stand us in little stead if +we were threatened with a second Armada. It will conduce little to the +valour, "virtues," manhood of any Englishman to be informed by any poet, +even in the most melodious verse, illustrated by the most startling and +pan-cosmic metaphors, "See what a highly organised and peculiar +stomach-ache I have had! Does it not prove indisputably that I am not as +other men are?" What gospel there can be in such a message to any honest +man who has either to till the earth, plan a railroad, colonise Australia, +or fight the despots, is hard to discover. Hard indeed to discover how +this most practical, and therefore most epical of ages, is to be "set to +music," when all those who talk about so doing persist obstinately in +poring, with introverted eyes, over the state of their own digestion, or +creed. + +What man wants, what art wants, perhaps what the maker of the both +wants, is a poet who shall begin by confessing that he is as other men +are, and sing about things which concern all men, in language which all +men can understand. This is the only road to that gift of prophecy which +most young poets are nowadays in such a hurry to arrogate to +themselves.... + +There is just now as wide a divorce between poetry and the commonsense +of all time, as there is between poetry and modern knowledge. Our poets +are not merely vague and confused, they are altogether fragmentary-- +_disjecta membra poetarum_; they need some uniting idea. And what idea? + +Our answer will probably be greeted with a laugh. Nevertheless we answer +simply. What our poets want is faith. There is little or no faith +nowadays. And without faith there can be no real art, for art is the +outward expression of firm, coherent belief.... + +In the meanwhile, poets write about poets, and poetry, and guiding the +age, and curbing the world, and waking it, and thrilling it, and making +it start, and weep, and tremble, and self-conceit only knows what else; +and yet the age is not guided, or the world curbed, or thrilled, or +waked, or anything else, by them. Why should it be? Curb and thrill the +world? The world is just now a most practical world; and these men are +utterly unpractical. The age is given up to physical science: these men +disregard and outrage it in every page by their false analogies.... + +Let the poets of the new school consider carefully Wolfe's "Sir John +Moore," Campbell's "Hohenlinden," "Mariners of England," and "Rule +Britannia," Hood's "Song of the Shirt" and "Bridge of Sighs," and then +ask themselves, as men who would be poets, were it not better to have +written any one of these glorious lyrics than all which John Keats has +left behind him; and let them be sure that, howsoever they may answer +the question to themselves, the sound heart of the English people has +already made its choice, and that when that beautiful "Hero and +Leander," in which Hood has outrivalled the conceit-mongers at their own +weapons, by virtue of that very terseness, clearness, and manliness +which they neglect, has been gathered to the limbo of the Crashawes and +Marines, his "Song of the Shirt" and his "Bridge of Sighs," will be +esteemed by great new English nations far beyond the seas, for what they +are--two of the most noble lyric poems ever written by an English pen. +If our poetasters talk with Wordsworth of the dignity and pathos of the +commonest human things, they will find them there in perfection; if they +talk about the cravings of the new time, they will find them there. If +they want the truly sublime and awful, they will find them there also. +But they will find none of their own favourite concetti; hardly even a +metaphor; no taint of this new poetic diction into which we have now +fallen, after all our abuse of the far more manly and sincere "poetic +diction" of the eighteenth century; they will find no loitering by the +way to argue and moralise, and grumble at Providence, and show off the +author's own genius and sensibility; they will find, in short, two real +works of art, earnest, melodious, self-forgetful, knowing clearly what +they want to say, saying it in the shortest, the simplest, the calmest, +the most finished words. Saying it--rather taught to say it. For if that +"divine inspiration of poets," of which the poetasters make such rash +and irreverent boastings, have, indeed, as all ages have held, any +reality corresponding to it, it will rather be bestowed on such works as +these, appeals from an unrighteous man to a righteous God, than on men +whose only claim to celestial help seems to be that mere passionate +sensibility, which our modern Draco once described when speaking of poor +John Keats, as "an infinite hunger after all manner of pleasant things, +crying to the universe, 'oh, that thou wert one great lump of sugar, +that I might suck thee!'" + + + + +ANONYMOUS + +NOVELS FOR CHRISTMAS, 1837 + +[From _Fraser's Magazine_, January, 1838] + + +If[1] against the inroads of the evangelical party the orthodox church +has need of a defender, it hardly would wish, we should think, to be +assisted _tali auxilio_. Mrs. Trollope has not exactly