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Title: Famous Reviews

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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_ nove