the genius which +is best calculated to support the Church of England, or to argue upon so +grave a subject as that on which she has thought proper to write. + +[1] _The Vicar of Wrexhill_. By Mrs. Trollope. London, 1837. + +With a keen eye, a very sharp tongue, a firm belief, doubtless, in the +high church doctrines, and a decent reputation from the authorship of +half-a-dozen novels, or other light works, Mrs. Trollope determined on +no less an undertaking than to be the champion of oppressed Orthodoxy. +These are feeble arms for one who would engage in such a contest, but +our fair Mrs. Trollope trusted entirely in her own skill, and the weapon +with which she proposed to combat a strong party is no more nor less +than this novel of _The Vicar of Wrexhill_. It is a great pity that the +heroine ever set forth on such a foolish errand; she has only harmed +herself and her cause (as a bad advocate always will), and had much +better have remained home, pudding-making or stocking-mending, than have +meddled with matters which she understands so ill. + +In the first place (we speak it with due respect for the sex), she is +guilty of a fault which is somewhat too common among them; and having +very little, except prejudice, on which to found an opinion, she makes +up for want of argument by a wonderful fluency of abuse. A woman's +religion is chiefly that of the heart, and not of the head. She goes +through, for the most part, no tedious process of reasoning, no dreadful +stages of doubt, no changes of faith: she loves God as she loves her +husband--by a kind of instinctive devotion. Faith is a passion with her, +not a calculation; so that, in the faculty of believing, though they far +exceed the other sex, in the power of convincing they fall far short of +them. + +Oh! we repeat once more, that ladies would make puddings and mend +stockings! that they would not meddle with religion (what is styled +religion, we mean), except to pray to God, to live quietly among their +families, and move lovingly among their neighbours! Mrs. Trollope, for +instance, who sees so keenly the follies of the other party--how much +vanity there is in Bible Meetings--how much sin even at Missionary +Societies--how much cant and hypocrisy there is among those who +desecrate the awful name of God, by mixing it with their mean interests +and petty projects--Mrs. Trollope cannot see that there is any hypocrisy +or bigotry on her part. She, who designates the rival party as false, +and wicked, and vain--tracing all their actions to the basest motives, +declaring their worship of God to be only one general hypocrisy, their +conduct at home one fearful scene of crime, is blind to the faults on +her own side. Always bitter against the Pharisees, she does as the +Pharisees do. It is vanity, very likely, which leads these people to use +God's name so often, and to devote all to perdition who do not coincide +in their peculiar notions. Is Mrs. Trollope less vain than they when she +declares, and merely _declares_, her own to be the real creed, and +stigmatises its rival so fiercely? Is Mrs. Trollope serving God, in +making abusive licencious pictures of those who serve Him in a different +way? Once, as Mrs. Trollope has read--it was a long time ago!--there was +a woman taken in sin; the people brought her before a great Teacher of +Truth, who lived in those days. Shall we not kill her? said they; the +laws command that all adulteresses be killed. We can fancy a Mrs. +Trollope in the crowd, shouting, "oh, the wretch! oh, the abominable +harlot! kill her, by all means--stoning is really too good for her!" But +what did the Divine Teacher say? He was quite as anxious to prevent the +crime as any Mrs. Trollope of them all; but he did not even make an +allusion to it--he did not describe the manner in which the poor +creature was caught--He made no speech to detail the indecencies which +she committed, or to raise the fury of the mob against her--He said "let +the man who is without sin himself throw the first stone!" Whereupon the +Pharisees and Mrs. Trollope slunk away, for they knew they were no +better than she. There was as great a sin in His eyes as that of the +poor erring woman--it was the sin of pride. + +Mrs. Trollope may make a licentious book, of which the heroes and +heroines are all of the evangelical party; and it may be true, that +there are scoundrels belonging to that party as to every other; but her +shameful error has been in fixing upon the evangelical _class_ as an +object of satire, making them necessarily licentious and hypocritical, +and charging everyone of them with the vices which belong to only a very +few of all sects.... + +There are some books, we are told, in the libraries of Roman Catholic +theologians, which, though written for the most devout purposes, are so +ingeniously obscene as to render them quite dangerous for common eyes. +The groom, in the old story, had never learned the art of greasing +horses' teeth, to prevent their eating oats, until the confessor, in +interrogating him as to his sins, asked him the question. The next time +the groom came to confess, he _had_ greased the horses' teeth. It was +the holy father who taught him, by the very fact of warning him against +it. By which we mean, that there are some scenes of which it is better +not to speak at all. + +Our fair moralist, however, has no such squeamishness. She will show up +these odious evangelicals; she will expose them and chastise them, +wherever they be. So have we seen, in that beautiful market in Thames +Street, whither the mariners of England bring the glittering produce of +their nets--so have we seen, we say, in Billingsgate, a nymph attacking +another of her sisterhood. How keenly she detects and proclaims the +number and enormity of her rival's faults! How eloquently she enlarges +upon the gin she has drunk, the children she has confided to the parish, +the watchmen whose noses she has broken, and the bridewells which she +has visited in succession! No one can but admire the lady's eloquence +and talent in conducting the case for the prosecution; no one will, +perhaps, doubt the guilt of the hapless object on whom her wrath is +vented. But, with all her rage for morality, had not that fair accused +have better left the matter alone? That torrent of slang and oath, O +nymph! falls ill from thy lips, which should never open but for a soft +word or a smile; that accurate description of vice, sweet orator [-tress +or-trix]! only shows that thou thyself art but too well acquainted with +scenes which thy pure eyes should never have beheld. And when we come to +the matter in dispute--a simple question of mackerel--O, Mrs. Trollope! +Why, why should you abuse other people's fish, and not content yourself +with selling your _own_.... + +There can be little doubt as to the cleverness of this novel, but, +coming from a women's pen, it is most odiously and disgustingly +indecent. As a party attack, it is an entire failure; and as a +representation of a very large portion of English Christians, a shameful +and wicked slander. + + + + +BULWER'S "ERNEST MALTRAVERS" + +To talk of _Ernest Maltravers_ now, is to rake up a dead man's ashes. +The poor creature came into the world almost still-born, and, though he +has hardly been before the public for a month, is forgotten as much as +_Rienzi_ or the _Disowned_. What a pity that Mr. Bulwer will not learn +wisdom with age, and confine his attention to subjects at once more +grateful to the public and more suitable to his own powers! He excels in +the _genre_ of Paul de Kock, and is always striving after the style of +Plato; he has a keen perception of the ridiculous and, like Liston or +Cruikshank, and other comic artists, persists that his real vein is the +sublime. What a number of sparkling magazine-papers, what an outpouring +of fun and satire, might we have had from Neddy Bulwer, had he not +thought fit to turn moralist, metaphysician, politician, poet, and be +Edward Lytton, Heaven--knows--what Bulwer, Esquire and M.P., a dandy, a +philosopher, a spouter at Radical meetings. We speak feelingly, for we +knew the youth at Trinity Hall, and have a tenderness even for his +tomfooleries. He has thrown away the better part of himself--his great +inclination for the LOW, namely; if he would but leave off scents for +his handkerchief, and oil for his hair; if he would but confine himself +to three clean shirts a week, a couple of coats in a year, a beefsteak +and onions for dinner, his beaker a pewter-pot, his carpet a sanded +floor, how much might be made of him even yet! An occasional pot of +porter too much--a black eye, in a tap-room fight with a carman--a night +in the watch-house--or a surfeit produced by Welsh-rabbit and gin and +beer, might, perhaps, redden his fair face and swell his slim waist; but +the _mental_ improvement which he would acquire under such treatment-- +the intellectual pluck and vigour which he would attain by the stout +diet--the manly sports and conversation in which he would join at the +Coal-Hole, or the Widow's, are far better for him than the feeble +fribble of the Reform Club (not inaptly called "The Hole in the Wall"); +the windy French dinners, which, as we take it, are his usual fare; and, +above all, the unwholesome Radical garbage which form the political food +of himself and his clique in the House of Commons. + +For here is the evil of his present artificial courses--the humbug +required to keep up his position as dandy, politician, and philosopher +(in neither of which latter characters the man is in earnest), must get +into _his heart_ at last; and then his trade is ruined. A little more +politics and Plato, and the natural disappears altogether from Mr. +Bulwer's writings: the individual man becomes as undistinguishable +amidst the farrago of philosophy in which he has chosen to envelope +himself, as a cutlet in the sauces of a French cook. The idiosyncracy of +the mutton perishes under the effects of the adjuncts: even so the +moralising, which may be compared to the mushrooms, of Mr. Bulwer's +style; the poetising, which may be likened unto the flatulent turnips +and carrots; and the politics, which are as the gravy, reeking of filthy +garlic, greasy with rancid oil;--even so, we say, pursuing this savoury +simile to its fullest extent, the natural qualities of young Pelham--the +wholesome and juicy _mutton of the mind_, is shrunk and stewed away. + +Or, to continue in this charming vein of parable, the author of _Pelham_ +may be likened to Beau Tibbs. Tibbs, as we all remember, would pass for +a pink of fashion, and had a wife whom he presented to the world as a +paragon of virtue and _ton_, and who was but the cast-off mistress of a +lord. Mr. Bulwer's philosophy is his Mrs. Tibbs; he thrusts her forward +into the company of her betters, as if her rank and reputation never +admitted of a question. To all his literary undertakings this goddess of +his accompanies him; what a cracked, battered truly she is! with a +person and morals that would suit Vinegar yard, and a chastity that +would be hooted in Drury Lane. + +The morality which Mr. Bulwer has acquired in his researches, political +and metaphysical, is of the most extraordinary nature. For one who is +always preaching of Truth of Beauty, the dulness of his moral sense is +perfectly ludicrous. He cannot see that the hero into whose mouth he +places his favourite metaphysical gabble--his dissertations about the +stars, the passions, the Greek plays, and what not--his eternal whine +about what he calls the good and the beautiful--is a fellow as mean and +paltry as can be well imagined; a man of rant, and not of action; +foolishly infirm of purpose, and strong only in desire; whose beautiful +is a tawdry strumpet, and whose good would be crime in the eyes of an +honest man. So much for the portrait of Ernest Maltravers: as for the +artist, we cannot conceive a man to have failed more completely. He +wishes to paint an amiable man, and he succeeds in drawing a scoundrel: +he says he will give us the likeness of a genius, and it is only the +picture of a _humbug_. + +Ernest Maltravers is an eccentric and enthusiastic young man, to whom we +are introduced upon his return from a German university. Fond of wild +adventure and solitary rambles, we find him upon a heath, wandering +alone, tired, and benighted. The two first chapters of the book are in +Mr. Bulwer's very best manner; the description of the lone hut to which +the lad comes--the ruffian who inhabits it--the designs which he has +upon the life of his new guest, and the manner in which his daughter +defeats them, are told with admirable liveliness and effect. The young +man escapes, and with him the girl who had prevented his murder. Both +are young, interesting, and tender hearted; she loves but him, and would +die of starvation without him. Ernest Maltravers cannot resist the claim +of so unprotected a creature; he hires a cottage for her, and a +writing-master. He is a young man of genius, and generous dispositions; he +is a Christian, and instructs the ignorant Alice in the awful truth of his +religion; moreover he is deep in poetry, philosophy, and the German +metaphysics. How should such a Christian instruct an innocent and +beautiful child, his pupil? What should such a philosopher do? Why +seduce her, to be sure! After a deal of namby-pamby Platonism, the girl, +as Mr. Bulwer says, "goes to the deuce." The expression is as charming +as the morality, and appears amidst a quantity of the very finest +writing about the good and the beautiful, youth, love, passion, nature +and so forth. It is curious how rapidly one turns from good to bad in +this book. How clever the descriptions are! how neatly some of the minor +events and personalities are hit off! and yet, how astonishingly vile +and contemptible the chief part of it is!--that part, we mean, which +contains the adventures of the hero, and, of course, the choice +reflections of the author. + +The declamations about virtue are endless, as soon as Maltravers appears +upon the scene; and yet we find him committing the agreeable little +_faux pas_ of which we have just spoken. In one place, we have him +making violent love to another man's wife; in another place, raging for +blood like a tiger and swearing for revenge.... + +It is curious and painful to read Mr. Bulwer's [philosophy], and to mark +the easy vanity with which virtue is assumed here, self-knowledge +arrogated, and a number of windy sentences, which really possess no +meaning, are gravely delivered with all the emphasis of truth and the +air of profound conviction. + +"I have learned," cries our precious philosopher, "to lean on my own +soul, and not look eleswhere [Transcriber's note: sic] for the reeds +that a wind can break!" And what has he learned by leaning on his own +soul? Is it to be happier than others? or to be better? Not he!--he is +as wretched and wicked a dog as any unhung. He "leans on his own soul," +and makes love to the Countess and seduces Alice Darvell. A ploughboy is +a better philosopher and moralist than this mouthing Maltravers, with +his boasted love of mankind (which reduces itself to a very coarse love +of _woman_kind), and his scorn of "the false gods and miserable creeds" +of the world, and his soul "lifting its crest to heaven!" A Catholic +whipping himself before a stone-image, a Brahmin dangling on a hook, or +standing on one leg for a year, has a higher notion of God than this +ranting fool, who is always prating about his own perfections and his +divine nature; the one is humble, at least, though blind; the other is +proud of his very imperfections and glories in his folly. What does this +creature know of virtue, who finds it _by leaning on his own soul_, +forsooth? What does he know of God, who, in looking for him, can see but +himself, steeped in sin, bloated and swollen with monstrous pride, and +strutting before the world and the creator as a maker of systems, a +layer down of morals, and a preacher of beauty and truth?... + +[Some of the] characters are excellently drawn; how much better than +"_their lips spake of sentiment, and their eyes applied it_!" How soon +these philosophers begin ogling! how charmingly their unceasing gabble +about beauty and virtue is exemplified in their actions! Mr. Bulwer's +philosophy is like a French palace--it is tawdry, shady, splendid; but, +_gare aux nez sensibles_! one is always reminded of the sewer. "Their +lips spoke sentiment, and their eyes applied it." O you naughty, naughty +Mr. Bulwer! + + + + +WILLIAM JOHN FOX + +The dedicatory inscription in the volume of _The Monthly Repository_, in +which the following review appears, will indicate--in a few words--the +motives inspiring the editor, W. J. Fox, in his journalistic career:-- +"To the Working People of Great Britain and Ireland; who, whether they +produce the means of physical support and enjoyment, or aid the progress +of moral, political, and social reform and improvement, are +fellow-labourers for the well-being of the entire community." + + * * * * * + +_Pauline_ was published, when Browning was 21, at his aunt's expense. It +secured only _one_ favourable notice, here printed; while the author and +his sister deliberately destroyed the unsold copies. + + + + +W. J. FOX ON BROWNING + +[From _The Monthly Repository_, 1833] + +_Pauline; A Fragment of a Confession_. London, Saunders & Otley. 1833 + +The most deeply interesting adventures, the wildest vicissitudes, the +most daring explorations, the mightiest magic, the fiercest conflicts, +the brightest triumphs, and the most affecting catastrophes, are those +of the spiritual world.... + +The knowledge of mind is the first of sciences; the records of its +formation and workings are the most important of histories; and it is +eminently a subject for poetical exhibition. The annals of a poet's mind +are poetry. Nor has there ever been a genuine bard, who was not himself +more poetical than any of his productions. They are emanations of his +essence. He himself is, or has been, all that he truly and touchingly, +_i.e._, poetically, describes. Wordsworth, indeed, never carried a +pedlar's pack, nor did Byron ever command a pirate ship, or Coleridge +shoot an albatross; but there were times and moods in which their +thoughts intently realised, and identified themselves with the +reflective wanderer, the impetuous Corsair, and the ancient mariner. +They felt _their_ feelings, thought _their_ thoughts, burned with +_their_ passions, dreamed _their_ dreams, and lived their lives, or died +their deaths. In relation to his creations, the poet is the omnific +spirit in whom they have their being. All their vitality must exist in +his life. He only, in them, displays to us fragments of himself. The +poem, in which a great poet should reveal the whole of himself to +mankind would be a study, a delight, and a power, for which there is yet +no parallel; and around which the noblest creations of the noblest +writers would range themselves as subsidiary luminaries. + +These thoughts have been suggested by the work before us, which, though +evidently a hasty and imperfect sketch, has truth and life in it, which +gave us the thrill, and laid hold of us with the power, the sensation of +which has never yet failed us as a test of genius. Whoever the anonymous +author may be, he is a poet. A pretender to science cannot always be +safely judged of by a brief publication, for the knowledge of some facts +does not imply the knowledge of other facts; but the claimant of poetic +honours may generally be appreciated by a few pages, often by a few +lines, for if they be poetry, he is a poet. We cannot judge of the house +by the brick, but we can judge of the statue of Hercules by its foot. We +felt certain of Tennyson, before we saw the book, by a few verses which +had straggled into a newspaper; we are not less certain of the author of +Pauline. + +Pauline is the recipient of the confessions: the hero is as anonymous as +the author, and this is no matter, for _poet_ is the title both of the +one and the other. The confessions have nothing in them which needs +names: the external world is only reflected in them in its faintest +shades; its influences are only described after they have penetrated +into the intellect. We have never read anything more purely +confessional. The whole composition is of the spirit, spiritual. The +scenery is in the chambers of thought: the agencies are powers and +passions; the events are transitions from one state of spiritual +existence to another. And yet the composition is not dreamy; there is on +it a deep stamp of reality. Still less is it characterised by coldness. +It has visions that we love to look upon, and tones that touch the +inmost heart till it responds. + +The poet's confessions are introduced with an analysis of his spiritual +constitution, in which he is described as having an intense +consciousness of individuality, combined with a sense of power, a +self-supremacy, and a "principle of restlessness which would be all, have, +see, know, taste, feel all"; of this essential self, imagination is +described as the characteristic quality; an imagination, steady and +unfailing in its power. A "yearning after God," or supreme and universal +good, unconsciously cherished through the earlier stages of the history, +keeps this mind from utterly dissipating itself; and, which seems to us +the only point in which the coherence fails, there is added an unaptness +for love, a mere perception of the beautiful, the perception being felt +more precious than its object.... + +And now when he has run the whole toilsome yet giddy round and arrived +at the goal, there arises, even though that goal be religion, or because +it is religion, a yearning after human sympathies and affections, which +would not have assorted with any state or moment of the previous +experience; he could not have loved before; at one time it would have +been only a fancy, a cold, and yet perhaps extravagant imagining; at +another, a low and selfish passion. Some souls are purified _by_ love, +others are purified _for_ love. Othello needed not Desdemona to listen +to his tale of disastrous chances; they were only external perils, rapid +by elevated station; but the mind that has gone through more than his +vicissitudes, been in deeper dangers, and deadlier struggles, even when +it rests at last in a far higher repose and dignity, yearns for some one +who will "seriously incline" to listen to the "strange eventful +history," one who will sympathise and soothe, who will receive the +confession, and give the absolution of heaven its best earthly +ratification, that of a pure and loving heart. The poem is addressed to +Pauline; with her it begins, and ends; and her presence is felt +throughout, as that of a second conscience, wounded by evil, but never +stern, and incorporate in a form of beauty, which blends and softens the +strong contrasts of different portions of the poem, so that all might be +murmured by the breath of affection. + +The author cannot expect such a poem as this to be popular, to make a +"hit," to produce a "sensation." The public are but slow in recognising +the claims of Tennyson whom in some respects he resembles; and the +common eye scarcely yet discerns among the laurel-crowned, the form of +Shelley, who seems (how justly, we stop not now to discuss), to have +been the god of his early idolatory. Whatever inspiration may have been +upon him from that deity, the mysticism of the original oracles has been +happily avoided. And whatever resemblance he may bear to Tennyson (a +fellow worshipper probably at the same shrine) he owes nothing of the +perhaps inferior melody of his verse to an employment of archaisms which +it is difficult to defend from the charge of affectation. But he has not +given himself the chance for popularity which Tennyson did, and which it +is evident that he easily might have done. His poem stands alone, with +none of those light but taking accompaniments, songs that sing +themselves, sketches that everybody knows, light little lyrics, floating +about like humming birds, around the trunk and foliage of the poem +itself; and which would attract so many eyes, and delight so many ears, +that will be slow to perceive the higher beauty of that composition, and +to whom a sycamore is no sycamore, unless it be "musical with bees." + + + + +THOMAS DE QUINCEY + +(1785-1859) + +De Quincey has been said to have "taken his place in our literature as +the author of about 150 magazine articles," and, though chiefly +remembered by his _Confessions of an Opium Eater_ and by his wonderful +experiments in "impassioned prose," there can be no question that his +critical work occupied much of his attention, and was nearly always +original. In many respects his point of view was perverse, and towards +his contemporaries occasionally spiteful; while his tendency to dwell +upon disputed points was apt to obscure the general impression. + + * * * * * + +It is interesting to compare his unmeasured condemnation of Pope with +Kingsley's eulogy: since both were, more or less, directly inspired by +the contrast of eighteenth century correctness to the poetical gospel of +the Lake Poets. From the two articles we can obtain a fair and emphatic +statement of "both sides of the case." + + + + +DE QUINCEY ON POPE + +[From _Tait's Edinburgh Magazine_, May, 1851] + +Whom shall we pronounce a fit writer to be laid before an auditory of +working-men, as a model of what is just in composition--fit either for +conciliating their regard to literature at first or afterwards for +sustaining it? The qualifications for such a writer are apparently these +two; first, that he should deal chiefly with the elder and elementary +affections of man, and under those relations which concern man's +grandest capacities; secondly, that he should treat his subject with +solemnity, and not with sneer--with earnestness, as one under a +prophet's burden of impassioned truth, and not with the levity of a girl +hunting a chance-started caprice. I admire Pope in the very highest +degree; but I admire him as a pyrotechnic artist for producing brilliant +and evanescent effects out of elements that have hardly a moment's life +within them. There is a flash and a startling explosion, then there is a +dazzling coruscation, all purple and gold; the eye aches under the +suddenness of a display that, springing like a burning arrow out of +darkness, rushes back into the darkness with arrowy speed, and in a +moment is all over. Like festal shows, or the hurrying music of such +shows-- + + It _was_, and it is not. + +Untruly, therefore, was it ever fancied of Pope, that he +belonged by his classification to the family of the Drydens. Dryden had +within him a principle of continuity which was not satisfied without +lingering upon his own thoughts, brooding over them, and oftentimes +pursuing them through their unlinkings with the _sequaciousness_ (pardon +a Coleridgian word) that belongs to some process of creative nature, +such as the unfolding of a flower. But Pope was all jets and tongues of +flame; all showers of scintillation and sparkle. Dryden followed, +genially, an impulse of his healthy nature. Pope obeyed, spasmodically, +an overmastering febrile paroxysm. Even in these constitutional +differences between the two are written and are legible the +corresponding necessities of "utter falsehood in Pope, and of loyalty to +truth in Dryden." Strange it is to recall this one striking fact, that +if once in his life Dryden might reasonably have been suspected of +falsehood, it was in the capital matter of religion. He _ratted_ from +his Protestant faith; and according to the literal origin of that figure +he _ratted_; for he abjured it as rats abjure a ship in which their +instinct of divination has deciphered a destiny of ruin, and at the very +moment when Popery wore the promise of a triumph that might, at any +rate, have lasted his time. Dryden was a papist by apostacy; and +perhaps, not to speak uncharitably, upon some bias from self-interest. +Pope, on the other hand, was a Papist by birth, and by a tie of honour; +and he resisted all temptations to desert his afflicted faith, which +temptations lay in bribes of great magnitude prospectively, and in +persecutions for the present that were painfully humiliating. How base a +time-server does Dryden appear on the one side! on the other, how much +of a martyr should we be disposed to pronounce Pope! And yet, for all +that, such is the overruling force of a nature originally sincere, the +apostate Dryden wore upon his brow the grace of sincerity, whilst the +pseudo-martyr Pope, in the midst of actual fidelity to his church, was +at his heart a traitor--in the very oath of his allegiance to his +spiritual mistress had a lie upon his lips, scoffed at her while +kneeling in homage to her pretensions, and secretly forswore her +doctrines while suffering insults in her service. + +The differences as to truth and falsehood lay exactly where by all the +external symptoms they ought _not_ to have lain. But the reason for this +anomaly was that to Dryden sincerity had been a perpetual necessity of +his intellectual nature, whilst Pope, distracted by his own activities +of mind, living in an irreligious generation, and beset by infidel +friends, had early lost his anchorage of traditional belief; and yet, +upon honourable scruple of fidelity to the suffering Church of his +fathers, he sought often to dissemble the fact of his own scepticism, +which often he thirsted ostentatiously to parade. Through a motive of +truthfulness he became false. And in this particular instance he would, +at any rate, have become false, whatever had been the native +constitution of his mind. It was a mere impossibility to reconcile any +real allegiance to his church with his known irreverence to religion. +But upon far more subjects than this Pope was habitually false to the +quality of his thoughts, always insincere, never by any accident in +earnest, and consequently many times caught in ruinous self-contradiction. +Is that the sort of writer to furnish an advantageous study for the +precious leisure, precious as rubies, of the toil-worn artisan. + +The root and pledge of this falseness in Pope lay in a disease of his +mind, which he (like the Roman poet Horace) mistook for a feature of +praeter-natural strength; and this disease was the incapacity of +self-determination towards any paramount or abiding _principles_. Horace, +in a well-known passage, had congratulated himself upon this disease as +upon a trophy of philosophical emancipation: + + Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri, + Quo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes: + +which words Pope translates, and applies to himself in his +English adaptation of this epistle-- + + But ask not to what doctors I apply-- + Sworn to no master, of no sect am I. + As drives the storm, at any door I knock; + And house with Montaigne now, and now with Locke. + +That is, neither one poet nor the other having, as regarded philosophy, +any internal principle of gravitation or determining impulse to draw him +in one direction rather than another, was left to the random control of +momentary taste, accident, or caprice; and this indetermination of pure, +unballasted levity both Pope and Horace mistook for a special privilege +of philosophic strength. Others, it seems, were chained and coerced by +certain fixed aspects of truth, and their efforts were over-ruled +accordingly in one uniform line of direction. But _they_, the two +brilliant poets, fluttered on butterfly wings to the right and the left, +obeying no guidance but that of some instant and fugitive sensibility to +some momentary phasis of beauty. In this dream of drunken eclecticism, +and in the original possibility of such an eclecticism, lay the ground +of that enormous falsehood which Pope practised from youth to age. An +eclectic philosopher already, in the very title which he assumes, +proclaims his self-complacency in the large liberty of error purchased +by the renunciation of all controlling principles. Having served the +towing-line which connected him with any external force of guiding and +compulsory truth, he is free to go astray in any one of ten thousand +false radiations from the true centre of rest. By his own choice he is +wandering in a forest all but pathless, + + --ubi passim + Pallantes error recto de tramite pellit; + +and a forest not of sixty days' journey, like that old Hercynian +forest of Caesar's time, but a forest which sixty generations +have not availed to traverse or familiarise in any one direction.... + +_Here_ would be the most advantageous and _remunerative_ station to take +for one who should undertake a formal exposure of Pope's +hollow-heartedness; that is, it would most commensurately reward the pains +and difficulties of such an investigation. But it would be too long a task +for this situation, and it would be too polemic. It would move through a +jungle of controversies.... Instead of this I prefer, as more amusing, +as less elaborate, and as briefer, to expose a few of Pope's _personal_ +falsehoods, and falsehoods as to the notorieties of _fact_. Truth +speculative often-times, drives its roots into depth, so dark that the +falsifications to which it is liable, though detected, cannot always be +exposed to the light of day--the result is known, but not therefore +seen. Truth personal, on the other hand, may easily be made to confront +its falsifier, not with reputation only, but with the visible _shame_ of +refutation. Such shame would settle upon _every_ page of Pope's satires +and moral epistles, oftentimes upon every couplet, if any censor, armed +with an adequate knowledge of the facts, were to prosecute the inquest. +And the general impression from such an inquest would be, that Pope +never delineated a character, nor uttered a sentiment, nor breathed an +aspiration, which he would not willingly have recast, have retracted, +have abjured or trampled underfoot with the curses assigned to heresy, +if by such an act he could have added a hue of brilliancy to his +colouring or a new depth to his shadows. There is nothing he would not +have sacrificed, not the most solemn of his opinions, nor the most +pathetic memorial from his personal experience, in return for a +sufficient consideration, which consideration meant always with _him_ +poetic effect. It is not, as too commonly is believed, that he was +reckless of other people's feelings; so far from _that_, he had a morbid +_facility_ in his kindness; and in cases where he had no reason to +suspect any lurking hostility, he showed even a paralytic benignity. +But, simply and constitutionally, he was incapable of a sincere thought +or a sincere emotion. Nothing that ever he uttered, were it even a +prayer to God, but he had a fancy for reading it backwards. And he was +evermore false, not as loving or preferring falsehood, but as one who +could not in his heart perceive much real difference between what people +affected to call falsehood, and what they affected to call truth. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Famous Reviews, by Editor: R. Brimley Johnson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMOUS REVIEWS *** + +***** This file should be named 11251.txt or 11251.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/2/5/11251/ + +Produced by Carol David and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/etext06 + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: + https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL + + diff --git a/old/11251.zip b/old/11251.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..48fd20b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11251.zip |